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Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry

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Text and paratext in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of

Leaves
Rune Graulund
Published online: 01 Jun 2012.

To cite this article: Rune Graulund (2006) Text and paratext in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves , Word & Image: A
Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 22:4, 379-389, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.2006.10435766

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2006.10435766

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 Text and paratext in Mark Z. Danielewski's House oj
Leaves
RUNE GRAULUND
In Pamtexts (1987), the French structuralist cntlc Gerard
Genette begins his study by defining 'paratext' as that whirh:
... enables a text to become a book and to be offered as such
to its readers and, more generally, to the public. More than a
boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a
Downloaded by [University of Auckland Library] at 21:01 29 October 2014
threshold, or ~ a word Borges used apropos of a preface - a
'vcsitibu\e' that offers the world at large the possibility of
either stepping inside or turning back. It is an 'undefined
ZOlle' between the imide and the oUlside, a zone without any
hard and fast boundary on either the inward side (turned
toward the text) or the outward side (turned toward the
world's discourse about the text), an edge, or, as Philippe
Lejeune put it, 'a fringe of the printed text which in reality
controls one's whole reading of the text."
So informed readers like Genette, Borges and Lejeune can
tell us, based upon lifetimes of literary study. The average
reader of novels, though, pays little conscious heed to this,
mainly due to the fact that the majority of novels attempt to
make the paratextual elements as unobtrusive as possible.
Footnotes and typographic experiments are frowned upon by
publishers, the former presumed to be suited for academic
writing, the latter believed to belong to poetry or the avant-
garde, but not for mainstream novels. If a novel is to be
sucressful from an economic point of view (in terms of copies
sold), it must not appear too elitist or complex when presented
to the general reader. Or so the general conception goes.
Mark Z. Danielewski's House if Leaves (2000) is therefore a
rare example of a novel that has been able to transcend the
limits of paratextual experimentation. Here, Lejeune's 'fringe'
does not only, as Lejeune puts it, 'control one's whole reading
of the text'. Rather, the paratext is apportioned so much power
that it is allowed constantly to encroach on the text, often to the
point where there is nothing but paratext left. The casual
reader flicking through House if Leaves will therefore not
encounter a seamless mass of homogenously typed text in
Times New Roman, set up with neat margins and sensible
chapter breaks. Instead, House if Leaves presents itself as a
bewildering array of fonts, margins, languages, corrections and
omissions, text skittering around the page and sometimes even
disappearing completely, leaving the page to its own devices.
Yet for all its apparently daunting impenetrability, House if
Leaves has seen a steady increase in popularity since its
publication, thus succeeding in exploding its cult origins. A
WORD & IMAUE. VOL. 22. N0.4. OCTOBER--DECEMBER 2006
comparison of the number of reader reviews on Amazon.com,
where, at the time of writing, similar hip young cult classics
such as Irvine Welsh's Tmins/Jotting (1993) scores 161 reviews,
Chuck Palahnuik's Fight Club (1996) 506 and Brett Easton Ellis's
American Psycho (1991) 964, proves HOllse of Leaves an able
contender. In competition with books that tapped faultlessly
into the adolescent arLxieties of their time and later spawned
immensely popular Hollywood films, the 416 reviews scored by
House if Leal'es is not at all bad for a text sporting writing that is
often upside down, vertical or evrn spiralling, alternately
written in Braille, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, French or German,
and with single footnotes spanning more than 10 pages. Also,
though one does find a fair share of violence, drugs and
adolescent frustration engendered by capitalist society of the
late twentieth century (key themes of Welsh, Palahnuik and
Ellis), the major points around which HOZlse 0./ Leaves revolves
are those very unhip tllemes of its title: house and text. HOllse if
Leaves has, as a consequence, succeeded in placing itself
between the two traditionally incompatible genres of the avant-
garde and the popular. And this largely due to Danielewski's
use of literary experimentation that should have placed it at
arms length from popular culture.
Specifically, what is so interesting about HOllse If/Leaves is the
tension between text and paratext, authenticity and fiction, and
the structure through which all of these themes are presented.
That is, in the concept of the ever present 'house' as tale and,
most importantly, as an intensely visual text.
Enter the house, enter the text
In the quotation from Genette above, Borges L1sed a metaphor
of the house to describe his notion of the fringe ~ or the portal
~ to the text. In the case of HOllse if Leaves, though, long before
one ever reaches the Borgesian 'vestibule' of the preface, one
encounters a foregrounding of the paratext at the 'porch' of the
building. In what is usually reserved for the neutral and formal
information from the publishers, that which Genette terms 'the
publisher's peri text' ,2 a subtle but important intrusion of the
author's has been allowed. For as it happens, HOllSe if Leaves, a
book concerned with fictional houses and the 'leaves' of which
they are constructed, is published by Doubleday, a subdivision
of The Random House Group Ltd.
The excessive use of italics here is not incidental as the
'house' in Random House Group is printed in a different colour
379
 UVII SiJlW 'SiJ/0:J UIVlfUifVJ.L
JAiJqoN 'jnv.L ounAEl
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168Aside from cinematic, literary, architectural, or even philosophical ghosts, history also 'siJumy SiJ/J.v!.f:J 'tJiJJVJW
otTers a few of its own. Consider two famous expeditions where those involved con- "7 jifAiJ!.fJ 'nvjqjiJUlUi.IH
fronted the unknown under circumstances of depri- doo:J tJ!.f] '!tJSJtJA vlly
vation and fear only to soon find themselves caught fW'''i''''''hle';''ith-le~r-c'''l;lc-ea-[-,-r"'et1l'Fle-c'l"'t1-ve-,-l"'n""su"'lII~:a~te+c,"I'h-Ie""'at~ 'iJiJJVJW !J SiJ/J. lJ11J
in a squall of terrible violence. esistant, switchable, tinted, bad-guy, '!UlnlPSL PAVUAiJEl
antique; or even tin-plated steel, factory- 'lliJJ.J.vd ifJ.J.iJL '[II
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embarked from Sanlucar de Barrameda to sail drywall, concrete, drive, aluminum, silicon '!iJr!'W J 'VIIVAJVjD:J
around the globe. The voyage would once and for all bronze, solid brass, mechanically galva- 02v!]uvS 'III
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ney would also be dangerous, replete with enough ay nothing of the sheer absence of any- S! n0 7 'J.iJ2AiJqZ]AiJH
horror and hardship that in the end it would cost hing that might suggest a roof, whether UVUlJiJH '.lssoN oP/V
Magellan his life. pitched, gable, hip, lean-to, flat, sawtooth, 'Jfnp!iJH u!.fo[ 'J.iJ.ltJW
In March of 1520 when Magellan's five vessels monitor, ogee, bell, dome, helm, sloped, PA1J/{J!N 'UUVUlUtJS!y
reached Patagonia and sailed into the Bay of St. hip-and-valley, conical, pavilion, rotunda, .ltJ]iJr! 'P!PVH
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winter weather, a shortage of stores, not to mention
puv iJns!D 'DMv)jOJn)/
the anxiety brought on by the uncertainty of the future, had caused tensions among the
0!.fS!)/ 'PlvZOSI ]V.l V
sailors to increase, until on or around April Fools Day, which also happened to be Easter
'/vlI.liJJl.IM UViJ[ 'if.l!.ftJD
Day, Captain Gaspar Quesada of the Concepcion and his servant Luiz de Molino
")juVJd '].IiJ./!iJS U!qoN 'MiJ.la
planned and executed a mutiny, resulting in the death of at least one officer and the
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wounding of many more. 169 Unfortunately for Quesada, he never stopped to consider
'if.l.ltJL ulJlu!no 'pU.l'>fstJQ17
that a man who could marshal an expedition to circle the globe could probably marshal /iJ1UVa ']iJ].I0d UOUIVN
men to retaliate with great ferocity. This gross underestimation of his opponent cost Que- '>f.liJq,(Z-.ItJJvlr/ !.f]tJqDZ.l/y
sada his life. pUlJ 'ifurma SiJ.lPUV 'rl.llniJN
Like a general, Magellan rallied those men still loyal to him to retake the comman- p.lmp!N ~/iJ!.I)/ UOiJ7 'lloH
deered ships. The combination of his will and his tactical acumen made his success, espe- UiJlltJ]S 'UOSdUl!S u!.fO[
cially in retrospect, seem inevitable. The mutineer Mendoza of the Victoria was stabbed 'IlYOEl 0P.lVJ!N 'ifqtJtJEl llvH
in the throat. The Santo Antonia was stormed, and by morning the Concepcion had sur- sVlilo!.fL SlJ StJUlVU !.fJns
rendered. Forty-eight hours after the mutiny had begun, Magellan was again in control. 01 PiJtJ!.f 2u!ifvd ln0!.f]!M "J]tJ
He sentenced all the mutineers to death and then in an act of calculated good-will sus- "J]tJ S>f.lOM J!lqnd 'StJmJ
pended the sentence, choosing instead to concentrate maritime law and his own ire on the pUV 'SUMO] UtJlltJ 'S>f.lvd
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marooned on a barren J!lqna pUV 'StJ!.I1S!U!Ul
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executed. 'S].I0d.l!V 'stJ2p!.Iq 'StJ!.fJ.lnlP
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or even forced to walk 'SUOS!Ad 'SltJ]Ot{ 'quvq
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had a better idea. tJ.JzjJo pUV ''<:d~'I1Olf}J.VM
Molino, Quesada's 'SUO.l]V]S ifVMl!V.l
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granted clemency if he 'StJ!AOJDII,itJSUOJ 'Sl1V!.f
agreed to execute his ]tJ>f.lVUl 'StJ.lO]S ]utJUl],ivdtJp
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135 S! I! 'tJs.lnoJ Jo Ll'l

Figure I. A typical page from HOllse if Leaves.

380 RUNE GRAULUND

 from the remainder of the text it is embedded in: a fact which
hints to the reader that the publishers have allowed
Danielewski to enter what is otherwise a domain exclusively
reserved for the technical information pertaining to the actual,
physical book itself and not to its content. Alerted to this
discrepancy from standard practice, the usual disclaimer
supposed to ward off libel lawsuits from 'real peoplr' may
likewist' strike the reader as being slightly out of the ordinary:
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to rral people,
events, establishments, organizations or locales are intended
to givt' the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Other
names, characters and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, as are those
fictionalized events anel incidents which involve real persons
and did not occur or are set in the future - Eel.
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First of all, though reminiscent of the regular formulaic legalese
of such disclaimers, it turns out very differently when
scrutinized in detail. Safeguarding itself not by the usual
outright dcnial that any such overlap bctwcen 'real' and
'fictional' world is a coincidence, but claiming instead that
these events may take place in the fortuitously uncharted
waters of 'the future', the disclaimer is a strange sort of half-
promise. Second, though we as readers are not yet aware of
this, the validity of such a disclaimer is thoroughly undermined
by the signature of 'the Editors', a 'gToup' of people who will
later turn out to be all but trustworthy.
Turning to the list of contents, on the other hand, one gets
the impression that what one is about to read is more of 'a case'
than a piece of fiction. The relatively neutral 'Foreword' and
'Introduction', we find, will be followed by the case of 'The
Navidson Record'. This is followed by a list of contents
sounding suspiciously like the transcripts of a court case:
'Exhibits One - Si.x', 'Appendi.'{: Zampan6', 'Appendi.x II:
Johnny Truant', 'Appendi.x III: Contrary Evidence', 'Index'
and 'Credits'. Any illusion of judicial affiliation is, however,
called into serious question by the decidedly literary connota-
tions of the last section, titled 'Yggdrasil'.
And so HOllse if Leaves continues, from the very first to the
very last page, always playing on the need of the reader to
believe in the authority of the text by referring to common
authoritarian standards (such as the legal practice of presenting
a long line of 'evidence'), yet repeatedly shattering this
authority by deviating from the chosen standard in some form
or another. This is sometimes done subtly, as in the legal
disclaimer safeguarded by future events or as in the numerous
academic references scattered through the book, references
that mayor may not be true;3 and at other times obviously so,
as in the house whose literary significance is set off from the
remainder of text by its colouring and, later in the book, by its
positioning a few points below or above the line in which it
appears.
As a consequence, Lejeune's 'fringe' between text and
paratext is violated again and again, to the point where the
delineation between the two is eliminated. Several narratives
take place alongside each other, and though at least one of
these seems to behave according to realist narrative practice by
presenting the reader with an unruilled ride for a considerable
period of time - thus giving the reader a handhold in what is
otherwise a very chaotic text - even the primary narrative
begins to careen out of focus as its story takes on momentum,
finally bouncing from side to side and top to bottom of page,
changing ane! transforming in accord with the action described.
HOllse of Leaves therefore pulls in two different and, one would
believe, contrary rlin~r.tions: ont' catering to high-brow literary
forms of reading and writing heavily influenced by postmo-
dernist thinking, the other to what will eventually turn out to be
tht' fairly straightforward story of a haunted house. That these
two divergent strains are cohabiting peacefully side by side in
the same tf'xt (or house) is, as mentioned, only possible due to
the navigable visual tracks laid out for us by the text. H01lse ~l
uaves does not become truly interesting, though, until one
realises that what ultimately lies at the core of the uncanny talc
is, in effect, the same as that with which the postmodernist
investigations constantly engage.
The haunting
Tracing the narrative outline of Danielewski's tale, at least five
major narrative voices can be identified:
I. The case of the Navidson Record. 'The Navidson
Record' is a presentation and analysis of the worldwidc
phenomena pertaining to the di.~coveries made by one
Will Navidson, famous photojournalist and Plilitzer Prize
winner. Navidson's tale begins with the discovery that his
newly acquired house is one inch larger on the inside than
on the outside. Obviously de tying the laws of physics, this
discovery is soon followed by others, revealing that the
house, once opened up, consists of an innumerable
number of hallways, stairwells and rooms apparently
stretching to infinity. Mounting several expeditions,
N avidson and several other characters explore the
interior of the house, in the process recording their
experiences on camera. The [mal, edited result of these
explorations results in a film documentary later dubbed
'The Navidson Record'. The textual exposition of this
case and the (supposed) massive academic discussion that
arises in the wake of its release is the closest H01lse ~fLeaves
ever comes to presenting a 'primary' text. In chapters that
are at least initially presented in a form reminiscent of the
mainstream novel, the video version of the Navidson
Record is described scene by scene. This straightforward
exposition is routinely interspersed with academic com-
mentaries and analyses of the action described, but is
otherwise left to unfold more or less linearly. As we are
told in the introduction to House if Leaves, though, the text
we are about to read is: 'about a flim which doesn't even
exist. You can look, I have, hut no matter how long you
 u p u d X ~

u
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s I.. e IV\. J e 1s ~ q l J 0

289
Figure 2. Typography reflecting action described.

382 R UN E GRA ULUN D

 search you will never find The Navidson Record in
theatres or video stores '.~ The entire record as well as the
academia pertaining to it is the concoction of a blind old
man named Zampano.
2. Zampano's story. The 'primary' text, the Naviclson
Record, is heavily annotated by several sets of commen-
tators, the first set of which is an elaboration on the
academia presented in the primary text. As we havc been
forewarned in the introduction, though, the Navidson
Record is a hoax, as is, obviously, the academia
pertaining to it. It is a fiction, all of which can be traced
to the singular source of Zampano. These 'facts' atT
gradually unwound by the editor of thc primary text and
of the first set of footnotes, one Johnny Truant, through a
second set of footnotes. Through his reading of
Zampano's text and a scrics of (mainly sexual) encounters
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with thc blind Zampano's all-female 'readers', Truant
plays detective as he gradually unravels the text and the
life of its creator. Zampano thus has no distinct voice
himsell~ but is presented through Truant's introduction
and in his notes on the primary text and the first set of
footnotes.
3· Truant's story. As we are to discover in the introduction,
Truant has via his fi'iend Lude been led to discover the
fragments of the manuscript for the Navidson Record, left
by Lude's neighbour, the recently deceased Zampano. As
the police fmd nothing extraordinary ahout Zampano's
death and refuse to investigate fl11'ther, Truant emharks
on a self-imposed quest in order to solve the mysteries of
the old man's death and the creation of his extraordinary
text. Starting off as a commentary on the Naviclson
Record and on Zampano, however, Truant's footnotes
fast begin to digress as he engages more and more with
the story of his own life. Yet as the N avidson Record and
Zampano's story unfold alongside each other, Truant's
story - distinct and unruly as hi~ voice may at times be
- simultaneously becomes entangled with these two
other narrative threads. While routinely departing from
the two 'texts' he is supposed to be commenting on,
events from the Navidson Record (text I) as well as from
Zampano's life (text 2) cross over and become such a great
part of his cxistence that he begins to fear for his sanity
and can no longer view the three in isolation.
The story of HOZlse qf Leaves as a text. Rare and
4·
unobtrusive in the beginning, the anonymous cditors of
Truant's manuscript (allegedly Truant's edited version of
Zampano's version of the Navidson Record) become
increasingly meddlesome as the story progresses, com-
menting on Truant's reliability as narrator on several
occasions. House if Leaves, we are told by the editors,
existed in different forms before being published as a
book, 'privately distributed' (foreword) and posted in part
on the Internet. As proof of this, the editors end the book
by providing 'documentation' in the form of some
hundred pages of appendices of polaroids, dra\\'ings,
poems and, most importantly, letters from Truant's
mother. Though there is no narrative to this strand of
the story. the interjections by the editors serve as yet
anothcr undermining of the former strands of narrative.
5· Truant's mother's story. As it is the case \ovith 'the editors',
so it is with Truant's mother. At first only existing as one
of many vague voices, the mother gradually gains power
over Truant's discourse as the story progresses, to the
point where she finally - just before Truant disappears
from the story entirely -- overshadows even his obsession
vvith the Navidson Record and Zampano. Finally, in
Appendix II E, she is given her own voice through a series
of letters.
The Navidson Record (primary text) --> Zampano (footnotes,
first set)
--> Truant (footnotes, second set) --> The Editors (footnotes,
third SEt)
--> The Mother (appcndi.x II E)
As shoulrl be obvious, House if uaves tS a convoluted and
complex tale that demands more of its reader than the average
book of fiction. Equally obvious should be the fact that it is
indeed a book heavily influenced by postmorlernist literary
devices. To name a few, the main characters' names are all
pointers to the playful nature of the text as well as to the nature
of the specific characters;5 several narratives run concurrently
and are regularly intermixed in order to confuse the reader; the
world of the text and 'the rear overlap;6 and, most importantly,
the text constantly reminds us of its textual quality through its
unusual 'weaving'7 typographical setup as well as by the
explicit questioning of the text's claim to truth, expressed by .
(Zampano's invented) academia, by Truant and by 'The
Editors'.
Nevertheless, for all its adllerence to postmodernist literary
conventions, House of Leaves departs from these in one very
significant way: for confusing as it sometimes is, it succeeds in
keeping a strong narrative core, the clarity of which owes a
great deal to the visual presentation of the text. Compared with
a postmodern classic like Thomas Pynchon's Gmvi~y's Rainbow
(1973), a text notorious (and famous) for its impenetrability and
subtle shifts of narrative points of view, the shifts in narrative
voice in House ofLeaves are clearly signpostcd through the use of
font type. As The Editors' point out at an early stage, 'Mr.
Truant's footnotes will appear in Courier font while
Zampano's will appear in Times,.8 Zampano and Truant's
voices are as a consequence easily identified, forestalling the
readerly frustration that is otherwise a trademark of the
postmodern novel. For the reader uninterested in the more
complex points of the literary and philosophical discussions
offered by HOLLl'e if Leaves, it is therefore possible to stick closely
to the core of the uncanny tale itself.
 As Navidson takes his first step through that immense arch, he is
suddenly a long way away from the warm light of the living room. In fact
his creep into that place resembles the eerie faith required for any deep sea
exploration, the beam of his flashlight scratching at nothing but the invariant
blackness.
Navidson keeps his attention focused on the floor ahead of him, and
no doubt because he keeps looking down, the floor begins to assume a new
meaning. It can no longer be taken for granted. Perhaps something lies
beneath it. Perhaps it will open up into some deep fissure.
Suddenly immutable silence rushes in to replace what had momen-
tarily shattered it.
Navidson freezes, unsure whether or not he really just heard
something grow 1.
"I better be able to find my way back," he finally whispers, which
though probably muttered in jest suddenly catches him off guard.
Navidson swiftly turns around. Much to his horror, he can no
longer see the arch let alone the wall. He has walked beyond the range of
his light. In fact, no matter where he points the flashlight, the only thing he
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can perceive is oily darkness. Even worse, his panicked tum and the
subsequent absence of any landmarks has made it impossible for him to
remember which direction he just came from.
"Oh god" he blurts, creating odd repeats in the distance.
He twists around again.
"Hey!" he shouts, spawning a multitude of a's, then rotates forty-
five degrees and yells "Balls!" a long moment of silence follows before he
hears the faint halls racing back through the dark. After several more such
turns, he discovers a loud "easy" returns a z with the least amount of delay.
This is the direction he decides on, and within less than a minute the beam
from his flashlight finds something more than darkness.
Quickening his pace slightly, Navidson reaches the wall and the
safety he perceives there. He now faces another decision: left or right. This
time, before going anywhere, he reaches into his pocket and places a penny

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Everette Dixie Reese, Jerry A. Rose, Oliver E. Noonan, Kim Savath, Bernard Moran, Kuoy Sarun, Do Van
Vu, Nguyen Man Hieu, Charles Richard Eggleston, Sain Hel, Nguyen Oanh Liet, Dick Durance, Vu Van
Giang, Bernard Kolenberg, SOli Vichith, Ronald D. Gallaghel', Dan Dodd, Francois Sully, Kent Potter,
Alfred Batungbacal, Dieter Bellendorf, Nick Mills, Ronald L. Haeberle, Terry Reynolds, Leroy Massie, Sam
Castan, Al Chang, Philip R. Boehme. And finally Eddie Adams, crharles Hoff, Larry Burrows, and Don
McCullin ("American soldiers tending wounded child in a cellar of a IOllse by candlelight, 1968")76
76Alison Adrian Burns, another Zampano reader, told me this list was
entirely random. -Wit-hthe possible exception of Brassal., Speen, Bush
and Link, Zampano was not very familiar with photographers. "We just
picked the names out of some books and magazines he had lying around,"
Burns told me. "I'd describe a picture or two and he'd say no or he'd
say fine. A few times he just told me to choose a page and point. Hey,
whatever he wanted- to do. That was what- 10 was there for. Sometimes
though he just wanted to hear about the LA scene, what was happening,
what wasn't, the gloss, the names of clubs and bars. That sort of
thing. As far as I know, that list never got written down."

67

Figure 3. Three levels of text. The Navidson Record (top), Zampano's footnotes to The Navidson Record (mid) and Truant's footnotes to Zam
footnotes (bottom). Note the usc of dilTercnt font, as well as the displaced 'house'.

384 RUNE GRAULUND

 The literary parallels one can draw to HOl/se of Lnwes are
many, a fact which is not surprising considering that it is such
an openly intn-textual book that never lets more than a handful
of pages go by without a reference (or, as is mostly the case,
several references) to past literary achievements. The concept
of the 'forgotten manuscript' is hardly a new invention (i.e.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter lI850], Jonathan
Swift's Glilliver~· Travels [17261, Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf
[1927] or Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita [195.5]), nor is the idea
of building up a story on the framework of a houseY Likewise,
the most immediate impressive feature of House of Leaves,
the massive intrusion of the form of the text as opposed to the
content, was employed by Laurence Sterne already in the
middle of the eighteenth century (The Life and Opinions iiI
Tristram Shandy [1759-67]) and, more recently (and radically), by
Jacques Derrida (Glas [1974]).'° Finally, the idea of letting a
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separate narrative unfold in the wings of the 'primary'
narrative was fully exploited by Vladimir Nabokov in his Pale
Fire (1962)." Yet since Danielewski, or ratherJohnny Truant, is
the first to point out that he is 'a sucker for abandoned stufT,
misplaced stuft~ forgotten stuff," Danielewski, like Walter
Benjamin in The Arcades Project (1982, posthumous), molds these
borrowings, snippets of quotations and ideas into a structure of
his own.
That Danielewski is capable of, and interested, in doing
this, is due to the overarching conviction expressed by
Zampano's opening words (and by HOllse of Leaves as a whole),
namely that:
vVhile enthusiasts and detractors will continue to empty entire
dictionaries attempting to describe or deride it, "authenticity"
still remains the word most likely to stir a debate. In fact, this
leading obsession - to validate or invalidate the reels and
tapes - invariably brings up a collateral and more general
concern; whether or not, with the advent of digital
technology, image has forsaken its once unimpeachable hold
on the truth.'3
Once again, echoing Benjamin (The TYork of Art in the Age
of Mechanical Reproduction [1936]), Danielewski here hints
what the overall theoretical drive (as opposed to the story-
telling) of House of Leaves is concerned with. Taking as his
cue Benjamin's observation that, 'The presence of the
original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity', '+
Danielewski takes the argument of Benjamin further, develop-
ing it from the mechanical to the digital. Concisely put, HOlLfe if
Leaves, apart from its narrative core which revolves around a
haunted house is therefore also a meditation on language and
on writing, on authenticity and artifice, and on how 'the
language of objectivity can never adequately address the
reality' both of 'that place','5 the house, and of the world in
general.
A house larger on the inside than on the outside obviously
challenges the basic beliefs of the people experiencing it, for in
a place where innumerable hallways and rooms appear without
warning or apparent order, 'tht' impact of such an implausible
piece of reality could force anyone to question their own
perceptions ,.,Ii From the initial discovery that the housc is one
inch v.1.der on the inside, to the appearance of a hallway in a
place where no hallway can be, the characters of the Navidson
Record gTadually begin to realize that the house may be
infmite. Descending deeper and deeper into the house, an
endless series of hallways and rooms opens up. Calculating the
depth of just one stairwell, it is estimated that it is '27,'273 miles
exceeding even the earth's circumference at the equator by
2,37 1 miles'.'7
It is not only human perception that is thwarted by the
mind-boggling size of the house, though the 'replicating
chambers and corridors' also act as a 'resistance to representa-
tion' .,H In combination with the relative manipulative ease
offered by the digital media, the immense and featureless
rooms and hallways turn out to be impossible for Navidson to
reproduce convincingly via the video medium. The video
medium is paradoxically rendered imperfect by being too
perfect: for in contrast to mechanical reproduction, which, as
Benjamin pointed out, threatened the concept of originality by
its ability to reproduce the original endlessly, the digital
medium is not only capable of aping reality, but of fabricating
'the real' from scratch. And just in case' this conclusion is not
clear enough, Danielewski ,hooscs to press his ]Joint by having
his characters attempt to represent an empty structure with no
core, a project that is doomed to fail from the outset no matter
what the chosen medium. Nodding his head to the post-
structuralist conviction that in the world of today there is an
'absence of a center',19 Danielewski eventually has his
characters realize that there can never be 'a final objective in
that place ,."n For in a place that has no 'meaning', there can be
no 'referent' other than that which the characters themselves
bring into it."'
Danielewski is therefore heavily reliant on the deconstruc-
tionist conviction that it is a waste of time to engage in a
'transcendentalist reading, in that search for the signified'.2" We
see this first and foremost in Zampano's and Truant's
persistent attacks on the concept of authenticity, and second
because direct and repeated references are made to achlal
poststructuralist publications."3 Finally, the fact that
Danielewski's house is so blatantly a construct, built by leaves
torn from other texts -- by references, quotes and ideas - is a
very clear reminder that no one original source exists. Yet that
Danielewski has chosen 'the house' as the fi·amework upon
which to build his text is not simply so that he can play
postmodemist tricks with his magically expanding yet content-
less structure. It is partly for this reason, but the house serves
many other functions besides. And it is at this point that the
uncanny makes its entrance into the housc.
Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstrurtion, is also in the
habit of using architcchlral similes when explaining the loss of
original meaning, likening the emptying out of 'content' to the
'architecture of an uninhabited or deserted city ... haunted by
 As Grundberg, Alabiso and Mitchell contend, this impressive ability to manipulate images
must someday permanently deracinate film and video from its now sacrosanct position as
"eyewitness." The perversion of image will make The Rodney King Video inadmissible in a
court of law . ~nc redible as it may
seem, Los Angele s Mayor Bradley'
s statement- "Ou r eyes did not
deceive us. We sa w what we saw...
and what we saw w as a crime." -will
seem ludicrous. Tr uth will once ag
ain revert to the sh ady territories of
the word and hum anity's abilities to
judge its peculiar m odalities. Nor is
this a particularly original predic-
tion. Anything fro m Michael Crich-
ton's Rising Sun, to Delgado's Card
Tricks, or Lisa Ma rie "Slit Slit" Bad
er's Confession of a Porn Star delve
into the increasing ly protean nature
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of a digital univer se.~ In his article

"True Grit", Anth ony Lane at Th
e New Yorker clai ms "grittiness is
the most difficult e lement to constru
ct and will always e lude the finest stu
dio magician. Grit, however, does no
t elude Navidson." ~Consider the savage scene captured on grainy 16mm film of a tourist
eaten alive by lions in a wildlife preserve in Angola (Traces of Death) and compare it to the
ridiculous and costly comedy Eraser in which several villains are dismembered by alliga-
tors. 190

188Which also stands for Technological Neural Transmitters (TNT) 189 -

another pun and another story altogether.
1890r what as Lude once pointed out also means Tits And Tail. i. e. also
explosive. i.e. orgasmic. i.e. a sudden procreating pun which turns
everything into something entirely else, which now as I catch up with
myself, where I've gone and where I haven't gone and what I better get
back to, may very well have not been a pun at all but plain and simple
just the bifurcation of truth, with an ampersand tossed in for unity. A
sperm twixt another form of similar unity, and look there's an echo at
haand. The articulation of conflict may very well be a better thing upon
which to stand--Truth & Truth 'z all, after all, or not at all. In other
words, just as Zampano wrote it. 196
190Jennifer Kale told me she'd visited Zarnpano around seven times: "He
liked me to teach him filmic words. You know, film crit kind of stuff.
Straight out of Christian Metz and the rest of that crew. He also liked
me to read him some of the jokes I'd gotten on the Internet. Mostly
though I just described movies I'd recently seen." Eraser was one of
them.

145

Figure +. Empty frame - text and (void) image juxtaposed. Note the discussion on fIlm/video and authenticity in the main text, and the debunking 0:

main text's (void) claim to authenticity in the foolllllles.

386 RUNE GRALTLUND

 meaning and culture'."{ In another architecturally inspired
analysis of the uncanny, 1711' Arc/liter/urat Uncam!l' (1992), the
British art historian Anthony Vidler remarks that, 'for Derrida,
the uncanny lurks behind the unstable links between signifier
and signified, the author and the text'.2:; The uncanny is a
concept that has gained increasing prevalence in later years
and, as do so many others, Vidler (as wcll as Derrida) relies
heavily on the notions expounded by Freud's The Uncan'!-v
(1919). A major point of Vidler's is that as 'a concept, ... the
uncanny has, not ullnaturally, found its metaphorical home in
architecture'. "'; That this is so, Vidler argues, is hecause of 'the
contrast between a secure and homely interior and the fearful
invasion of an alien presence'."7 Or in the words of Freud, 'the
uncanny is that species of the frightening that goes back to
what was once well known and had long been familiar,.,R It is,
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simultaneously, that of the home and of the un-homely
(unheimlich).
Danielewski's talc of the haunted house is therefore a
parable for the postmodern realization that the concepts of the
real, the authentic and the true - once stable and familiar
concepts - now ring uncannily hollow. Postmodern fable
aside, however, the main narrative momentum of House if
Leaves -- the momentum that makes it a highly readable novel
instead of just another academic treatise on the 'loss of the real'
- is the very palpable sense of the uncanny evoked by
Danielewski.
The uncanny interior of the hOIllely
The uncanny element of Danielewski's tale is not a 'ghost' in
the traditional sense of the word. The house is not haunted by
a wrongfully murdered Alfonso as in Horace Walpole's The
Castle of Otranto (1764) or by a bricked-up Lady Madeline of
Usher as in Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall if the HOZlse qf Usher
(1840). Rather, it is in the vein of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's
'The yellow wallpaper' (1892) or H. P. Lovecraft's 'The rats in
the walls' (1923) that Danielewski \'II"ites. For unlike the external
disturbances experienced by ''''alpole and Poe's characters,
Lovecraft: and Gilman's protagonists both obsess about secret
meanings hidden in the walls of the house they live in, secrets
that we never quite know whether are real or simply the
inventions of the protagonists.
Moving from the Navidson Record to the two subsequent
levels of the narrative strands of House if Leaves (Zampano's
story and Truant's story), we thus see the way in which the
meditations on authenticity act as more than postmodernist
reflections on the real. Both Zampano and Truant, we are told,
become so obsessed (haunted) by the house/text that they are
eventually unable to escape it no matter where they go. From
the moment he discovers Zampano's manuscript, Truant's
trajectory fast leads him to lose all contact with the world
around him, forcing him to withdraw from friends and work in
order to barricade himself indoors (in his house) in order to
engage fully with Zampano's manuscript (text). Later, as he
attempts to escape the text and the house by fleeing from his
home, it is too late. Plagued by inrreasillg and ever more
violent hallucinations, he is no longer capable of disn~rning
reality fi'om fantasy. The Navidson Record is t'vFrywhrrt'
around him, threatening at any time to rip open a hole in
reality in order to engulf him. ''''hether the house and the
Navidson Record is 'real' or not is, ultimately, not of great
importance to Truant, for 'what's real or isn't real doesn't
matter here. The consequences are tht' samt".O" Since his mind
is threatening to collapst' on him, it dot's not matter whether
the actual void of the house ever existed. Truant's personal
void is sufficiently grave to make any reflection on the
possibility of an external void irrelevant.
Though never fully explained, Truant believes something
similar happent'd to Zampano. And as Truant warns us in the
introduction, so, eventually, will we if we submergt' ourselves
too deeply in the text. At that point:
Old shelters - television. magazines. mOVIes -- won't
protect you anymore. You might try scribbling in a journal,
on a napkin, maybe even in the margins of this book. That's
when you'll discover you no longer trust the very walls you
always took [or granted. Even the hallways you've walked a
hundred times will feel longer, much longer and the shadows,
any shadow at all, will suddenly seem deeper, much, much,
deeper3u
That, of course, is a threat (or should we say a promise) made by
many v,Titers of the uncanny, not all of whom art' capable of
living up to their word. \t\'hether Danielewski succeeds or not is
obviously a matter of personal preference, but the way in
which he sets about rattling the reader's confidence in 'tht' very
walls you always took for granted' is an integral part of both
plot and structure of HOZlse if LeavesY
The fact that Danielewski is for the most part keen to allow'
his readers a fair degree of orientation in the text is therefore
highly similar to the reliance of the Gothic writer on the
'homeliness' of the house. French philosopher Gaston
Bachelard's TIle Poetics if Space (1958), a work of major
importance for Danielewski':1 2 describes the dilemma that all
'inhabited space' presents to us: namely that 'the imagination
build "walls" of impalpable shadows, comfort itself with the
illusion of protection - or, just the contrary, tremble behind
thick walls, mistrust the staunchest ramparts'.3:! Similarly,
describing the 'aesthete of terror', a person attempting to live
out Kant's advice of the 'delight through terror through certain
knowledge of safety', Vidler notes the double-edged effect of
the 'passage from homely to unhomcly, now operating wholly
in the mind, [thatl reinforced the ambiguity between real world
and dream'.3-! Like the 'inhabited space' of Bachelard that on
the one hand provides shelter but on the other offers the
possibility of a breach of this security, a similar feeling is
present once the uncanny moves from the outside to the inside.
Hence, as Vidler says, with the 'locus of the uncanny now
shifted to the mind, such barriers were difficult to maintain'.
 Sticking to the metaphorical language of Dcrrida, Vidler and
Bachelard, one might say that the uncanny Otht'!" - no longer
separate from the Self - has been allowE'd to slip in through
cracks in the harricaded door. The uncanny can therefore no
longer he observed from a distance, but resides in the dark
recesses of the house of the mind, 'haunting the site of its own
dread'.35
***
In Postmodcmi.lt Fiction (1987), Brian McHale (echoing Genett[')
points out that postmodernist fiction is often charactnized by
'metalepsis'. That is, a 'violation of narrative levels', where 'there
is no single "highest level''', whcre it is 'impossible to determine
who is the author of whom'. 3 6 The 'heteroglossia' of Bakhtin,
McHale argues, is turned into:
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... a positive principle .... Instead of resisting centrifugal
tendencies, postmodernist fiction seeks to enhance them.
Heteroglossia is used here as an opening wedge, a means of
breaking up the unified projected world into a polyphony of
worlds of discourscY
It is thus by a combination of these two shifts, that of the
uncanny and that of the postmodernist levelling of the
hierarchy of narrative levels, that Danielewski brings his part-
mockery, part-celebration of high-flown poststructuralist the-
ory to converge with the more popular form of the Gothic tale.
The postmodernist obsession with the dilution of truth is
hlrned into the uncanny element that canies the core of the
plot. Danielewski himself explains it best:
To gel a beller idea try this: focus on these words, and
whatever you do don't let your eyes wandel' past the
perimeter of this page. Now imagine just beyond your
peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of
you, maybe in front of you, but right where you can't see it,
something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you can
only hE'ar it as silence. Find those pockets without wund.
That's where it is. Right at this moment. 3p.
If one looks, one fmds, of course, as does Truant, 'absolutely
nothing, nothing anywhere'.:l9 Yet that is also the point of the
whole exercise, for the uncanny resides in the unknown, in the
lmcertainry of whether there is anything just around the corner of
our vision. On the occasions on which something actually does
turn up, it is no longer uncanny. It might then be replaced by
horror or some other feeling, but uncanny it is not. The
uncanny is dispelled with the feeling of certainty.
There is, therefore, as Danielewski and so many others
before him have realized, something decidedly uncanny about
the lack of anchoring that the postmodern metalepsis has caused.
That realization is not something Danielewski can take credit
for. But the transformation of this realization into a highly
compelling piece of haunted fiction is. The pages of House of
Leaves, like the wallpaper of Gilman's story, may present a
visual 'lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant
388 RUNE GRAULLTND
irritant to a normal eye'.+" Yet the piecing together of this
irritant, the laying bare of the story hidden in the walls of the
tcxtual house, is a rare pleasure that could not have been
accomplished had the irritant not been there to tease and
entice the eye, but also to guid[' it.
NOTES
I - Gerard Genettc, Parale.,ls (Gatcshead: Cambridge University Prc,",
1997), pp. ~ 3·
Gerard Genette, Pamiext.l, p. Ill.
3 - Though a minilfily, many of'the references arc ill f'-lct picked from real
publications. Danidewski etfectively plays on the academic tradilion of
pUllnill,f..; ill titl(·~, and by incorporating sonIC of thl' IlIon' racy titles Ii'om
aelual (and ollen quite famous) publications, he efh,ctively disguises his own
inn:"ntions.
-+ - Mark Z. Daniclcwski, Hallse ofLeaves (Bath: Doubleday, 2001), pp. xi-xx.
I would like lo thank Morten Ting, Univcrsity of Copenhagen, for pointing
me in the direction of Danielewski's text.
5 The ludic Lude, the duty-shirking Truanl and thc pompous Zampano
(Ii'om Ita!i,m, 'to act the bi.1'; sho!').
6 - As Truant discovers, Zanlpano's text was at some point released on the
Internet (I'dark Z. Danidcwski, HOliSf of Leaves, p. 513). So, too, il turns out,
was the first edition of House alLem..-s (scc intl'I'\~ew with Danielewski in Flak
;\.Jaga.~illf, http://www.flakmag.mm/fcalLlfcs/mzd.html (accessed L'j.
November ~(Jo4) lor dclaib on the initial Internet publicalion of'llre book).
-- text: L tr:'t'erc, tnlurtl 'to \tveave' U. A. GuddoTI, 17ze Pengw"/l Dictiona~l' f!f
[.item~'V Tmll.l' (Harmondsworth: PCllguin, 1991). p. 963.)
8 l\iark Z. Danielewski. HOlm uf [~m"s, P.4.
l) - George Peree's Lift A U,a's "lallllal (1978), in particular, is reminiscenl
of Hou.lt! qfLeaues, not only in Percc'~ usc ofa house llii the 111ajor franlE'Work
lor his story, but also by the presentation of the book as a puzzle (quite
literally in Perce's case) consisting of" multitude of fragments. An
illustrative example of Peree and Danielewski's similar use of fragmenlary
and often meaningless tidbits of information would be a comparison of
Peree's list of building lools (George Peree, Life A [he,.'s Aianllal [Croydon:
Vintage, ~oo3J, pp. iO-73) with Danielewski's list of architeclural styles and
examples of sllch (Mark Z. Danielewski, Hallse of Leaves, pp. I~O-34).
III - Though hidden away in a fragment in Appendix B: Bits (rvlark Z.
Daniclewski, House of Lem'es, P.5-+5), the influence lrom GillS is not left
uncredited. For as Zampano's iragment puts it: . I merely wanted Clas
(Paris: Editions Galilee, 19i4l'.
II - Nabokov's Charles Kinhote (the 'editor' of John Shade's poem 'Pale
Fire'), and his anecdotal apprehension of the primary text of Pal.. Fire for his
own purposes, bears more than a passing resemblance to the digressions of
Johnny Truant on The Navidson Record.
12 - Mark Z. Danielewski, J!allse of uav<s, p. 21.
13 - Mark Z. Daniclewski, Hallse of Leav,,', P.3.
14 - VValLer Benjamin, 'The work of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction', in IIIuminaliolIs: Ess".ps and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt,
b·ans. Harry Zorn (Chatham: Pimlico, 199~), p. 214.
15 - Mark Z. Danielewski, HUllse of uaves. p. 379·
16 - Mark Z. Daniclewski, Hallst' of Leaves, p. 28.
17 - Mark Z. Danielewski, How'e q/L,'aves, p. 305.
18 - I'dark Z. Danielewski, Hallse afuaves, p. 90.
19 - Jacques Dcrrida, 'Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the
hUTIlall sciences', in H'riting and Dijforenc;p, trans. and intra. Alan Bass
(Pads tow: Routledge, 2003), p. 35-+.
20 - Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, p. 1~4.
21 - Mark Z. Danielewski, House oj'Leaves, p. 165.
22 - Jacques Derrida, OJ Gmrmnata/agy, trans. and inlro. Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997),
p.160.
 23 - l\Iost clearly scen in a discussion of the pmsiblv most oft-quoted
example of tho' poststrl1cturalist argument (also quoted in this article).
namely Dcrrida's 'Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human
sciences' (!vIark Z. Danielewski, Hous, of Leaves, p. 112).
2+ -Jacques Derrida, 'Force and signification'. in l'I'riting alld Dij}crmrr. 1'. +,
emphasis added.
25 Anthon), Vicllcr, Tlte Architectural [Tnrall~l' (Cambridg",!\IA: MIT Press.
1992), pp. 9 10. Vidkr and h1' The Architcrtural [Tllcalll~l' arc both referred to
by Danidewski (Mark Z. Danidcwski, House of Leav,s. P.359).
26 - Anthony Vidler. Thl' ArchitEctural Unram!y, p. II.
27 Anthony Vidler, Th, Ardliltctural Unran~y, p. 3·
:28 - Sigmund Freud, 'The Uncanny\ in 'Tht' Unraw9\ trans. Davirl
McLintock, intro. Hugh HaUiihtDn (SullOlk: Pmguin, 2(03), p. 12+
29 - Mark Z. Danielewski, HOlm uJ [",a"". p. xx.
:l" - Mark Z. Danidnvski, HOl/st' of LI'llVI'J. p. xxiii.
31 Th,' ultimate prank played by Danielewski similarly shakes the 'very
walls' of the house-story that 'we'. the readers. have taken for gTanted.
N ear the end of the book, after having read some 500 P"iies on the troubles
of Navidson, of the house of infinitt: rooms, of the lonely life of old
Downloaded by [University of Auckland Library] at 21:01 29 October 2014
Zampano, of Truant's horrors in battling the shadows and beasts unlocked
by his recovery of Zampano's book, we are given the key (or one possible
key) to what How" of Lem',,· is 'really' about. The much discLlsseel Five and a
Half Minute Hallway documentary (the first section of the Navidson
Record docuIIlentary, la,ting five and a half minutes) as well as the equally
well-discussed 'roar' of the house, an' hinted not to have anything to elo
,,-ith ZampanfJ. Nayicislll1 UI' tht, house. Tn bet. it is sugg('st{'rl~ these:' thellles
may not haH." tlleir roots in the events filmed by Xavidsoll Ilur {,\Tll ha\T'
l
been il1\Tnted by Zampano. Instead, they arc due to the traumatic 'live
ilnd a half rninutcs' that it Look Tnlant's lTIother. 'roaring' ,,"ith gTief. to he
removed from his childhDod home in oreler to be placed in all imam:
asylum (lvIark Z. Danielew,ki, flouse of [.e<lllrs. P.5I7). In that (';lSI'. the
N a\'idson Record is not all mvention of Zampano 's, but of T rualll·s. The
ellect of the IlnclIlny ('vokeel by Daniclewski is thus to a larg,· degree
thanks til his ability to make his readers ponder a wide arr"y or equallv
l'ngaging stories while siInultancously IJl'ing- capable of pulling the rug 011
Ollr expectations to thl' ckgrlT that \\'{' no longer know \vhat to bdirvc.
j~ - Again, Daniclr\'. .·ski's reliance on other texl~ is hardly nlasked, seeing
that he refns to Barhelard directly on sewral occasions (!vlark Z.
Danirlrwski, I{()us(' rif LRfli!rJ, pp. 11+, IHB, 333 and +(1).
33 Gaston Bache1<lrd. The Po,tics of ,sJmer. trans. Maria .lola; (Boston:
Beacon Press. 1994), P.5·
3+ - Anthony Vidler, The .irchiterturul [/IIC01"')" p. +1, emphasis addecl.
35 - Anthony Vid!t-r, TIle Architectllral UIlUlW!l', p. +1.
36 - Bri<ln McHale, Postmodemist Fictio1l (Cambridge: Routledge. 1999).
p.120.
37 Bl~an NlcHale, i'uItmor/,mist Fictioll. p. 107.
3R - l\'1ark Z. Daniclewski, HOlm rj'ulWfS, I'P·26 7·
39 - Mark Z. Danielcwski, HOllse of Leac'cs, p. 27·
+0 - Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 'The Yellow vVallpapcr', in TIIl'1'ellow
Wallpaper n1lr/ Other Stulil'} (USA: Moclern LibrC1ry. 2000). p. 13.