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House of Leaves is a psychological, metafiction horror novel written by Mark Z. Danielewski. It is ergodic, meaning it requires "nontrivial effort" for the reader to read the text¹. This can range from puzzles to branching paths of narrative to intricate layouts—all of which House of Leaves contains. It has multiple layers of narrative, starting with the in-novel book House of Leaves, then Johnny Truant's rambling footnotes, along with editor's notes, and assorted letters and poems.

Johnny Truant opens the book with an intro, explaining that his friend, Lude, had a eccentric old neighbor who has died, and he went with him to look through his things. There, Johnny and Lude find a black trunk full of papers, ranging from coherent, typed chapters to rambling, crossed out scribbles. Johnny takes it home, feeling compelled to piece the pages together and complete the old man—Zampanò—'s writings into one coherent piece, falling into a period of insanity and delusion as the book and it's contents soon take over his life.

Zampanò

Zamanò is an old man who dies from old age—or so says the EMTs. When Johnny and Lude go to the house, they find long scratches where Zampanò fell, along with a black trunk of pages and other materials and things written on among Zampanò's cluttered mess of an apartment. This trunk holds the transcript for Zampanò's film analysis about The Navidson Records, a nonfiction documentary filmed by Pulitzer prize winning photojournalist Will Navidson on a house that is much bigger inside than out. Zampanò analyzed the movie heavily, fixating on it's visual finesse and hidden symbolism. He goes on long, rambling rants, and cites a large variety sources within his book, contributing to the metafictional nature of the book itself with the hidden messages within the footnotes. These ramblings and chaotic episodes contribute to the book's nature as a ergodic book, at times also creating calligrams during his transcript. It is learned from Johnny that Zampanò is, in fact, blind, and has been since the late 50's. He gathered people to read for him and write for him in order to complete most of his transcript. It is also revealed early on that The Navidson Record is completely fictional, even within the House of Leaves universe, along with every single source that Zampanò cites that mentions The Navidson Record. It has all been made up.

• House of Leaves; The Transcript

Johnny Truant

The book opens with a introduction by Johnny Truant, a tattoo apprentice who works in a tattoo parlor in Los Angeles. He spends his days working in a tattoo parlor making needles, and his nights with his best friend Lude. They party heavily and partake in an array of hard drugs while doing so. Everything changes when Johnny takes home Zampanò's black trunk. He devolves into a obsessed, psychotic craze while piecing the transcript together, having realistic hallucination episodes throughout the day, and terrible nightmares at night. He writes within the footnotes of the book, sometimes correcting incorrect information, providing translations, or making snarky comments about the material and Zampanò's overcompensation of academic prowess.Mostly, though, he falls into spiraling, rambling narratives about his day, which devolve into nonsensical poems or rants. These are a window into his equally devolving mental state, as he digs deeper and deeper into Zampanò's work. One recurring theme is some sort of beast that he feels is following him, one that he hallucinates tearing him apart multiple times, only to "wake up" and realize it was all fake. This delusion may be brought upon by the minotaur Zampanò alludes to in House of Leaves.Towards the end of the book, Johnny documents his wanderings around the country in a series of journal entries, not all of which are true. His entries deteriorate into full on journal entries nearing the end of the book, right after Navidson finds light In a series of barely coherent entries, we follow Johnny learn of Lude's death, has livid, chaotic hallucinations—including one where he kills the boyfriend of one of his flings—as he stumbles across America.Finally, he reaches a bar, where the band plays a song titled Five and a Half Minute Hallway. He asks them about it. They show him a book. It is House of Leaves by Zampanò, with introduction and notes by Johnny Truant. Apparently, it had gained a cult following, passed along secretly by people, crawling the underbelly of cites to confuse and mystify those who risk to read it. Shocked, he goes back to his hotel room. He burns his copy, revealing how his mother was institutionalized due to attempted murder via choking of Johnny.He ends with a story about a boy born with holes in his brain. The mother waits by his side, tied up to machines, until, on the fourth day, she lets him pass. There are no more entries after this.

House of Leaves

House of Leaves is a film analysis book written by Zampanò about the documentary The Navidson Records. The Navidson Records is a home movie-esque autobiographical documentary filmed by Will Navidson, a Pulitzer-winning photojournalist, which follows his and his family's move to Virginia. Things quickly go south, though, when Will discovers that the house is 1/4 inches larger inside than out.Soon after, a mysterious door accompanying a hallway appears in the house. The hallway is five and a half minutes long. Due to Karen, the mother of Will's children's request, Will hires professional explorers to investigate the house. In a series of filmed "Expeditions", they soon find out the hallway leads to a room, then a staircase. Its size varies. Sometimes, a deep growl is heard in the rooms.They map out and explore the house, told in a series of filmed "Expeditions", with communication difficult as the house seems to degrade radio signals. In "Exploration #4", which was expected to last over a week, one of the explorers, named Roberts, brings his gun with him. Upon returning from the bottom of the staircase, the team finds their supplies to be vandalized mysteriously. Roberts sets out to hunt what he thinks in a creature in the maze of the house. After he accidently wounds a fellow explorer, Hook, he proceeds to hunt down the rest of his own team, in order to cover up his crime, ultimately killing another explorer, Leeder.Navidson and Reston, a family friend rescues Hook, and Navidson finds Roberts' camera. It had recorded his final moments. Alone, in the dark, he rants about the creature, claiming it was stalking him like prey. He then commits suicide. Shadows rush in, extinguishing his flare and vanishing his body.In trying to get Hook out the house, Will, Reston, and Tom, his fraternal twin become lost and have to fight their way back. In the process, the house takes Tom, killing him. Will and Karen move away.Will returns some time later in search of his brother, once more becoming lost in the labyrinth of the house. It consumes him, moving around him as he travels deeper, shrinking, growing, shifting.Eventually he comes across a void. Later, a window. But, upon turning back to his after looking away, it has disappeared, along with the walls and the ceiling, all of it now a inky void. He remains on a platform that seems to be either falling or ascending. There, he has nothing to do but read his last book to fight against boredom. The book is House of Leaves. Once his light expires, he must burn each page to read the next, until he has finished and is submerged in utter darkness. The film shows almost six minutes of darkness with some audio that sounds of Navidson dying of exposure. He mumbles to himself, going over his regrets with his family, and humming to himself. Right before the film cuts out, he sees light.Karen finds him inside the hallway of the house, frostbitten and severely injured. He survives, but not without the loss of his hand and left eye,and severe damage to his hip. Him and Karen get married, and they live out their days in Vermont. They are happy.Throughout the book, Zampanò analyzes everything from the camera angle to dialogue, drawing from a plethora of sources directly about The Navidson Record. According to him, The Navidson Record has been extensively examined by film analysts, psychologists, and authors alike. It is credited as a revolutionary movie that is referenced in various kinds of media, and is without a doubt held to much critical acclaim. This is, of course, completely false, as Johnny finds out when asking those cited in the book. Zampanò, who was so obsessed with the visual aspects of the movie, was blind, and has been blind long before he claims The Navidson Record has been released.

The Editors

The Editors appear scarcely throughout the book, providing small corrections or notes. They claim that Johnny gave them the book to publish. Additionally, they preface four of the additional resources(Appendix II, D. Obituary E. The Three Whalestone Letters, and Appendix III), all, apart from Appendix III, relaying requests or messages from "Mr. Truant". They also write the credits.

Works Cited

Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves: The Remastered, Full-Color Edition. National Geographic Books, 2000.
Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, p. 3.