Danielewski's The House of Leaves

I began reading Mark Z. Danielewski's The House of Leaves today, and after only one sentence, I was intrigued.

Page one: This is not for you.

Hell yes, I wanted to read it! What kind of person is told "this is not for you" and then doesn't want it for themselves? I felt a shiver down my spine as I turned the page and began to read what felt like a very dangerous book indeed.

This post is not a review - not yet. I will do that one later. I simply wanted to comment on how complex and wonderful this work really is. Ergodic Literature is something that has fascinated me for a good few years now, because I believe it epitomizes everything that a book ought to be - an experience. Not merely a story to follow, not merely a character to passively follow around, but something that can change who you are as a person, so that you are different by the time the final leaf has turned. A book ought to be something that you fall into and get lost in. Something that stirs your senses so much that you can almost feel, see, smell, hear it all.

Ergodic literature goes one step further, because it works by adding another dimension to the book: the visual. It takes a lot more to write an ergodic piece than it does to write a normal novel, because the way the words are laid out on the page need to produce an intended effect on the reader. It requires a lot more thought.

I used to love working in London. Not because of the city itself, but because of the commute. I always felt a little cheeky thinking that as I walked in the underground or sat on the tube/bus, I was carrying a whole world around with me in my bag. A secret that only I was able to indulge in. It tickled me silly to think that this secret was one I could capture in my mind, where no one else could reach it. It's the same with writing a book.

Not every book has the power to do this, I'm afraid. But the ones that do... they are the ones that hold power for me. And The House of Leaves has certainly been one of these books for me so far. I sense that I won't quite be the same person when I'm done with it. I will have shifted into a slightly different form of myself. Already my mind is turning, swirling, changing, contracting, expanding... what is going to happen? What is going on? I don't know, but I want to find out.

Have any of you read this remarkable book? What was your opinion on it? Have you had a similar experience to me, of reading a work that affects your life and the course it is taking? Which books, please, I would like to know! Here is a girl looking for the extraordinary.