House of Memes

>>9654128
It's honestly not that big of a meme. The only threads that really come up about it are literally this kind. (Is it good?)

Nobody here really cares about it/nobody talks about it all that much.

>>9654128
It was my favorite novel until I really dug deep into pomo a few years ago. It's not longer my favorite or anywhere near that (I hadn't read much at the time) but I still think it's pretty damn good, if a little gimmicky at times. There's some legitimately well done and creative parts, and it unsettled me at times. Definitely a fun read that's deceptively light and easy.

I've seen people call it a meme because later on he throws the sentences all around the page or some shit. Other than that it's an okay book but yeah no one really cares about it

>>9654135
Huh, I'm shocked. I figured this would be the kind of book that would be really divisive on here, since it clearly has a lot of ideas but it also seems like it's daring you to try to analyze or critique it.

>>9654144
No one caring is also surprising. Is it just that no one was that impressed by the stylistic choices and that without all the flash the prose itself is kind of mediocre or just not really noteworthy? I feel like from a structural standpoint alone there's a lot to talk about so it seems as though there would have to be some overt negative aspect to counteract it if no one talks about it all. I would have expected the general opinion to be either devoted interest or snide derision; I definitely wouldn't have guessed indifferent

>>9654128
I enjoyed it

Taken just as a story its pretty forgettable, but the structure stuff is fun. If you find that stuff gimmicky you won't enjoy it much.

A few years back House of Leaves was quality bait material.

Basically, /lit/ falls into two camps on HoL: Either it's a well-written horror novel that experiments with form and structure in an intriguing way, or it's gimmicky and marred by Johnny Truant's unreliable narration.

I enjoyed it, personally. The scene with Karen watching the Navidson footage in the upstairs bathroom as the wall behind her suddenly, soundlessly disappears into an infinite void gives me the heebie-jeebies like little else I've read.

It's really one of those books where you get out of it what you put into it. I re-read it every couple years and always find something new and interesting.

Though Danielewski is a bit of a knob in interviews when discussing this book. I remember one where he claims he has already predicted every single possible interpretation of the novel and whenever someone presents him with their interpretation he just goes "yep, I thought of that one, too."

I don't think the formatting and typography are gimmicks in that they're superficial; I don't think the book would operate nearly as well if it were written in a straightforward chapters-and-paragraphs way.

It's fun to read.

Tries too hard

This book broke me. Absolutely phenomenal. Truant can be a bit much sometimes but I think his breakdown is effective and frightening. Tried reading other Danielewski after this but never found anything as compelling as this one.

I said it before, and because it's witty I'll say it again. If it were written today it would be filled with emoji.

>>9654128
It's okay, but after finishing it I immediately forgot about it.

It's too gimmicky.
House of Leaves is the ultimate proof that Borges' plot/structure ideas only work as ideas.

>>9654128
>I get the impression that all the typography and formatting gimmicks might be more surface-level than the author wants you to think
I've always thought that was the point.
It's post-postmodernism. It's "deep" for the sake of being "deep". All the hidden messages, self-referentiality, gimmicky formatting etc exist purely to make the book as convoluted as possible. The book is the labyrinth and sho on and sho on

I still think it's a good book although I haven't read it in a long time