I have passed this volume onto my teenaged nephew via his mother, my sister-in-law. I’m not sure how good or bad of an idea that was. Only time will tell. I just needed the thing out of my hands, out of my house, out of my control. The whole thing was out of control. I can’t stop thinking about various scenes depicted in the novel. This one is staying with me and it doesn’t care if I want it to or not. Haunted. Remember, according to David Wong / Jason Pargin in “John Dies At The End”, “ghosts haunt minds”.

I’m of the opinion that an academic writing on this would be redundant and contrary to one of the goals of the work. For an academic review and analysis please visit Wikipedia on the subject. I’ve read it over and it’s got some good content and the sources cited are also worth a perusal if not an in-depth inspection. Go down the rabbit hole. As much as I don’t want to, it’s inevitable that I’ll get lost there. The whole book is a rabbit hole. I’m lost.

The subreddit is much more interesting than the Wikipedia though. r/houseofleaves has posters and posts from virtually every step of the journey. People have written in-depth analysis from completion and others have posted from their position in a book store contemplating the purchase. Many have tried to read it, some have failed. And for everyone who has attempted the book there is a unique analysis and opinion. Everybody has their own takeaway.

In my reading about others opinions on “House of Leaves” I’ve come across many that make sense and some that are pretty far out, way off base in my inexpert opinion. Some have said it’s a satire of academic writing. Others call it horror and still some say romance, a love story of a kind. These are the three I agree with the most at this point.

I’m going to stand by my last writing and say there’s definitely something about addiction worked into the whole novel. However, that’s not all there is.

I’m certain that there’s something satirical about every horror story, movie, novel, etc. Just as there is also some kind of a love story in the vast majority of the horror genre. Everything references something else, nothing happens in a vacuum, and nothing in art / design is unintentional. Except for Dadaism and a few others. But I’m way off track here.

I tool a long break from writing this and completely got lost as to where I was going. I can’t seem to pick up the trail.

Fuck it.

Zampano is an intellectual who can’t write. He’s a smart old man, but also blind. (How in the hell does a blind man watch a movie and write so in depth about it?) He prattles on and goes on massive tangents that seem to have nothing to do with anything, except it’s all intentional. That’s one aspect of the satire. Truant is his editor and has editors himself. Both get into the footnotes, Truant mostly, and go on tangents themselves. The sources cited don’t exist. The film doesn’t exist outside of the book. It’s all very carefully planned and plotted.

The book is also a satire of the genre, of itself, of life. It’s a meta-novel. A book about itself. A book that exists in it’s own fictional realm. There are other works in which this is the case. However I’m not aware of any that are on this exact level. Correct me if I’m wrong. Please. Supply a list. I’ll read them. I need something new anyway.

Look, I said I would put up another House of Leaves post and this is all I’ve got. I have nothing new to add to the discussion that already exists.

The End.