The House of Leaves: Analysis, New Ways to Play With Words and Images
Johnny is an interesting character, but then, all the characters in this book are interesting, if not a bit bizarre. The whole book is bizarre, so they fit in it quite well. One of the most difficult things about the book is the many different voices of the characters and narration. Placing them in different fonts helps, but this is still a difficult book to read, just because of he different typefaces and such, along with the random placement on the page, and the footnotes, which are a bit hard to take as the book continues. The House itself is probably the strangest "character" in the book, and the way it keeps growing, with the hallways, grand staircase, and all, is one of the most bizarre elements of the book. That the family continues to live in the house does not really make sense, and sometimes it is difficult to make sense of the text and the action of this novel as it moves along
The appendixes are interesting additions to this novel, and might make some readers question if the novel is "real," or not. They add a dimension of credibility to the text (along with the footnotes), and they add more depth to the book, as well. They see nothing unusual about the house, and they are willing to accept alternative situations and ideas, but their minds close as they grow older, and they learn to question rather than accept things the way they are. However, it is interesting, and the author uses numerous tools, like codes and colors, to trick and amuse the reader, so they always wonder what is coming next. The importance of the house comes through in the way any reference to "house" is printed in blue ink, and sometimes it is offset from the rest of the text, showing how the house is special, and that it is set apart and quite unique from the rest of the story. Johnny's commentary seems to counterbalance the rest of the story, and The Navidson Record seems like a real film, and yet it seems surrealistic and unbelievable, something it has in common with most of this novel. Johnny's mother's letters from the mental hospital indicate just how Johnny grew up and why he is the way he is, and the sketches and Polaroids help to give that feeling of authenticity to the entire text. Probably one of the most important aspect of this is that the adults in the house have to think about what is happening, explore it, and try to find out the truth, while the children "just accepted it," (Danielewski 39). This is a difficult novel to read because the plot is convoluted, the text can be difficult, there are so many characters, and it goes on for such a long time. This says a lot about the author's view of children, and what happens when they grow into adults. Another interesting aspect of the novel and its graphic quality is the way several stories often run together on the page, as if there is commentary and narration about the events going on inside the novel. The book is probably a harbinger of things to come in the publishing world, as writers find new ways to play with words and images. In some ways, it is like a graphic novel, but without the illustrations, it instead uses the text itself as a type of illustration and addition to the plot of the novel.
Common topics in this essay:
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Navidson Record,
rest story,
difficult book,
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Acceptance Essays
