House of Leaves, published in 2000, is a critically acclaimed, postmodern novel and bestseller written by Mark Z. Danielewski.
The novel is unique and famous for its unconventional style and narrative structure. It is a hypertext and belongs to the category of ergodic literature.
In the novel there are several concurrent narratives and multiple narrators. When the protagonist Johnny Truant discovers a manuscript by the deceased man Zampanò about his research of the documentary film The Navidson Records, he becomes obsessed with finding out more and more details about it. The main part of the novel is composed of this fragmented manuscript, being exposed in different kind of formats and styles, including Johnny´s footnotes, in which his story is also further developed, and the content of the film: the story of the Navidson family and a house which turns into a labyrinth.
In fact, the text itself turns out to be a labyrinth with its different styles and formats: changing fonts, colours, pictures, graphics, handwriting, footnotes etc. The pages are arranged differently, sometimes consisting of only a few words, sometimes including crossed out words or words in reversed order or single letters etc. Furthermore, the text is full of allusions and references which make it even harder for the reader to follow the plot line.
On the one hand the novel can be seen as a horror story, on the other hand many consider it as a love story. However, the novel is much too complex to fit any of those genres. It is a novel about a mystery which will never be solved, the text being a labyrinth itself where the reader gets similarly lost as the characters of the novel.
The novel is unique and famous for its unconventional style and narrative structure. It is a hypertext and belongs to the category of ergodic literature.
In the novel there are several concurrent narratives and multiple narrators. When the protagonist Johnny Truant discovers a manuscript by the deceased man Zampanò about his research of the documentary film The Navidson Records, he becomes obsessed with finding out more and more details about it. The main part of the novel is composed of this fragmented manuscript, being exposed in different kind of formats and styles, including Johnny´s footnotes, in which his story is also further developed, and the content of the film: the story of the Navidson family and a house which turns into a labyrinth.
In fact, the text itself turns out to be a labyrinth with its different styles and formats: changing fonts, colours, pictures, graphics, handwriting, footnotes etc. The pages are arranged differently, sometimes consisting of only a few words, sometimes including crossed out words or words in reversed order or single letters etc. Furthermore, the text is full of allusions and references which make it even harder for the reader to follow the plot line.
On the one hand the novel can be seen as a horror story, on the other hand many consider it as a love story. However, the novel is much too complex to fit any of those genres. It is a novel about a mystery which will never be solved, the text being a labyrinth itself where the reader gets similarly lost as the characters of the novel.
M. Barbod
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