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dornishviperxTrying to keep a better track of the books I've read this year, so I don't immediately forget them! I thought this might be a good use for this space. I finished reading House of Leaves at the very beginning of this year. I was reading ti in a two-person "book club", which is to say that I was reading it at the same time as a friend of mine.
Some thoughts
I liked the book generally speaking, mostly for its experiments with form and format. I thought that the experience of having to physically manipulate the book and how I was holding it was very fun, especially in public, and I thought that the blank spaces and other funky layouts often added an element to the pacing and generally contributed to the whole ambiance of the book. The one thing I really did not like about it was its treatment of female characters in general; Karen gets the brunt of this, but the rotating cast of traumatized women that Johnny sleeps with (nearly all of them are specified to be rape and/or abuse survivors, because that's the only kind of thing we can imagine happening to a woman, I suppose) was also grating.
I thought Johnny's sections were amusing, his narration and the weird things going on with him mentally added to the creepiness of the text overall. I know those sections are the controversial ones (my friend hated them), but I think they're pretty essential to the book and how you interact with it as a whole.
I absolutely loathed the ending. Bittersweet suburban white people getting married living a family life ending. Boo, yawn. Extremely boring. Karen deserved better than all that nonsense.
Some thoughts
I liked the book generally speaking, mostly for its experiments with form and format. I thought that the experience of having to physically manipulate the book and how I was holding it was very fun, especially in public, and I thought that the blank spaces and other funky layouts often added an element to the pacing and generally contributed to the whole ambiance of the book. The one thing I really did not like about it was its treatment of female characters in general; Karen gets the brunt of this, but the rotating cast of traumatized women that Johnny sleeps with (nearly all of them are specified to be rape and/or abuse survivors, because that's the only kind of thing we can imagine happening to a woman, I suppose) was also grating.
I thought Johnny's sections were amusing, his narration and the weird things going on with him mentally added to the creepiness of the text overall. I know those sections are the controversial ones (my friend hated them), but I think they're pretty essential to the book and how you interact with it as a whole.
I absolutely loathed the ending. Bittersweet suburban white people getting married living a family life ending. Boo, yawn. Extremely boring. Karen deserved better than all that nonsense.
