Scooter Chronicles

This afternoon, I got to a breaking point in a very unique and experimental book. It is titled “House of Leaves” written by Mark Z. Danielewski. To do a review at this point might seem strange, but the book is basically two stories. And because of the way it is written, you can read them separately.

So what is this all about? It might be hard to explain, but I am going to try. There is a movie that seems to not exist. It is called “The Navidson Report”. It is a documentary by Will Navidson, Pulizter Prize winning photojournalist. He has given up the constant traveling of his profession and secured grants to film him, his girlfriend former model Karen Green, and their two kids Chad and Daisy, living in their new home somewhere in Virginia. At some point Navidson discovers that the interior of the house measures more then the outside. He brings in a friend from the University of Virginia (Reston) and his brother Tom. They bring with them more complicated and accurate measuring devices. Still have the same results. Then after going out of town, Navy (his nickname) and Karen find a door in both their bedroom and the kids that wasn’t there before they left. It is a two sided closet between the two rooms. Then, another door appears downstairs. First it is a short hallway. Then it is a maze of hallways. What is more disconcerning is that the door is on an outside wall. It should lead to the front yard. They bring in more people to help explore.

While all this is happening, and the events later on, everything is filmed by the cameras in the house, and by the cameras everyone else carries around. During the filming and waiting for events to unfold, and after the events, Navy and Karen put together the film, which is supposedly distributed by Miramax. The book itself is a documentary / study of the film written by a man known as Zampanò. He quotes many scholars, journalists, and others that have watched the film, or doctors / therapists that have dealt with the couple or their helpers like Reston. There are also many that argue back and forth whether the events were real or staged. It is written in a documentary style and is the main narrative of the book.

The other part of the book is in the footnotes. Not only do the footnotes show the various sources of quotes and such, but also the narrative in first person of Johnny Truant (from what I have read, Nabokov has used this trick before). Johnny’s friend was a neighbor of Zampanò. And when Zampanò dies, the two discover the book he is writing. Johnny’s life then unfolds in the footnotes while he finishes Zampanò’s work. I decided to stop reading those parts because it is very different from the first narrative part. Also, it got distracting. It seems that very little is directly tied to Navidson’s story. Like for instance, if it is mentioned how someone felt hurt by some event, there is a footnote number and Johnny goes off about being hurt too by someone, but not related at all. It seemed very interesting, but the back and forth between the two stories got hard to deal with very early in reading it. I want to go back and read that now, all as one.

There is also a few appendices with countless information. Some of it seems trivial. Some of it was strongly tied to Johnny. Mostly letters from his mother. I will know more about that as I get deeper into that part of the book. On top of that, the page layouts are crazy at times. Some of the pages, for effect obviously, have as little as a few words on them. It took me 90 minutes to read the first 27 pages of the book. Yet at times I could cruise through 50 to 60 pages in a matter of three or four minutes.

So, as far as the first part I read, wow! It is really unique. I would not say that this is my favorite book, but THE most unique I have read. Even though the narrative is very textbook like or documentary like, I still found it fascinating. You can still get so much out of the characters, though when passages are psychiatrists talking about the characters you get even more, but in a more formal way, instead of going through the events with them. A great way to describe the events and how it is played out at times is rather along the lines of “The Blair Witch Project”, but on a much, much better scale.

It is hard to classify this book. It could be fantasy. It could be horror. But neither is definative. Because it has elements of each, but rather faint. It is not like you read something and it scares the hell out of you. But it certainly gets your attention. I would say that “House of Leaves” is not for everyone. But it could be fascinating for some.