For Sale: 5 1/2 minute footnotes
Written: Jan 12 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: innovative, experimental, decidedly creepy
Cons: this book is a victim of its own creativity.
The Bottom Line: Don't buy this sight unseen.
|
|
|
| robinmichele's Full Review: Mark Z. Danielewski and Zampano - House of Leaves |
Virginian House. 1/4 inch bigger on the inside than the outside. Transformative power. Moving staircases. House has regenerative power. (Note to self-- Great selling point) Pit of despair? (Ahh- we'll wow them with the spacious storage room!)
Undoubtedly, Mark Danielewski has come forth with an incredibly ingenious novel. Browse through it. Go on, just flip through the pages and you will notice that something is seriously amiss here. Could it be the neverending footnotes? Could it be the frame story within the footnotes? Could it be the print in every direction? How about that the word house is written in blue. Every time. Even casa. The non-english quotations are printed in their original tongue, only translated in, you guessed it, the neverending footnotes.
Don't get me started with the Appendices.
Or the index of (almost?) every word in the text.
Ummmm... Plot?
Navidson is a photographer who moves into the house with his family- Karen and her two children. As an experiment of sorts, he sets up motion activated cameras throughout the property, to document their settling in. What follows is their story of terror. Death, Darkness, Deterioration. All the workings of a proper horror novel.
This story, within the novel, has become a story of cult-like intrigue. "The Navidson Record" as it is called, reached far and wide with critical interest and examination, relayed here with footnotes.
"The Navidson Record" was compiled as a study of a man named Zampano, who was found dead in his apartment with the manuscript.
This manuscript was embellished with yet more footnotes by a young "Johnny Truant", who relays part of his story through this story in, yes, footnotes.
But that isn't all. The story takes hold of Johnny, possesses him in a way. Drives him to the edge of madness.
At least that's what I got from it.
Blah Blah Blah... Editorial
This isn't your everyday novel. You can't read it all in a cozy weekend, and you probably won't forget it long after you have closed the covers.
It's creepy.
Creepy in a studious, exacting, methodical way.
I was more than a little put off with the experimental aspects of this book. While reading, I discovered that I do not like to rotate the book. I do not like to read backwards, upside down, and I certainly don't like to decode text by taking the first letter of each word to make a new message. I like to disappear into the stories of books. I like to forget that I am reading and engross myself into the realm of the story. This book kept jolting me into myself, making me aware that I needed to flip my copy around so that I could see what it read.
Sigh.
That said, I can't deny that I was technically impressed with a lot of the motion in the book. It would take a craftier mind than mine to thrash all of that out. The technical aspects worked into metaphor, almost magically so.
This is an interesting book, to be sure. If I were you, I would reserve a library copy and then head to purchase it if you feel you need to.
You'll know if you should.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
robinmichele
|
|
Location: Medina, OH
Reviews written: 116
Trusted by: 80 members
About Me:
Beauty is as beauty does. Didn't you know?
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.