House of Leaves: the holy grail of haunted houses, a cult classic of ergodic literature. If there is any book that deserves the title of ‘an experience’, it’s this one.
I was initially intimidated to go into House of Leaves, because it seemed there was entirely too much information out there, and what did I have to know before I started it? How exactly was I supposed to read it? Were there rules? And no, there isn't. Just start reading. Everyone reads it in a slightly different way, creating a singular experience, so there is no ‘wrong’ way to read it.
A short introduction to House of Leaves
In simple terms, House of Leaves is about a man (Zampanò) who dies and leaves behind an academic review. This review details a documentary about a family that moves into a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
A troubled young man (Johnny) finds this review and becomes obsessed with reading it and putting it together. We as readers are told by Johnny that this documentary, entitled The Navidson Record, does not exist (which may or may not be true depending on which theory you believe, but I digress). It becomes clear that both Zampanò and Johnny are consumed by this documentary, more specifically the house on Ash Tree Lane.
In the documentary, the Navidson family tentatively explore the hallway that appeared one day in their home out of nowhere. This hallway leads to a labyrinth of more hallways and a spiral staircase that seemingly never ends. Madness ensues, as you may have guessed.
Some fun facts:
House of Leaves started as a collection of papers that circulated in the 90’s within Danielewski’s circle of friends and family before it was picked up for publishing in 2000.
It took Mark Z. Danielewski ten years to write it (ten hours a day).
Danielewski’s sister, a musician who goes by the name of Poe, released a ‘companion’ album to the book, entitled Haunted. Listen here.
My review
I couldn’t concisely explain what it’s like to read this book, but does anyone remember when I went on about specific elements in books that evoke a visceral reaction of either straight terror or inexplicable eeriness? House of Leaves is full of them.
It feels endless before you even reach the end; the story is on a suffocating continuum and it doesn’t stop until you yourself step away. It’s extremely effective in its ability to disorient you (see the layout).
There is no single theory that I can say yes, this makes sense and this is what I think, because there are truly too many of them. I don’t think categorizing everything about the book would do any good because one) it’s too vast and far reaching to be shoved into a single theory, and two) it’s much better (for lack of a better word) when it’s just left to be whatever you think when you read it (there’s even a theory that states this gives meaning to the story, read more here, but I digress again).
That’s not to say that the theories and perspectives are wrong or not fascinating because they are insanely compelling and I had the time of my life combing through them, but it is to say that this essay / review isn’t me trying to convince you of anything (short of convincing you to read the book). I am just laying some thoughts out.
The labyrinth
The theme of labyrinths is pervasive in House of Leaves, and it ties into the Greek myth of The Minotaur and Ariadne. Aside from the obvious parallel of the book being like a labyrinth, certain conclusions can be drawn from the focus on labyrinths in House of Leaves; namely about Johnny’s repression and the ‘beast’ that lurks within. Zampanò states that the labyrinth represents King Minos’s repressed guilt and shame, which may apply to Johnny’s and his troubled past.
The labyrinth in both the myth and House of Leaves can be seen as representing father and son relationships (Minos and the Minotaur; Johnny and his father and step-father). There are many interpretations of the labyrinth in the book, but what stood out to me was the Minotaur as a monster reflecting Johnny’s own monster; whether that is guilt, grief, or another trauma that he buries, by entering Zampanò’s review and thus indirectly entering the Navidson House, he is forced to reckon with this monster in the labyrinth of his psyche.
Monsters in House of Leaves
In the same vein as the section above, I want to talk about the monsters in House of Leaves: Johnny’s monster (the Minotaur or repressed trauma) and Will Navidson’s monster (The Navidson Record and the house). It’s interesting to me that throughout the review by Zampanò, Will Navidson is referred to mainly as Navidson, and not Will. He is bound to The Navidson Record and the house, and thus bound to his monster.
Many of the seven theses in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s essay Monster Theory (Seven Theses) can be applied to both Johnny and Will Navidson’s respective monsters. Both refuse categorization (Johnny’s confusion and repression; the constant shifting of the house and thus the instability of The Navidson Record) and both represent impossibility (Johnny’s questioning of reality, Navidson’s experience of the spatial irregularities of the house).
As Cohen states:
“Monsters are our children. They can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse, hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses of our mind, but they always return.”1
Johnny’s monster emerges (or returns) through House of Leaves as a whole; he is unable to repress it, to confine it to a labyrinth forever. Navidson’s monster returns through this consistent pull back to the house, both physically and mentally, not to mention that The Navidson Record quite literally bears his name; he can never be separated from it, and in that way it will always return.
The Navidson house and Hill House
Both the Navidson house in House of Leaves and Hill House in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House are inhabited by something. As Jackson asserts in the first paragraph of her novel, Hill House (and the Navidson house) are not sane.
Many interpretations have been drawn from the first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House but for the purposes of this comparison, I am going with this one: Hill House exists in absolute reality (i.e constant reality) and thus is not sane. We can assume that the inhabitants of Hill House are not sane, because they are also under these conditions of absolute reality with no means of ‘escape’ (i.e dreaming).
The Navidson house is both inhabited and not sane; the inside of the house exists under conditions of absolute reality (even if the outside does not) so the Navidson’s themselves exist under these conditions. Both the house and the family can be seen as not sane.
Both of the house’s inhabitants can be placed into two loose categories: the living (the Navidson family and company; Eleanor and company), and the non-living (whatever is inhabiting the Navidson house; the ghosts of Hill House), but interestingly both houses act as vessels for something (the non-living category, perhaps) and this category of beings essentially tries to eradicate the living category.
Another parallel between Johnny and Eleanor is this notion of the houses (or the house’s manifestations) needing them; in House of Leaves, Johnny writes:
“Let me tell you there’s more than just The Navidson Record lying there—bloodless and still but not at all dead, calling me to it, needing me now like a child, depending on me despite its age. After all, I’m its source, the one who feeds it, nurses it back to health.”2
This concept of Johnny sustaining The Navidson Record (a manifestation of the house) with his attention (obsession) is similar to Eleanor in The Haunting of Hill House, feeding Hill House by remaining there. Both ‘entities’ of the houses do similar proverbial swallowing of either people (Eleanor) or minds (Johnny, Zampanò) or even space. Both houses need to be sustained and kept alive in some way. There’s an interesting point in that quote about the existence of something depending entirely on it being observed (or fed) but let’s not get too philosophical, I’m just drawing parallels here.
The governing rules of physics, space, and the possible do not apply to the inside of the Navidson house, and like Jackson shows us, when people are forced to face certain conditions without an ‘escape’, they cannot handle it. The fraying of the Navidson family’s sanity is served to us through House of Leaves; it’s a spectacle, but as both Zampanò and Johnny discover, it’s dangerous to bear witness to. Some of the horror in House of Leaves can be found in that this specific madness (whatever it may be) appears to be contagious. In The Haunting of Hill House, the documentary aspect is missing, but there’s still the same concept of contagious madness; Hill House infects Eleanor, in a way.
Whatever happens to those that exist under conditions of absolute reality is contagious through the opposite conditions (i.e not absolute reality, i.e I have no idea if there’s a word for that). There is an infinite amount of horror in that, and both The Haunting of Hill House and House of Leaves utilize this exceptionally well.
Of course, both houses can be seen as representations of mental illness, in which case I would argue there is still that pervasive ‘horror’ just in a different sense (i.e the fear of illness via hereditary pathways) especially in the case of Johnny in House of Leaves.
Haunted houses & suburban horror
One of the reasons haunted houses are such an integral part of horror as a whole is simply that they are meant to be safe, and this inversion of comfort and familiarity is so terrifying that people have been creating about it for decades and likely will never stop.
House of Leaves prods deeply into this particular fear and one reason that it creates this sense of dread so effectively is because of how much domesticity is shown at the beginning (and throughout) The Navidson Record. It feels like an invasion of the family because we are watching the film, getting a peak into their lives in all its banality and monotony, and we recognize this first as human and second as a mirror of ourselves. When something threatens that safety, that sense of a universal home that House of Leaves creates, it’s nothing short of terrifying.
Further reading: Universal horror, Horror of the suburbs, Every house is a haunted house
Beyond the surface
There are so many rich themes and elements packed into House of Leaves, it would take me forever to lay them all out, but some central themes it explores are trauma, grief, loss, and love. Sure, it’s primarily (but also debatably) a horror novel. It’s seen as a haunted house book mainly, but the reason it’s had such a profound impact on its readers is, in part, because of its emotional depth.
Johnny, most of all, is a vessel for this exploration; his struggle with the loss of his parents, abuse, self-destruction, guilt, repression, and possibly schizophrenia.
The Whalestoe letters — written from Johnny’s mother while in an institution— paint a picture of a mother’s love and debilitating mental illness. Navidson and Karen orbit around each other and explore love as a volatile and unbreakable force.
In short, it’s not reducible to a haunted house book, or a horror book, or even a book at all, really. House of Leaves is its own genre, its own thing entirely, with a (likely) infinite amount of layers, theories, perspectives, interpretations, and meanings attached to it, and that’s the beauty of a book like this—seriously, how insane is it that people write entire theses on this book?
Closing remarks
Suffice to say, I would highly recommend House of Leaves. It’s unlike any book you will ever read, I can promise you that. There’s no words to sufficiently describe the experience of reading it. It’s not for everyone; it’s been criticized heavily, but if you’re patient, and you’re intrigued, I urge you to give it a read.
As for the song for House of Leaves, sit in silence for a while. It’s the only sound that could possibly come close to matching this book. Pretend you’re deep in the hallways of the Navidson house, amidst the ashen walls, and listen for a growl.
Related literature, art, and further reading
Nothing can come close to touching House of Leaves, but here is a list of some further reading on the book, and some related literature & art.
Further reading: Analysis, A list of threads on the book's official website forum, Interview with Mark Z. Danielewski, A look back after 20 years (interview), Video essay
Related literature:
Many components of House of Leaves reminded me of Adam Nevill’s Last Days, about a man who begins to make a documentary on a long dead cult, and as you can guess, it does not go particularly well. The ‘haunting’ of Johnny in House of Leaves by the book is eerily similar to the ‘haunting’ of the main character in Last Days by the documentary. The dark plays a role in both of these hauntings; specifically, what lurks in the dark. Last Days is not nearly as complex and it lacks many things, but it will (likely) scratch that haunted media and dark creatures itch.
S. (The Ship of Theseus) by J.J Abrams and Doug Dorst has been compared to House of Leaves, namely for its intricate and puzzle-like nature. I haven’t read it yet but
recommends it!House of Leaves reminded me of one of my favourite poems by Tracy K. Smith, entitled Ash:
Strange house we must keep and fill.
House that eats and pleads and kills.
House on legs. House on fire. House infested
With desire. Haunted house. Lonely house.
House of trick and suck and shrug.
Give-it-to-me house. I-need-you-baby house.
House whose rooms are pooled with blood.
House with hands. House of guilt. House
That other houses built. House of lies
And pride and bone. House afraid to be alone.
House like an engine that churns and stalls.
House with skin and hair for walls.
House the seasons singe and douse.
House that believes it is not a house.3
The work of both MC Escher and Giovanni Battista Piranesi evoke similar feelings of unease that the Navidson house does, complete with endless hallways and impossible architecture.
That’s all for now, and if you read this far, I appreciate you. I want to know your thoughts on House of Leaves! And as always, take care of yourself!
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, page 326.
Via https://onbeing.org/poetry/ash/
Thanks very much for this analysis, Hannah. I’ve picked up House of Leaves a number of times, flicked through it and then put it back as it looks so daunting and unusual. However, after reading your review, I think I’ll give it a go
Also, thanks for the mention of Adam Nevill. I’ve not ready any of his stuff either but looks interesting. The book blurb calls him “Britain’s answer to Stephen King.” High praise indeed. 🤔
Chapel Perilous
https://crypticchroniclespodcast.com/the-chapel-perilous/