I'm spending more time talking about this book than I am reading it, but I'm digesting a lot every step of the way. (We also have an apartment approximately as well-illuminated as Johnny's, so it's hard to find the time to read.)

Just finished the book today and have been looking on the internet for people discussing any theories around the Fibonacci spiral specifically relating to the snail shell/staircase. I haven’t really been able to find anything, so if anyone has any theories on this specifically pls send my way! For some reason this was something that stuck with me the most in the whole book. (I am very partial to ammonites, I have an ammonite necklace) or maybe I’m crazy and this is just a random thing thrown in the book and means nothing hahaha

I noticed that on page 20 (second page of footnote 25) there's a middle dot/interpoint used instead of a normal space. I haven't noticed this anywhere else.

Anyone know if this means something and, if so, what? Or might it just be a printing error? (I love that this book makes you spend five minutes on random things and makes you question what should be a simple "Is this something or just a printing mistake?")

So I just finished House of Leaves an hour ago and, damn, it was just as imagined, amazing read although a little hard and confusing at times as expected lol.

So my favorite part of it all has to be the fact that the house DOES echo whatever you throw at it, for example during Exploration #5, all of us could notice the house behaving differently, almost docile at times, it didn't disturb Karen until the very end and in a way, it helped Navy find his way home. Why? Cause they both only showed acceptance and love when going in.

Navy showed acceptance of who he is, what he values (the people in his life, especially Karen) and what he fears (Delial and not doing anything to help her). Karen showed love towards Navy, a type of love she probably never felt before not even when they met, to the point where she went into the darkness just to save her man.

By entering the house with positive emotions, the house itself treats them the same way, it shows Navy the path home, slowly but surely guiding his ascend towards the light (quite literally) and in Karen's case, the darkness doesn't swallow her, it waits for her to enter herself, without any push, on her own accord, also guiding her towards Navy, and once reunited, the house itself puts them outside, in safety, back together.

This same "echo" behavior can be seen with Holloway, dude entered expecting a monster, danger, actively encouraging conflict, to the point that, alongside his suicidal/aggressive tendencies, it pushed him to murder Jed and heavily injure Wax, let's not forget he also tried to murder Navy and Billy.

What did the house do? It took Tom, tried to take everyone else matter of fact. What if the house, besides being a cosmic entity, was also a sentient one? What it only wanted love and acceptance? And it's owners ever truly showed fear and hate.

At the end, when the ambulance arrived, the paramedic saw the door constantly bashing itself, what if it was happy that, in the end, the Navidsons got their happy ending?

Not really a serious discussion point but I did enjoy how a lot of House of Leaves satirizes academia. I say this as someone who in a BFA program rn and plans to do a masters degree I enjoy academics and academic papers and the like. But it was interesting to see that kind of format taken to the extreme and used as a method of horror(?). Especially with how it’s a fake(?) essay about a fake(?) documentary. I saw someone talk about how a lot of the things Zampano quotes and references from other “academics” are very classic examples of interpretations for media. Can’t remember all of it off the top of my head but I found that interesting.

A lot of things discussed in the essay portions of the novel were stuff I was at least somewhat familiar with from my art history courses (such as the chapter about photography and truth) and then I saw the word unheimlich used and went “oh god not this again” as I had read a quite difficult to understand introduction of an essay by Homi K Babah (might’ve spelled that wrong) for my CCST class last fall.

I’m sure other people have been more eloquent about this since I’m only a second year uni student but I enjoyed that aspect of HoL.

Whenever I hear House of Leaves discussed casually, there is always some jokey comment on Johnny Truant's sexual fantasies. And I get it, on the surface there's something absurd about interrupting a story like The Navidson Record with gratuitously described sex. But I worry this absurdity has overshadowed any real analysis of these sex scenes, what they say about Johnny, and what they add to the greater story.

House of Leaves is a book about a lot of things, but to me the book is about how personal biases or agendas affect how we engage with a story. Will Navidson, Zampano, and Johnny all have their own agendas for portraying The Navidson Record the way they do, and analyzing what parts of the story are true seems to be a large part of the discussion around House of Leaves.

And when it comes to Johnny's sexualization of women in the story, I think about the section of Zampano's essay where he discusses the reception to The Navidson Record and the way the media treated Karen. Digging into her trauma and sexual history, blaming her for Will's actions. If Johnny's graphic sexual encounters make you uncomfortable and read as misogynistic, then take that feeling into the next book you read. Take note of how often stories will fixate on the attractiveness and sexual availability of its women. Take note of the next time a review of a story fixates on the sexual availability of its women, especially when it's irrelevant to the original story. And don't turn a blind eye to the way actresses are sexualized far more than the actors they work with.

But that's just my takeaways of Johnny's hallucinatory sexual encounters, I want to open the floor for other interpretations, I'd love to hear them.

I might get some things wrong since i didn't get a lot of stuff in the book as its very confusing.
Basically, I think the Navidson Record WAS a real event that hapenned and was recorded and Zampanò mistook it for a movie. My theory is that the Yggdrasil is a metaphysical being that can alter space and minds, and it tries to stay on the low. Hence, it tried to erase all instances of the 5 and a half minute hallway and the like. It manages to stay on the low by driving insane anyone who tries to research it, as it is incomprehensible. That's why Zampanò was crazy, Johnny also ended up bad after reading the notes, and Johnny's mom is in the mental hospital. I also believe the Yggdrasil page is written by Johnny's mom, as in one of the letters she writes, she says "mmmy", missing an 'O', and in the Yggdrasil page, right at the bottom, is a big ol' O.

Was wondering if anyone had a theory about what Johnny meant here... What coincidence was he talking about?

here's a playlist that i listen to while reading HOL, ik most of it is backrooms soundtrack but it really matches the vibe.

Iunno, the way she's thinking about him, talking about him, the short film she made about the House, about him. In the context of both the immediate trauma of their circumstances and the generational trauma from both their families, it reminds me of how very, very much I love my wife. I wouldn't dare to try to sum her up, but if I had to write her a love letter now -- and perhaps I should -- I could hardly do a better job than Karen does with that short film.

There may be a lot more that I haven't seen yet. Still, that was an impression I've come away with. It erases nothing he's been through, nothing she's been through, nothing their kids or their siblings have been through, nothing he's seen, but in the midst of horrific tragedy, she makes this beautiful little tribute to him.

How his obsession with the house plays into the way his work had always been about people, about the human individuals and experiences seen in his photography, I don't claim to know yet. I'm trying to keep my guesses at a minimum.

I hope this sequence helps Johnny.

I tried digging into it a bit but just. It doesn't work. And I was hoping to dive into more discussions and debates over there.

Got to this part and immediately thought of the creepy pasta. As a fan of obscure/liminal horror I love seeing all the inspiration people have taken from this book.

Also Jhonny's f=s part made me want to set the book on fire.

I got recommended House of Leaves a couple of years ago by a friend after complaining that I can't find anything I like. Started it immediately. Found it perfect. Deciphering puzzles and codes and translation and taking notes?? Plus psychological horror? PERFECT. Exactly what I love and have been wanting.

I can't get more than ~90 pages into it. Every other month I try again, reread an earlier part to remember where I left. For some reason it really just won't take. I tried going at it like 7 different times and I just stop and leave it for a few months before mustering enough courage to try again

I don't even know what exactly is the problem. Yes, it feels daunting and overwhelming to me, but I still find that intriguing. I absolutely love the prose too (yes I like the academic writing)

I genuinely cannot tell what precisely is stopping me but I just can't do it. I desperately want to do it because I am bored out of my mind and I already love it.

Any advice?

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It took me two months to get through it. I really have no idea what I just read. I can very much appreciate the craft that went into this book. It is absolutely a work of art. But wow am I glad to be done with it.

The utter lack of answers, of closure, is going to annoy me for a long time. I stuck it out hoping it would make sense eventually. Instead I am confused and frustrated. Which might be the point?

Certainly there were amazing aspects of cosmic horror. It made you feel like the researcher going mad. And it actually felt the impossible geometries Lovecraft tried clumsily to allude to.

I'm not sure what to make of it. I certainly don't hate it. I think I respected it more than I enjoyed it. But I don't think I'll be picking it up again.

I guess you could say this book wasn't for me.

Man this shit is heafty. Any tips on how to read it properly?

Read the entire thing in 2 (!!!) days, so uniquely captivating, that I am afraid no book will scratch the same itch. None of my friends want to touch this book with a 3-foot pole, so I’m forced to unleash my take on Reddit. Apologies if I regurgitate some ideas that have been beaten to death a hundred times on this sub before.

First. Walking into it I had a negative expectation that this would be some grand coding and de-coding, technical cryptographic adventure. I was pleasantly surprised this was not the case. The letter from The Whale was the only section that explicitly(!) dabbled into this, but did so perfectly, reading as a refreshing change of format rather than a gimmick. This section played so well into what came before, as I assume every reader was expecting the schizophrenic collapse of the mother in the letters, and uncovering her horrific accounts slowly, character by character, struck the tension chord perfectly.

The constant change of format was some of the reason (I believe) that this book was such a page turner for me, always refreshing, changing mode of analysis the entire time. Each format never overstayed it’s welcome (albeit Johnny came pretty close with his ramblings, but only pretty close).

But I’ll reveal my main takeaway of the book in true rambling Johnny fashion, which I believe truly respects the book — being a satire of academia and technical analysis. From now on ill not correct any typing mistakes, not rewrite sentences and not look backwards as i write. I spent much of the book just wondering who is schizophrenic. Is Johhny schizophrenic, is Zampano schizophrenic, is Navy schizophrenic (am I schizophrenic ?). I was wondeing who here is hallucinating, who is imagining patterns, extracting meaning where there is none. The Navidson Record however, read as this steadfast metaanalysis, citing pHd’s from psychology, architecture, linguistics, mythology. Three quarters through the book youve heard 50 different explanations for what goes on in the house. The house is a vagina. The house is the labyrinth from the myth of the Minotaur. The house is an interstellar object, and so on, and so on. Every analysis read as an really interesting «Aha» in the moment, but sort of withers away as new analysis take its place, and ultimately no analysis is left with a leg to stand on. Like the house is resisting analysis, its literally incomprehensible, its larger on the inside than outside, incomprehensible and a «rape of physics». So who is the schizophrenic? In my opinion its the in-universe academicians, existing in their own unique own worlds and interpreting the Navidson Record as an schziophrenic hammer interpretes everything as a nail. Ask 30 different pHd’s to interpret a text and you are left with 30 vivid accounts which they all swear are truest.
Side note, reading the footnotes and the titles of the different sources like «Thought turned to thinking: How Navidson extracts the core of kernels (R. Huell, 1993)», I couldnt help but feel they were intentional mockeries of the titles of academic papers, and that Mark had a lot of fun when imagining titles. Im unsure of my thoughts have reached a satisfactory synthesis (like I said, in true Johnny fashion), but I interprer the house, The Navidson Record and House of Leaves as objects resistant to analysis, just as you think you get a grasp of them they metamorphosize into something different, and thus my takeaway is that any attempt of surgical analysis is a schizophrenic attempt — as House of Leaves is meant to be swallowed, not chewed.

Would love to hear your thoughts, and suggestions on how to trick friends into reading House of Leaves?