I admit it, I had to cheat a little bit. I read Wikipedia’s article on House of Leaves, just to get a better idea of what to expect from this book. I also read the linked Guardian interview with Danielewski from the Wikipedia article about the author. And I was comforted. As I read, and hit more and more complicated footnoting and narrative styles, I was starting to worry if I was smart enough for this book. I haven’t read anything as closely and as analytically as House of Leaves demands since I got my bachelor’s and I was starting to be afraid that I’d lost the knack of it.
Now, since reading the articles about the book, I’m starting to have the same thoughts I did when I was a literature undergrad. Namely, “This author may be too clever for his own good,” and, “When are the little oddities really important and when are they just supplementary?”
This is not to say that I’m not enjoying the book. I am enjoying the challenge of it, but I think Danielewski–even though a lot of this book is meant as satire of academic criticism–is in constant danger of forgetting my first rule of fiction. My first rule basically boils down to: An author writes primarily for an audience and should never forget that that audience is paying for the pleasure of reading the author’s books. Make books fun to read. There’s all kinds of fun (even *gasp* intellectual fun), but don’t lose sight of the fact that you, author, can see all of the connections because you put them there. Some of us are going to have to reread this sucker a couple of times to catch everything.
End mini-rant. 🙂
Having said all that, I really like the way that Danielewski plays with, well, everything that we’ve come to expect from fiction. I like all the little puzzles–even though sometimes they’re so subtle that I miss them. And I really like that we have no reliable narrators and that we get to decide for ourselves what really happened. (Just as an aside, this is the same reason I liked The Egyptologist.) And I like the idea that this might all be the creation of Pelafina (see the Wikipedia article for House of Leaves for more information about this theory). I also enjoy the way that Danielewski played with the conventions of printing as well as the conventions of fiction. My mother is a printer and every time I see upside-down and backwards footnotes, embedded footnotes, and so on, I think of how tricky printing something like this book must have been. So, hurrah for the printers! 🙂