My Favorite Book is "House of Leaves"

I am often asked "What is your favorite book? I usually rattle off 5 or 6 books in no particular order without thinking.

Dickens,King (Stephen), Shakespeare (plays I know, but close enough),Poe, Herbert (Frank). most of their books can be seen in movie form.

There is one book that I just ache to see on a screen, but it appears it will never be.

For my favorite books, I love to see them on screen, even if the effort does not equal how good the book is. I just want to SEE it.

And I came across a link to this book earlier and I thought to myself, "THAT is my favorite book". And I will probably never see it on a screen.

It is House of leaves by Mark Z. Danieliewski. What I have is a couple fan-made trailers, God bless them. Here is a better one:

Looks interesting. Can you relate to the plot a little bit and give me an insight as to the story line at the start. I watched the trailer and understand a new house, maze but am intriged as to where it leads.

Kind regards,

Bally

originally posted by: bally001
Looks interesting. Can you relate to the plot a little bit and give me an insight as to the story line at the start. I watched the trailer and understand a new house, maze but am intriged as to where it leads.

Kind regards,

Bally

en.wikipedia.org...

It is quite a complicated book. Some of the text is on the diagonal. Many threads are happening at one time. I have read it 6 times and could read it again and find more.


It is drama, romance, science fiction, horror. It is all genres in one place. It is NOT a ...well it would partially be a found footage movie, but it is not the main genre.

a reply to: reldra

Cheers, thanks, I'll have a look at it.

Kind regards,

Bally

a reply to: reldra

My favorite book is "mans search for meaning" by Victor Frankl.
That book changed my life.

Its about a holocaust survivor and made me feel like my life was better than I thought.
Its only about 14 bucks and I plan on buying a few for Christmas presents.
Great book!!!
Cheers.

a reply to: DrumsRfun

I might look for it. Ty.

a reply to: reldra

Had this on my wishlist for like ever, you've just reminded me, thanks.

originally posted by: reldra
It is drama, romance, science fiction, horror. It is all genres in one place. It is NOT a ...well it would partially be a found footage movie, but it is not the main genre.

That description sounds incredibly interesting I'm always looking for things to read and it seems like a must-read, even more-so after having a quick look at the wiki.

This is the best book I have ever read. It is a total mind eff.

S + F

House of Leaves is absolutely brilliant. Maybe the best fiction book I've ever read.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

This is the best book I have ever read. It is a total mind eff.

Yep. Definitely. I am looking forward to reading Vol. 1 of his series The Familiar. Someone has gotten it for me for Christmas.

a reply to: reldra

Perhaps you should write the screen play if you can get the rights.

www.authorhouse.com...

or I have friends that make a fine living creating screenplays for novelists. A screenplay is very different than a novel.

originally posted by: olaru12
Perhaps you should write the screen play if you can get the rights.

If you read the book you would understand why it may be impossible to translate it to film. Part of the draw of the story is the nested stories, various footnotes, sidebars, colored fonts and additional Easter eggs in the written manuscript.

a reply to: reldra

As an aspiring writer(short stories and novels) I am always looking for some good new books, so when I saw you had listed a favorite book I ventured in. Must say I was not sure at first, so I googled the book. After reading a few summaries, I put the book on my Google books list, flipped(thumped on the tablet) through the book and found it to be most interesting and I now plan on investing in a physical copy.

This is not for you.

Great opening. I'm jealous I did not come up with that sentence myself(lol). After this sentence, there is a long letter by J. Truant with some interesting stuff, but then right when that ends Dainelewski hits you with some real skill and a wonderful sentence that reflects the angst of the letter that came before it:

While enthusiasts and detractors will continue to empty entire dictionaries to describe or deride it, "authenticity" still remains the word most likely to stir a debate.

A sardonic little ditty reflecting on the unreliability of the narrator as well as any individual human when it comes to memory. I am excited to keep reading...

I have personally been thinking of experimenting with Ergodic literature which is defined as:

In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages.

Storytelling in this fashion can be dangerous and one fears they will lose the reader in a sea of complexity, do you feel the story of House of Leaves could have been told in a different fashion, and do you feel that would remove some of the power the novel has?