quote:I still get nightmares. In fact I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I'm not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares.
For a while there I tried every pill imaginable. Anything to curb the fear. Excedrin PMs, Melatonin, L-tryptophan, Valium, Vicodin, quite a few members of the barbital family. A pretty extensive list, frequently mixed, often matched, with shots of bourbon, a few lung rasping bong hits, sometimes even the vaporous confidence-trip of cocaine. None of it helped. I think it's pretty safe to assume the kind of chemicals I need. A Nobel Prize to the one who invents that puppy.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
[This message has been edited by TheoPhileo (edited February 11, 2004).]
posted
This would depend where the book jacket says it's going. If it's heading for the seamy side of life, I'd Stinker it, otherwise, I'd give it a Line.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
WOW! I don't really know what to say about this one. Maybe... I think I need a shower!
Dark, very Dark. But a good bit of writing. I wonder if this trails off to insanity or something. I would probably continue reading, just for the car crash factor.
Something this depressing somehow draws you in, because you feel sorry, disgusted, and unnerved because of the subject matter. I would call it a hook just because I couldn't turn away. It's like someone says, "You want to see the bloody gash on my leg?" You have to do it!
posted
Id say it is a Line. I simply need to read further, before I can say more than the writing is in no way disagreeable, maybe even nice. I could love or hate the book, and there is simply no good way to tell from this passage.
Sounding more like a hook the more I write.Except I wouldn't give it that rating because my intest is more in satisfying my own curious nature than any particular interest in the 'character' displayed up untill this point. I certainly would not be looking for any 'car crash factor,' there would be no thrill in that for me, I would definetly be looking for something more substantial -though I would not want to limit my self what just what this might be.
posted
I haven't heard of this book, but I'm hooked! There's barely a hint of the plot, but the writing is great. HOOK!
Posts: 976 | Registered: May 2001
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I'm actually surprised nobody here has heard of it. It had hundreds, probably even thousands of copies sold and/or distributed before any publishers would buy it. It is highly unorthodox, and I would probably actually call it more of a modern epic poem (in a contemporary poetry style) than a novel. It has stories embedded in stories, multiple languages and fonts, each representative of different things, some pages with only a single word on them, others where the words form shapes and designs on the page, entire sections in binary code. Very bizzare, but it has intrigued me since I first heard about it, and I hope to read it soon. And for some strange reason, the word "house" always and only appears in blue text, regardless of the language it's written in. It sounds like something that takes a lot of effort to pull the full meaning from (though I've also heard a cursory reading still produces an interesting story).
[This message has been edited by TheoPhileo (edited February 13, 2004).]
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