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/lit/ - Literature

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19690164 No.19690164 [Reply] [Original]

What's with this book? I saw it mentioned here and did a little research and it seems to be regarded as a cult classic. Have you read it anon? Would you recommend it?

>> No.19690200

The story is good but I found the gimmicks annoying. Why do I have to turn the page upside down to read it? I want a book, not a game. Abandoned.

>> No.19690292

>>19690164
I read it like over a decade ago. I enjoyed it. I remember skipping a couple sections of it, one of which was an aside story about a minotaur. Like other anon says there are gimmicks. Upside pages and shit written in the margins, different fonts and colors, nonsense asides.

>> No.19690305

>>19690200
>>19690292
were there parts that genuinely scared you while reading it?

>> No.19690424

I'm just over 100 pages in right now, the main story had been intriguing, haven't got to any of the gimmicky looking pages yet. Lots of footnotes citing books and articles that do not exist, 2 pages filled with made up photographers names.

>> No.19690450

I also read it like a decade ago and really liked it. The gimmick works, the book becomes disorienting. His sister is the musician Poe, and one of her albums is a companion to the book, and it's also pretty good.

I tried to read Only Revolutions later and Danielewski tried a new gimmick there and it just felt like he was trying to recapture what made house of leaves work.

>> No.19690459

It's just a physical creepypasta.

>> No.19690601

>>19690305
>>19690305
>scared by a book

honestly, books just aren't scary desu. visual/audio isn't there. Maybe horror games have spoiled me rotten.

>> No.19690628

>>19690164
I remember people shilling it on /b/ back in the late 00s. That's enough for me to know its gay.

>> No.19690700

>>19690164
I am reading it now and would recommend it. For a 700 page long creepypasta the prose is surprisingly tight and engaging.

>> No.19690715

>>19690164
>Have you read it anon?
About half of it
>Would you recommend it?
Not really. It was mostly a meme, and a novelty for being composed online well before publication and playing with physical structure. Neither of those gimmicks have much staying power and the story at its core isn't much to write home about.

>> No.19690719

>>19690700
This. It’s like Call of the Crocodile or other pulpy horror. Good for what it is but memed to all hell and back

>> No.19690964

>>19690719
Just fucking stop

>> No.19690998

>>19690164
Would recommend. At times I found it genuinely unsettling. It's interesting, playful and doesn't linger. It keeps you guessing and fucks with your head with word art and shifting narratorship. The page count is deceptive; there are pages with literally one word or image.

>> No.19691232

>>19690164
I liked it, but if you're just gonna read it once and be done you'll probably end up thinking is average at best, the fun is in figuring out the puzzles

>> No.19691926

>>19690964
Fucking stop what.

>> No.19692187

>>19690164
It's alright until...

it's all a movie and fake

>> No.19692763

>>19690719
Eh I get what you’re saying. CotC is moreso schizo tier than experimental like HoL though

>> No.19692819

>>19690164
I like it but I honestly don't get people calling it the scariest book ever.

>> No.19692832

>>19690164
Very very 2000's and basically a creepypasta in book form

>> No.19692834

>>19690700
>tight and engaging
That's a funny way of saying "workmanlike and boring." House of Leaves is an impressive feat of engineering. It's pretty nice how despite all the memes and gimmicks, everything kind of just follows the other thing, like a group of soldiers in lockstep. One follows the other follows the other. It never really rises above that. Cleverly engineered, but devoid of actual literary merit. Oftentimes, the "cult" moniker implies some sort of genuine, hidden merit to a work passed over or panned by most. In this case, the cult work was rightfully panned. Its formatting gymnastics amount to little more than a facade hiding a work whose spirit is much more mundane than it wants you to believe.

It's a disappointing work that could have been much better if its author were as much artist as engineer.

>> No.19692842

Cyclonopedia is better

>> No.19693787

The main plot is decent and clever. The meta elements work there. The Johnny Truant shit needed to be cut out entirely, it kept me from enjoying my second read.

>> No.19693822

>>19690164
Yes it’s good.

>> No.19693843

>>19690305
Unsettled, yes

>> No.19695115

>>19692834
One thing following another is just sequential causality and happens to be the only human understanding of the universe. As for not rising above it, I'm not sure what you mean. If you are saying that the book evokes nothing other than the literal sequence of events that is described, then you are just flat out wrong or being disingenuous.

If you don't like it, it's not because you saw through it's gymnastic facade and straight though to it's cynically conceived mundane spirit. You just didn't like it.

>> No.19696737

>>19693787
Without Johnny, Pelafina's letters would make no sense

>> No.19696737,1 [INTERNAL] 

>>19696737
Well, there's only one thing left to do then