r/houseofleaves

I read. I don't understand. I search and study. Mind gets all overwhelmed so I abandon. Busy so I abandon some more.

Pick up the book again. Abandon again. Pick it up again. Abandon again.

I say to myself that "oh you can probably just skip that chapter cuz it's nonsensical and you're kinda stupid I mean a crazy man wrote this and this book is kinda crazy" BUT NO !!!! There's some stubborn part of me that refuses to move on with the book unless I can make sense of every single sentence in the echo arc. My mind longs for closure. Closure that I am too stupid, or maybe too sane to understand.

I just finished the book, and my first thought is that the last few chapters of the navidson project were written by Johnny who, having read hundreds of pages he wrote, easily forged zampanos writing style. Its clear that in chapter xxi that most if not all of what truant writes is embellished, a lie, or part of some sort of episode, and while he tried to give himself a happy ending he found it didnt work, so he instead decided to give navidson and Karen a happy ending, as well as explain why he wasnt able to find the house on ash tree lane (writing that it disintegrated).

Navidson went back into that house and quickly died, leaving what happened to him a mystery, and so Johnny made up an ending so at least something in his life made some sort of sense.

Hi everyone,

i heard a lot of HOL and have a copy at home. I tried to read it two times already but never came past the first few pages. I believe it’s a good book and it looks like something i like… but somehow its hard for me to get really started. Do you have some tipps? Did you have the same problem? Is it better after a certain page? Do i need to have a different mindset?

I hope my question fits here and that you can help me!

Hello! I picked up "House of Leaves" a few weeks ago, but I haven't begun reading it yet.

I'm feeling a bit unsure about how to approach this book.

Should I create a playlist with a dark ambiance?

Would it help to take notes?

The book seems quite challenging to start and read..

I'm finding it hard to get going.

I'd really appreciate any advice you might have! 🤍

But tramp stamp. Whole different vibe.

I have two copies of HoL, both in various states of annotation and kind of wrecked. Part of me wants to get three fresh copies of the book. One to keep pristine, one to completely wreck with notes and marginalia and such, and then one to record my annotations in a very neat manner. I have never felt this way about a book. Good lord, I finished my second read a year ago, and I still think about this book all the time and I’m going to start reading it for the third time tonight.

When Navidson measured the house on the inside he came up with the house being ”exactly” 1/4” bigger on the inside than on the outside. What if this is because when he is measuring the outside of the house he is no longer inside of it, but Karen, Daisy and Chad still are, thus the inside measure is 1/4“ longer because Navidsson is missing. Later when Tom measures the outside he concludes that Navidsson was wrong, it is 5/16”, but now Tom is also not inside the house and therefore the house has become bigger. adding Tom has changed the inside from 4/16” to 5/16” bigger.

This is important because of its implications for the inside of the book itself being bigger than the cover - we as a reader is outside of the book when we look at the exterior but when we are inside of the book (AKA reading it), we are part of it, expanding it, and intepreting it and it changes due to our experiencing it.

This is probably basic as fuck but I just wanted to share this epiphany because it really gave me goosebumps during my second reading.

Edit: thanks for all the kind words, I might have stumbled upon something which could bring something new to this experience for several!

I wanted to add a few thoughts since yesterday, which I commented below as well. I think my mind messed up a bit when I thought that the measurement being different because Navidson was outside of the house when he measured the outside, changing it that way. However, I do believe that the arrival of Tom increased the size of the interior of the House by 1/16” from 1/4” to 5/16”.

Also, because as Simicrop and Hems_and_haws so kindly measured the book precisely by using inches we know that our book is exactly 8/16” bigger than the cover. not 5/16” like the House at this point in the story. that should mean that there is 7 other souls inside our book other than ourselves.

I couldn’t sleep last night because I realized something more. When Navidson toys with his coffee on page 30, he adds sugar, milk, stirs it, adds more milk until the liquid rises to the rim and then by a fraction exceeds even this limit. Only it does not spill due to surface tension. Just like adding more people to the house exceeds the limit of the exterior of the house. Until suddenly the coffee spills, creating a Nile of caffeine wending past glass and politics eventually making a brown blot on the morning paper. 

Just like the five and a half minute hallway in the house, pouring out the souls of the people in it.

This is not for you