Mark Z Danielewski

[clairesamuels]

Wanted to post about this since nobody has seemed to open a forum about it...Mark Z. Danielewski is one of my all-time favorites. House of Leaves is an incredible labyrinth of a book (I was about to write novel, but I'm not sure you can even count it as that...it's so avant-garde it doesn't really fit novel form. It's full of foot notes, intertwined stories, duplicitous narration, and false-academia mixed with real life citations. It is absolutely horrifying, truly one of the scariest books I've ever read, despite the fact that it doesn't really fit into the horror genre (the basic plot is that the Navidson family moves into a house that's larger on the inside than the outside...from there it spirals into depravity and depth so far beyond that.) It's got a strong cult following devoted to finding codes hidden in its seemingly nonsense pages, and the text is formatted in gorgeous, strange ways that add depth to the writing rather than coming off as gimmicky. I don't know how to describe it other than haunting.
If you've read it, you understand why house is in blue
Anyone else read Danielewski?

[Wreade1872]

I've read House of Leaves and bought a copy about a year later (read it from a library originally). It's really good but i'm not as blown away by it as many others, i thought the Truant storyline could have ended a bit better. As a Lovecraft fan though i really enjoyed the weirdness.
However a single book does not a great author make... i haven't read anything else by him yet so can't say how good the author is but House of Leaves is certainly something i would recommend to anyone (as long they're over 18!! ) but especially fans of weird fiction.

[Lisalovecraft]

I tried to read House of Leaves a few years ago but couldn't get into it. I would like to try again at some point. I saw that he has a new book coming out soon, I think it's called The Familiar.