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Strange Novel Fails to Entertain

© Robert Powers

Remember the name: House of Leaves, should you go browsing in a bookstore in search of some diversion for a summer afternoon. This is one book that doesn't belong on your reading list.

For some unknown reason, I spent the better part of a week struggling through the 700-odd pages (and they're very odd pages, indeed!) of this at times interesting, but mostly awash in the author's excesses, novel that tells a story on a par with the much-praised, much-maligned film from 1999, The Blair Witch Project.

House of Leaves (Pantheon, 7"x9" paperback, $19.95) is the brainchild of first-time novelist Mark Danielewski. While he shows writing talent, he makes the mistake of taking a diverting 200-page novel and turning it into a 700-page monster. The poor reader is forced to read hundreds of footnotes, which often offer no additional insight into the storyline.

More than 100 pages of the book contain single lines or sentences per page. Some of the footnotes purport to be the writings of a strange young man who discovered the manuscript and has attempt to "explain" it. He does a rotten job.

There are many typographical devices employed to slow the reader's ride through the book. The word "house" is printed in blue ink for every usage. That may be because the house that forms the center of the story.

The plot, which tends at times to disappear in all the fancy typefaces, phony footnotes, and various other devices to turn a mouse into a monster, deals with a Pulitzer winning photographer and his girl friend, who discover that the house in which they live is bigger on the inside than on the outside. That discovery provides a delicious bit of spinetingling horror, but the subsequent discoveries, including a death or two, aren't nearly as captivating.

The photographer Davidson finds that the house (or rather its strange interior) has the ability to change minds as well as threaten the wellbeing of those who dare to enter its secret rooms and passages.

With its indulgent attempts at cleverness, House of Leaves proves that even a potentially talented author should't let the trappings take center stage. Novels should be about people, not about things that go bump in the night.

Economics?

Eric A. Davidson's new book, You Can't Eat GNP: Economics As If Ecology Mattered (Perseus, $24) makes a cogent argument for the importance of ecology and how it affects economics. The book would make a wonderful addition to school classrooms everywhere.