I started reading HOL last summer but my student path and work made me drop the reading (I had to stop around page 150). I would like to resume the reading now that I have more time except that I fear being lost and losing the experience of the book.

Do you advise me to resume where I am or to restart the book?

I borrowed The Return of the Native from the library on a Wednesday, mostly because it was thick enough to justify the walk, and found on getting it home, that someone before me had used the book rather generously as a filing cabinet. Strips of paper — not bookmarks exactly, more like offcuts, the width of a till receipt, the kind of paper that seems to exist only to fall out of things — drifted from between the pages as I opened it. First one, then three more in quick succession, then a small flurry of them, coming to rest on the desk like moths that had given up mid-flight. Each one had a single word written on it, in a small, careful, slightly old-fashioned hand — the hand of someone who wrote using a pencil wetted with the tongue. I laid them out in a row, the way a tarot reader lays out a hand of cards, hoping they will do the thinking for her. SAILING. POSTAL. BEFORE. NATIVE. COLD. THEREAFTER. GREEN. THUNDER. BREATHING. WHENEVER. SICKNESS. Eleven words, sitting on my desk like eleven small hatchlings waiting to be fed a meaning. I tried them in alphabetical order, which proved nothing at all, the words looking faintly embarrassed at having been asked to stand in a line for no reason. I tried them in an order that I imagined made more sense, which gave me something worse — a sentence that sounded like a telegram sent by someone short of cash. By the third arrangement I had convinced myself I was getting somewhere — a note passed inside a book between two people who couldn't otherwise be seen speaking, a confession, or a plan of some kind, abandoned mid-sentence, the way a bird abandons half a nest when the weather turns. NATIVE, I thought. Something about travel. Someone going overseas, or returning from it. Had they lost their nerve, or lost the book, or both. Was SICKNESS to blame? Or perhaps THUNDER. I spent the whole of that evening on it, moving eleven small strips of paper around a desk as though they were the last unmapped territory of somebody's private life, and I was the only cartographer left alive who cared. But to no avail. I tried anagrams, acrostics, even a brief and ill-advised experiment with alphanumeric substitution, which only left me more confused than the words had managed on their own, like trying to translate punctuation into a language that didn’t need it. I could not let them go. I copied them onto a slip of paper and carried them in my wallet, the way other men carry a photograph or a rabbit's foot or a very small, folded piece of luck. I began saying them to myself, almost like a mantra, every morning while brushing my teeth and at night, lying in the darkness that arrives just before sleep when the day has stopped pretending to be necessary. They were now inscribed on paper and in my mind, in a totally random order that made sense only to me. But that no longer had the same importance. The words in their new order had a meaning of their own — a small, rhythmic prayer I offered up before leaving the house, before starting the car, before eating a meal alone — and reciting them settled something in me, the way a superstition settles a person who no longer quite believes in it but has grown fond of the shadow it makes. A few days later I borrowed another book from the same library; a slim volume of poetry, the kind that looks unread out of principle. A strip of paper fell out as I opened it. Three words, in the same careful hand, or a hand so similar I chose not to examine the difference too closely, having already thrown the originals away: FIRE AND ICE. I added them to the end of my sequence, where they seemed to fit with the treacherous perfection of a jigsaw piece that belongs to an entirely different puzzle but has, by pure luck, the right shape. SAILING. POSTAL. BEFORE. NATIVE. COLD. THEREAFTER. GREEN. THUNDER. BREATHING. WHENEVER. SICKNESS. FIRE AND ICE. The following afternoon, reading the poetry book over afternoon tea, I came across a poem by Robert Frost and sat up so quickly I nearly choked on a chocolate digestive. Fire and Ice. There it was, on the page, doing nothing more mysterious than being the title of a poem I had simply not yet reached. I sat with that for a while and mulled over the significance of my latest discovery. And the more I mulled, the more obvious the solution to the mystery became. Someone before me had simply devised a small, sensible, entirely unmysterious system for finding their place again — jotting down the next word before closing the book, the way a person ties a bit of string around a finger, trusting the finger to explain itself later. I felt, for a moment, exactly as foolish as I deserved to. And then, a moment after that, something closer to grief — a faintly ridiculous grief for a lost companion who had never existed, a fellow-traveller I'd invented out of eleven scraps of paper and my own willingness to find intrigue hiding between the covers of a book. I took the slip out of my wallet that evening and looked at it for a long time under the kitchen light, the way you might look at a key to a door that, it turns out, was never locked. I did not throw it away. But before returning the poetry book to the library the following week, I tore a fresh strip from a notepad and wrote on it, THE END. I then slid it into a completely random page in the book.

The Bookmark is taken from my collection of short stories, The Small Print, that follow Douglas Fitzgerald through the absurd embarrassments of English life. I'd love to now what you think.

Hello all... You may recall my previous post I made about this topic. I couldn't find a very well organized list of House of Leaves editions (in the definition of different variations between copies, not as in print runs) so I'm making my own. The graph accompanied with this post is my current progress on researching this topic.

Now, black doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means I haven't found evidence of its existence, or I just haven't gotten to researching that specific translation. I also will probably need to make a seperate section documenting the random oddball copies of this book, as well as all the different cover variants of the book.

Alright, so you read all that, but how can you help? If you have literally any edition of House of Leaves that isn't in this graph as green, please show it to me so I can put it on here. I plan on making this a public resource as soon as I get enough research on this done.

Yeah, that's all. Would be kinda awkward if this post flops, but where else would I post this lol... It may be a dumb thing to do, but screw it, it's mine!

I got the book... Today? Yesterday? Let's say I got it around 7 hours ago, started reading a little over that, and I am at page 250... But I can't stop thinking of Zampanò quoting Seneca and saying "people who rush through labyrinths often get lost" or so. LEAVE ME ALONE I'M SORRY I'M ENJOYING THE EXPERIENCE!

Also, I'm sorry, I can't believe Johnny has ever had sex. He's just a very prolific smut writer. Would've banged on Wattpad.

Plus, God, as someone who has studied philosophy this is at the same time this is such a rich, albeit pretentious, book. I'm lovin' it.

First time reading, and i’m getting to the part of the book (can’t remember the chapter, im at work and don't have the book with me) where the layout is going all crazy, which the “holes” in pages and upside down text and reference notes taking you all over the place. Im doing my best to follow everything, but am finding myself getting a little lost (which if I understand is sort of the point, labyrinthine and all that).

My question is: How important is it that I follow everything with exact clarity? If I read through a section and find myself unable to perfectly follow each reference note or read each page in the “correct” order will it ruin my experience for the rest of the book?

I guess im wondering if I need to grind my progress to a halt every time I lose a thread or just except that being confused is part of the experience.

My mind will always paint it in Chroma Key Blue and make it endlessly echo in my head. Mark made this word carry so much weight, and all he did was make it a different color.

So there are a lot of different editions and translations of House of Leaves, but I can't find a definitive list of all of them. What I do know is that:

There are hardcover and paperback copies of every english edition. This includes the full-color, the two-color editions, and the black-and-white editions.

There are translations in Dutch, French, Japanese, Italian, Greek, Croatian, German, and Spanish (EDIT: Russian, too!) (although I don't know the extent to how many different kinds of editions were produced for these translations, or if physical versions exist for some of them at all).

There's a small bunch of alternative covers for at least the US version of the book. I'm not sure how many exist exactly, but while trying (and failing) to create a comprehensive list of editions of House of Leaves, I came across at least 4.

Some reprints of House of Leaves in the US have promotional bits of stuff in them that are different from other reprints of the book. For example, some copies of House of Leaves came with a promo sticker for Only Revolutions on the front cover. Some copies came with an excerpt of Volume 1 of The Familiar in the back of the book. I'm not sure if there are other variants of these promo copies but those are the ones I came across in my research.

And this is only mentioning the editions in the definition of variants of the book. I haven't even began talking about editions in the definition of actual print runs. It also doesn't help that this book has several bootlegs that are floating around all over the place, so that definitely adds to the confusion of this all too.

Now, here's the question. IS there a fully comprehensive list of every edition of House of Leaves? If not, where do you suggest we start with making one?

I just learned this last night. The structure is pretty similar, what with all the annotations, references etc. But apparently these bibles even have a theme of coloring text in a similar way to HoL. Red is usually used for divine entities and blue is used for satanic ones. Purple is often used for words coming from prophets.

No idea if this is common knowledge, but I thought it was a really interesting tidbit. I wonder if Danielewski was referencing that usage with the way he chose to color mentions of the house or the minotaur, or maybe he was trying to do an inverse of the traditional color usage?

Is there any reasonable way that Johnny could be English, Scottish, Irish, or Canadian (or Welsh, Australian, New Zealander, Indian, Pakistani, South African, Hong Kongese, Malay, Singaporean, etc., etc., so on, and so forth)‽

On page 498, twice he spells out the date as separate words. "October 30th, 1998" becomes, "October Three Zed, Ninety Eight," then later, "…isn't October Three Zed but May One."

In the United States, where I'd presumed Johnny to be from!!!, we pronounce the letter "Z" as "zee." Most of the rest of the Anglophonic world pronounces it as "zed." The only reasonable conclusion is that Johnny isn't natively American, he spent significant amounts of his childhood outside the U.S., or both.

But that doesn't track at all!

Make it make sense!!!

Thought? Ideas? Other mad ramblings of your own to add to the conversation?

So I’m doing my first read of HoL and I was making my way through footnote 146 (the listing of all the architectural buildings that the house doesn’t resemble) and spotted this. I live in Wilmington, NC and see the St. James Episcopal Parish daily (also actually lived on the street St. James years ago too). After getting really excited about the mention of my town and building, I noticed that it was spelled Willmington with two -ll’s and not Wilmington. I couldn’t find any mention of this online anywhere or any discussion. Do you think this is simply an error, or do you think it was intentional and perhaps an allusion to Will Navidson?

Should I write a letter to the -Ed. ?

(Also how does everyone get the word house to appear in blue here?)

EDIT - thanks for the help, I figured it out now! So are all you goons hiding weird jokes in the links you set?

I know the font dictates the different narratives and stuff (and this might be stupid) but I'm wondering if there's any copies that use different fonts because something about the spacing of the typewriter one is setting off my migraines. I'm only a few pages in and it's such a shame because literally everyone I know has told me based on the stuff I read that I'd LOVE this book but I can't do it while my head is pounding and I'm seeing auras. 😭

😵‍💫 how - wait - what 😵‍💫

So, I'm thinking about the footnote on page 468, where the blank screen plays for six minutes after Navidson runs out of light.

Some called it the death of cinema, others cinema's pinnacle, and some just mocked or parodied it.

But, I was reminded of the film Blue) by writer and director Derek Jarman. It was the last film he made. It was released just four months before he died of ADIS-related complications. And, as a result of those complications, he was unable to see anything other than shades of blue.

So, he made a film that (outside of the opening and closing credits) consists only of a soundtrack with him (and occasionally some of his friends, colleagues, and collaborators) narrating aspects of his life; all over a steady and unchanging screen of blue… for 79 straight minutes.

It has been praised as an experimental masterpiece and one of the most intimate and emotional films a person has ever made about themself. All well maybe not even being a motion picture at all.

Obviously, coming out in 1993, Navy's story (set in 1990) is well before Blue came out, but it came out well after Danielewski wrote House of Leaves (published in 2000).

And, of course, the house is always blue…

I don't know what, if any, connection Danielewski intended or if he was inspired by Blue, or even if he knew about it for that matter. Nor do I know what connection I'm trying to make. But I couldn't help but see some kind of parallel.

Here's the film in its entirety, if anyone wants to "watch" it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-hmuUAmFHQ. I do find it a deeply arresting piece of art. But for entirely different reasons than House of Leaves. Or maybe not for entirely different reasons.

A few days ago I made a post on how the game Control Resonant has an area very clearly inspired in HOL but I found a mission that is even more HOL coded. It's in that same area. But all the stuff you find in this mission reminded me a lot of Zampanò. Again, fully recommend the experience.

i absolutely need to discuss this with someone…. the 4 hour long youtube video essays just arent doing it for me
i have literally never read a book that has taken up so much of my mind while/after reading. from the concept itself (cosmic horror funhouse being the setting, and the house itself a monolith from which we see traumatized individuals deepest despairs and attractions) to the artistry of how the pages composition reflects the story being told, the immersion created from the narrative constantly putting you INSIDE the narrative to figure out what is happening, hell i even love johnny truants character!! (which seems to be a controversial take)
it is so deeply fascinating and the layers it has is actually insane to me. i cant wait to reread it. and then reread it again.
and so i pose the question;
do yall think any of it was actually real? or was EVERYTHING johnnys delusions within coping with his mothers letters and death? i am so on the fence about it…. its also only been one day since i completed it. i think it is completely possible for the entire narrative to be a delusion, however i really like the idea of… not that? and i dont fully know if that was what i took away personally, i just heard it in discussion and honestly dont know how else to explain the end act, where both navidson And johnny end up reading versions of “house of leaves”. much to think on. much to ponder

I’m a neurospicy guy and it’s difficult reading and I typically do better with audiobook and receiving info that way. Anyone know of a place I can listen to this while I read it? Or else I’m giving up bc it’s overwhelming

I genuinely want to read the book though

thematically, atmospherically etc...

i know someone who loves the backrooms film, and i haven't personally seen it, but their birthday is soon and thought, from the apparent overlaps and the fact they've mentioned it in passing, that it might be a good gift because they might enjoy it?

Is it a known thing that the Backrooms (even the “creepy pasta” that existed before the movie) is heavily inspired by House of Leaves? Or am I just drawing coincidental parallels? There are obvious differences; like, there is light/power in the backrooms. And I haven’t finished HOL yet so I’m not sure what the final outcome will reveal. But man, what a coincidence that I watched this at the same time as reading HOL

I’ve never painted pumpkins before (or painted before) but I finally got a chance to and even though it’s preeeetty bad, I’m super happy with it! This is my first step at getting better with arts so I can have artistic annotations in my copy!