Hot take: I reread House of Leaves two years ago, haven’t read it since college. Weirdly found myself not enjoying it as much. Some cool ideas yeah but honestly felt like it thought it was smarter than it was. Perhaps that’s cuz “meta” fiction is way more common now so it feels a bit trite, I suppose back then it was more fresh. Also some of the characters felt shallow and I didn’t always buy their motivations.
This kind of stuff was always my issue with most of the genre of ‘post-modern’ or ‘meta-fiction’. It doesn’t seem to have a real respect for traditional fiction itself as a complex medium to explore the human condition, the author being so detached that they can only think to use the medium to describe the human condition within fiction. Essentially creating a novel to do the job of the critic and theorist.
While interesting, it has always struck me as not actually that inventive, as this kind of metacriticism has been part and parcel of writing forever, even Aeacylus would include characters that were essentially cheap shots and criticisms of the state of plays and city life.
That doesn’t mean the portrayal of the medium of something like House of Leaves isn’t interesting, just that it probably isn’t as deep as it has pretense towards being.
Didn’t thr author intend the book to make fun of long winded academic texts? Don’t think you need to explore human nature to determine that’s annoying for everyone except the biggest nerds
I was in high school when it came out and loaned it to my English teacher. His assessment was pretty similar and I wasn’t happy at the time, but in retrospect, Mr. Hughes had it right.
I thought the whole Johnny being incapable of walking two feet without a beautiful woman offering him sex was going to be revealed as a bit of unreliable narrator. But no, I guess sleep deprived starving tattoo assistants losing their grip on sanity are just hot as fuck.
was that not the implication? i mean, certainly some of it probably happened, but i did just assume that johhny (drunk madman) was not having the greatest times regardless of whatever he might say.
i figured that the sickening, unnerving, body-horror esq way that the woman with the Pekinese was described was closer to what was actually going on. i figured all these girls were somewhere between absolutely average and just having the worst times of their lives, like johnny, but we were getting his tilted/exagerated perspective - only one of these encounters was actually confirmed to have happened (as much as anything is ever confirmed in this book lol).
Hot take: I reread House of Leaves two years ago, haven’t read it since college. Weirdly found myself not enjoying it as much. Some cool ideas yeah but honestly felt like it thought it was smarter than it was. Perhaps that’s cuz “meta” fiction is way more common now so it feels a bit trite, I suppose back then it was more fresh. Also some of the characters felt shallow and I didn’t always buy their motivations.
But that’s just my opinion I guess
This kind of stuff was always my issue with most of the genre of ‘post-modern’ or ‘meta-fiction’. It doesn’t seem to have a real respect for traditional fiction itself as a complex medium to explore the human condition, the author being so detached that they can only think to use the medium to describe the human condition within fiction. Essentially creating a novel to do the job of the critic and theorist.
While interesting, it has always struck me as not actually that inventive, as this kind of metacriticism has been part and parcel of writing forever, even Aeacylus would include characters that were essentially cheap shots and criticisms of the state of plays and city life.
That doesn’t mean the portrayal of the medium of something like House of Leaves isn’t interesting, just that it probably isn’t as deep as it has pretense towards being.
Didn’t thr author intend the book to make fun of long winded academic texts? Don’t think you need to explore human nature to determine that’s annoying for everyone except the biggest nerds
I was in high school when it came out and loaned it to my English teacher. His assessment was pretty similar and I wasn’t happy at the time, but in retrospect, Mr. Hughes had it right.
I thought the whole Johnny being incapable of walking two feet without a beautiful woman offering him sex was going to be revealed as a bit of unreliable narrator. But no, I guess sleep deprived starving tattoo assistants losing their grip on sanity are just hot as fuck.
As a former member of the Philly punk scene, this isn’t inaccurate based on my experience.
was that not the implication? i mean, certainly some of it probably happened, but i did just assume that johhny (drunk madman) was not having the greatest times regardless of whatever he might say.
i figured that the sickening, unnerving, body-horror esq way that the woman with the Pekinese was described was closer to what was actually going on. i figured all these girls were somewhere between absolutely average and just having the worst times of their lives, like johnny, but we were getting his tilted/exagerated perspective - only one of these encounters was actually confirmed to have happened (as much as anything is ever confirmed in this book lol).