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First impressions of insanity
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Feb 07th, 2007 (11PM)
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It's like writing, except exactly not!
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So last night I was out to dinner with a couple of friends, and one of them brought up a book that she was currently reading. I asked her to describe it, and she said that she really couldn't- other than the fact that it was just weird. And that it was about a book about a movie about a house.
That sort of annoyed me, but she has rather good tastes in books and movies, and I enjoy strange things, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
The book is called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, and so far, it's pretty much exactly what my friend said. And I'm totally digging it. (And yes, the technical title of the book requires that the word "House" be in that blue-ish tone. I'm not even going to pretend like I know why.)
First off, it tells an interesting Horror/Mystery story (at least, I should say, so far. I'll probably post a closing thoughts post when I finish up with it) so it seems to be worth reading for that alone.
However, the thing that I'm most impressed with is just the sheer volume of information that was poured into it, and the way that it was all crammed together.
As stated above, the book is actually about a book. That's a bit misleading, because for the most part, the book IS that book. And THAT book is about a movie, which isn't really a movie as much as it's a documentary about a house, and some seriously weird stuff that goes on in the said house. But the movie isn't really real, at least not in the external book, only in the internal one.
But because the book isn't really a book in itself, but more a book CONTAINING a book, there are lots of interesting little liberties that come along with it. Most pages have citations referring back to the text, only it seems most, if not all, of the citations are completely fictional. It's hard to tell though, because they're so seamlessly interwoven. To further compound that, the person writing the external book also has his own footnotes referring back to his understanding of the internal book. And then there are that external persons editors notes, which give clarifications on his footnotes.
Just read over that a few times, wipe the blood from your ears, and go with it.
Anyways, with all those layers of editions and notes and whatnot, things get a bit hectic. But each "layer" essentially exists on its own plane- each with its own sense of what is "real." Because of the separation of the internal and external books (and since in the external book, most things in the internal book have no proof of existence), it's really damned hard to draw a line in the sand and say at any given point what is "real." It makes for a really interesting read.
Oh, and on top of that, some of the pages truly read like they were scrawled on the back of a cocktail napkin. Some passages are upside-down, tilted, crossed out, "smudged", and the like. Also, reality ends after the first physical piece of paper- after that, it's all the internal book, and that includes the title page which lists the author as a character in the book, "with introduction and notes" by another character.
I'll stop confusing you now. If you're looking for something completely off the wall to pass the time with, I'd suggest giving it a go. It's just so bizzare that it all feels real, at least in some way or another.
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