Why do so many people say House of Leaves is shit? Yeah, I get the whole ergodic lit thing is kind of a gimmick, but really, the ending made me feel more emotional than whenKing Théoden died in The Return of the King.The story and the writing itself are both a 10/10. What gives?
Definitely not 10/10, but I definitely like it more than /lit/ claims to
>>7533759
Word
It is a very cool blending of weird fiction and Borges style puzzles. I love both of those things and so I loved the book. But, the problem comes in when tons of people read this book without being aware of either of those traditions and so they think its 100% original and it blows their fucking mind and they don't shut up about it. This causes people who ARE aware of the clear influences, and its not like he was hiding them I mean the blind writer was clearly paying Borges the necessary homage, to shit on the book because they're annoyed with all the people who think its a breakthrough in literature just because they've never read anything more complicated than The Hobbit.
>>7533746
I tried reading it and ended up giving up about halfway through because I couldn't understand anything that was happening. I also was having problems navigating the notes in the back of the book. There were times when a note from the editor mentioned an appendix, only I could never actually find the appendix that was mentioned.
I just found the whole book to be pretty impenetrable.
>>7535990
For myself and others the impenetrability was part of the charm. I'm a big fan of what I think is called ergodic fiction, meaning fiction that is also a puzzle that needs to be figured out by the reader. Gene Wolfe is a master of it.
>>7536004
I can why others would enjoy that. I know my brother loves this book.
Personally I don't enjoy writing that is meant to hide things from me. Kind of hard to explain because I like to use my imagination to fill in blanks (like a Lovecraft story) but I tend to just be confused/frustrated if the writing is overly vague or meant to be difficult to understand (pretty much every poem I have ever read). I get a lot of flak from my friends for how I view poetry as worthless to me.
If you can articulate why it is a good, entertaining, and deep reading experience, who cares that 4chan bitches about it? /lit/ bitches about Ulysses for Jesus Christ, Martyr of Man, May We Be Washed In His Holy Blood In Eternity's sake...
>>7533746
I agree. I found that HoL triggered a stronger emotional reaction from me than any other book I've read. After I this I tried reading his 'Only Revelutions' but it was impossible to get through, I hear that it's best to read it alongside the audiobook but I don't want to pay for it and struggled finding complete downloads. Decided to give his new 'The Familiar' series a go, currently on book 2.
>>7536028
I never consider MZD in audiobook form, sounds like a good idea.
& yeah the downward spiral at the end of the book was upsetting.
I started reading Danielewski's new book, The Familiar. Not sure if it becomes a major plot or if it's just a reference to House of Leaves, but there's a part where a scientist lady is looking at a simulation of the Earth's topography at various points in time. She sees that as she goes back in time, this one building remains the same, even when she goes into the distance past before human civilization.
I gave up partly in because it kept jumping from one story to another and I didn't care enough about any of them yet to keep reading, also apparently it's supposed to be 26 parts or something.
>>7533759
Definitely
>The story and the writing itself are both a 10/10.
The sections with Johnny Truant are complete shit. Amateurish, pretentious prose, boring characters, yawn-inducing writing.
