The trouble with the modern horror novel is that few currently take the genre seriously.  Stephen King has long since failed to provide any meaningful entertainment, and profit-guzzlers like Dean Koontz pump out such a plethora of material annually that the hackneyed plots inevitably begin to repeat.  When Mark Danielewski set out to stake his claim on the fickle field of literary scares, he took the challenge as though he intending to break the very code of fear.  While the final result may fall somewhat short of such a goal, it surpasses nearly every similarly-themed contender within the last decade.

I have no idea how to tagline "House of Leaves."  I suppose I could proffer it as a labyrinth of literature.  A sort of tangible metaphor for chaos held within the actual pages of a novel.  To put it more practically, however, "House of Leaves" is a finely-tuned orchestra of simultaneous storylines which repeatedly collide to form some semblance of order and meaning to a many times overwhelmingly convoluted message.

Our descent begins as hero, Johnny Truant, is called upon to view the tenement of a dead man.  The deceased, a blind vagrant with a penchant for obscure collecting, has left behind a compilation of papers which refer to an event known as The Navidson Record.  This accord, while wholly unverified, is constructed with such care and precision that its believability becomes almost non-debatable to Truant.  Thus it develops that Truant finds himself involved in reassembling the tome in efforts to better understand the deceased and his motivations.  In doing so, Truant's own life becomes subtlety woven within Zampano's (the deceased) work. 

The flipside of "House of Leaves" focuses on actual excerpts from the shattered Navidson manuscript.  This not-so-faux account centers on Will Navidson, a semi-retired photojournalist who has thrown his hand into domesticity with the purchase of a large, colonial style Virginia home.  The house, a picture of perfection, slowly begins to architecturally warp so as to gradually produce the equivalent of a black hole within the downstairs closet – a location later referred to as the five-and-a-half-minute hallway. 

This warping, along with Truant's alternating, yet ever-increasing participation, evolves into an elaborate analogy for the sometimes agonizing isolation and trauma of simple events.  Events that we have convinced ourselves do little to no harm, but which combine to separate ourselves from any sense of human connectedness.  Danielewski, through his intricate construction of a maze within a novel within a maze, evokes that same sense of isolation and disorientation within the reader.  And with it, the house becomes our struggle with chaotic elements; our need to surround ourselves with reminders of power and control in an environment that does not recognize such things.  And in this manner, "House of Leaves" is irrefutably epic.  It seeks to engage the reader by literally becoming its own message; allowing its audience to visibly see pain, joy, emotional damage, loss, and personal continuance in a digestible, pattern-entrenched form.

Expertly crafted and deeply rewarding, "House of Leaves" is a labyrinth well worth getting lost in.

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