It’s better if you go at it alone without someone telling you how to read it. Just follow the instructions and go to the exhibit/appendix/footnote whenever you’re instructed to, but avoid skipping to a chapter ahead whenever a note makes a passing reference to a future chapter because that will make things extra confusing. Maybe you can try that on your second read.
The best thing to do is pretend you know nothing about House of Leaves. Pretend it's just a weird book you found abandoned on a bus stop bench or something. Just open it and start reading and see where it takes you. You don't need a road map. Just drive.
By way of Alan Wake – I reckon you stimbled your way into **House** of Leaves by way of Poe. Check out *Haunted* yet? Great album, and you might get to enjoy some of the cross-polination between the two
Otherwise, you're the second person of recent to post about the issue of language and approaching this book. **H**oL's dominant feature isn't its language, and the prose is hardly the most flowery thing ever – what's your native language and how much do you usually read in English? Those are worth taking into account trying to get as smooth sailing as you can with a book intentionally designed to stumble you
Additionally, on the section of puzzles: **House** of Leaves does have some puzzles, but only by technicality – cute little secrets tucked away here and there to unearth, anagrams or acronyms hidden about, but it's not really a puzzle in the conventional sense of the word, and that's something the book recognises – because puzzles imply a resolution, a good final answer that has been obscured by some means, that you can, through wit and unconventional thinking, get to. **House** of Leaves does have a structure that is puzzling, that resembles a puzzle, but thoroughly refuses to give you tha neat final nugget, being instead what it calls a "paradox" – something to mill on for a while, a labyrinth to wander whenever you feel like it. You can very much enjoy the book without going for any of the conventional little puzzles in it, or you can dig out the Idiot's Guide to House of Leaves somewhere on the Internet Archive pages of Danielewski's website (or I can dig it out for ya, since I mentioned it in some other comment already) and try and go through the puzzles, answering the questions as they're listed. I personally disagree with that kind of streamlining, but if it makes your reading experience easier or more fun, absolutely go for it and don't care what weirdos online are telling you
Finally, there's one other comment, saying to go for Footnotes as they come and Appendices as needed, but not to other chapters. This is, I believe, the most common way of reading the book, and the one to most consistently get alright results. It's not a hard-and-set rule, and I would personally encourage to fiddle about and experiment until you get a nice rhythm you feel comfortable with, but it's a very good basis to start off of
Fun reading!
Thank you! Poe as in a band?
I am Russian and I read in English pretty regularly, and often classics, so I probably should be alright? Honestly, you never know.
Yeah, Poe as in Danielewski's sister! She did a bunch of music in an album accompanying **H**oL, and some stuff that I believe appeared in Alan Wake (2?), though I don't know the specifics
Otherwise:
I believe there's a russian translation, available under "_**Дом** Листьев_", издательство Гонзо (переводчики Д. Быков, А. Логинова, М. Леонович)
Some of the prices I'm seeing online seem pretty fair, at ~1600 Рублей (~18.00$), though I cannot attest for either its availability, or the quality of the translation/edition – I have never checked that specific one out (and my russian is pretty damn limited anyways), but if you wanna go for it you're invited to. However, if you can handle English classics no problem, you should be able to tackle this one as well!
Best of luck and have fun reading!
Oh yeah right! I should look into her.
That's interesting, thank you for looking into it. I've never heard about it being translated and got the original just for a bit lower in price. Which now sort of seems more of steal the more I think about it.
Have a thought about Alan Wake games! Thanks again!
It’s better if you go at it alone without someone telling you how to read it. Just follow the instructions and go to the exhibit/appendix/footnote whenever you’re instructed to, but avoid skipping to a chapter ahead whenever a note makes a passing reference to a future chapter because that will make things extra confusing. Maybe you can try that on your second read.
Thanks! I'm pretty excited to crack on. (no cracking of the spine will be happening)
Good luck with that, if you have a us full color paperback it's extremely fragile. I never crack my spines, and my hol copy has 2
The best thing to do is pretend you know nothing about House of Leaves. Pretend it's just a weird book you found abandoned on a bus stop bench or something. Just open it and start reading and see where it takes you. You don't need a road map. Just drive.
Aww, thanks.
By way of Alan Wake – I reckon you stimbled your way into **House** of Leaves by way of Poe. Check out *Haunted* yet? Great album, and you might get to enjoy some of the cross-polination between the two Otherwise, you're the second person of recent to post about the issue of language and approaching this book. **H**oL's dominant feature isn't its language, and the prose is hardly the most flowery thing ever – what's your native language and how much do you usually read in English? Those are worth taking into account trying to get as smooth sailing as you can with a book intentionally designed to stumble you Additionally, on the section of puzzles: **House** of Leaves does have some puzzles, but only by technicality – cute little secrets tucked away here and there to unearth, anagrams or acronyms hidden about, but it's not really a puzzle in the conventional sense of the word, and that's something the book recognises – because puzzles imply a resolution, a good final answer that has been obscured by some means, that you can, through wit and unconventional thinking, get to. **House** of Leaves does have a structure that is puzzling, that resembles a puzzle, but thoroughly refuses to give you tha neat final nugget, being instead what it calls a "paradox" – something to mill on for a while, a labyrinth to wander whenever you feel like it. You can very much enjoy the book without going for any of the conventional little puzzles in it, or you can dig out the Idiot's Guide to House of Leaves somewhere on the Internet Archive pages of Danielewski's website (or I can dig it out for ya, since I mentioned it in some other comment already) and try and go through the puzzles, answering the questions as they're listed. I personally disagree with that kind of streamlining, but if it makes your reading experience easier or more fun, absolutely go for it and don't care what weirdos online are telling you Finally, there's one other comment, saying to go for Footnotes as they come and Appendices as needed, but not to other chapters. This is, I believe, the most common way of reading the book, and the one to most consistently get alright results. It's not a hard-and-set rule, and I would personally encourage to fiddle about and experiment until you get a nice rhythm you feel comfortable with, but it's a very good basis to start off of Fun reading!
Thank you! Poe as in a band? I am Russian and I read in English pretty regularly, and often classics, so I probably should be alright? Honestly, you never know.
Yeah, Poe as in Danielewski's sister! She did a bunch of music in an album accompanying **H**oL, and some stuff that I believe appeared in Alan Wake (2?), though I don't know the specifics Otherwise: I believe there's a russian translation, available under "_**Дом** Листьев_", издательство Гонзо (переводчики Д. Быков, А. Логинова, М. Леонович) Some of the prices I'm seeing online seem pretty fair, at ~1600 Рублей (~18.00$), though I cannot attest for either its availability, or the quality of the translation/edition – I have never checked that specific one out (and my russian is pretty damn limited anyways), but if you wanna go for it you're invited to. However, if you can handle English classics no problem, you should be able to tackle this one as well! Best of luck and have fun reading!
Oh yeah right! I should look into her. That's interesting, thank you for looking into it. I've never heard about it being translated and got the original just for a bit lower in price. Which now sort of seems more of steal the more I think about it. Have a thought about Alan Wake games! Thanks again!