House of Leaves

House of Leaves
Author: Mark Z. Danielewski

It’s a story of a tattoo-artist that finds a manuscript from a blind old man, who just died, talking about a non-existent documentary about a house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

It is a freaky story, with crossed-out passages and footnotes that can go for pages. The footnotes are also sometimes upside, backwards and sideways. Then there are the pages with only one paragraph, one sentence or one word on them. It’s quite an adventure to read. The author is the brother of the singer Poe and the remix of her song Hey Pretty has her brother reciting from one of the tattoo-artist’s footnotes in the book.

I enjoyed this book. They keep talking about a film that documents the crazy house that is bigger on the inside than the outside and talking about real life people’s opinions on it. There are times that you forget it is fiction and wonder if you can go find the film or the article that is mentioned in the footnotes. Then you remember this is all just craziness that is in the book.

I liked both parts of the book: (1) the description of the documentary of the house and all the crazy parts involved there and (2) the tattoo artist guy telling his story in the footnotes about what is going on in his life and how reading the manuscript is affecting him.

I recommend it. It’s quite insane! Everyone should read a book that makes you turn it upside and sideways. It’s the thing to do.

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