House of Leaves: A Declared Work of Fiction
House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, is a cluster of stories narrated by Johnny Truant, a man in his early 30's with a troubled past. The stories consist of captions of Johnny's personal life as well as parts of Zampano’s The Navidson Record; a documentation of the Navidson family's supernatural experiences after they move into a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Johnny reiterates Zampano's work and tells the story of Will Navidson whose original desire to raise his family in a new home takes a dark turn as he decides to abandon his initial plan and succumbs to madness as he explores the house's hidden labyrinth, losing loved ones and his wits in the process. A prominent motif in the text …show more content…
The fact that House of Leaves is a work of metafiction only solidifies the importance of the motif of what is real and what is not as the text declares to the readers as being text and having fictional aspects. Now the question is why is the text so adamantly screaming at the reader that it is a work of fiction? The novel itself is a labyrinth “elaborate [...] in colour and typography, in code and layout” supplementing the reader with numerous opportunities to explore different paths and within each path offers the reader unlimited
House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, is a cluster of stories narrated by Johnny Truant, a man in his early 30's with a troubled past. The stories consist of captions of Johnny's personal life as well as parts of Zampano’s The Navidson Record; a documentation of the Navidson family's supernatural experiences after they move into a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Johnny reiterates Zampano's work and tells the story of Will Navidson whose original desire to raise his family in a new home takes a dark turn as he decides to abandon his initial plan and succumbs to madness as he explores the house's hidden labyrinth, losing loved ones and his wits in the process. A prominent motif in the text …show more content…
The fact that House of Leaves is a work of metafiction only solidifies the importance of the motif of what is real and what is not as the text declares to the readers as being text and having fictional aspects. Now the question is why is the text so adamantly screaming at the reader that it is a work of fiction? The novel itself is a labyrinth “elaborate [...] in colour and typography, in code and layout” supplementing the reader with numerous opportunities to explore different paths and within each path offers the reader unlimited