“You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay.”
Johnny Truant, October 31, 1998 (House of Leaves introduction, page xxiii)
I’m going to start out by saying this book is not for everyone and I don’t think it was meant to be. It’s meant for those who need it most. I was recommended it years and years ago by one of my very good friends, and I just never got around to finding it. It is a book that must be found. It is, without hesitation, my new favorite book of all time.
Let me explain.
House of Leaves is a story within a story within a story. It begins with an introduction by Johnny Truant, who finds this manuscript in the apartment of a dead man. He then becomes obsessed with the story of a family who moved into a house with bigger dimensions on the inside than were possible. But is it his obsession or is it the dead man’s? Zampano, the writer of the manuscript, has his own story, and through Johnny’s footnotes, we get a glimpse of what Zampano’s life was before he died. So, we have the story Zampano wrote–which by all appearances is an academic treatment of the mysterious film/photographer William Navidson–and we have Zampano’s story told to us in pieces by Johnny, and then we have Johnny’s story included in pages long footnotes at times.
The beauty of this book is you become part of the story. You are shoved into your own obsession with the Navidson brothers as they try to explain this house that cannot be explained. It’s a psychological horror of which I’ve never seen before, and it takes you on a circular journey of your own past as you work through the mysteries with Navidson. Not only that, you are given insight into a very tragic character in Johnny Truant. I think I felt a platonic love for him by the end of the book because of his story, all of which I cannot verify if it was real or not. And by that I mean within the confines of the story. Was he telling me the truth or was it drug addled nonsense? Either way, I wept for Johnny at several moments.
I would like to go further into the symbolism of the house, but I feel like that trudges into spoiler territory, so if you’d rather not have spoilers, please skip away from the page.
The house is a pleasant enough place at first, set up in the middle of nowhere, Maryland. Inside the house, the family consists of Will, known as Navy, Karen, and their two children. The children each have their own rooms, and then Will and Karen have their room, and as all beginnings are, this is a hopeful place. A place of renewal.
A hallway appears first, connecting the bedrooms upstairs, creating a void of light. And then the door arrives in the living room, the door on the outside wall. When the door is opened, another hallway is revealed, and throughout the course of the story, Navidson ends up exploring it with his brother and one of his friends.
To me, the entire book from Zampano, to Johnny, and even the Navidson crew, it’s not about the house. It’s about the ways we try to keep ourselves hidden from those we love most. Those who would know when something is wrong just by looking at us. It’s about knowing oneself so painfully well that every interaction with a new person will go nowhere because we know we aren’t going to meet their expectations.
It’s grief.
It’s encompassing fear of the unknown.
It’s love.
I feel like I’m not giving the words justice. I feel like I’m not explaining just how deep of an impact this book had on me. Saying it’s my new favorite book of all time feels dramatic, like I’m making bold claims after only having read it once, and it’s a book that almost requires multiple reads. It’s formatted like someone went after it with a hammer and super glue, bending pages to fit into whatever origami felt right at the moment. There are footnotes within footnotes. Some of the text is backwards. Some pages only have two words, some have one. Entire spaces are condensed into a haphazard mess of black Xs across red strikethrough.
It is chaos, just as the house is chaos.
And yet, it’s home.
*******I read the 2000 Random House full color remastered paperback edition*******
salisbury.fake 
It’s my favourite book. Period. I see it as a love story for sure.