 Hi there, today on Typical Books it's a little more of a wrap up on House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielsky. So if you do recall I've finished reading House of Leaves and when I was finished I had taken a few more videos while I was reading it and a few more of my thoughts, thoughts on the font, things like that. So I'll play those for you in a second. But do know that I got to the end of this book. I had my camera handy, my phone and I turned it on and I looked at it and I stared and no words really came because I think that the words weren't wonderful. I didn't really, I like I enjoyed reading it, I enjoyed parts of the story but it was so much of a tour and I had a lot of negative things at first. Aside from my one initial summation of the entire story which is a spoiler to a certain degree so I'm going to put that at the end of this video but and with a warning so you can skip it or whatever. So don't stop yet. I got a few videos on my thoughts at toward the end and I had to put it down for a little bit before making this video so if you've been waiting I apologize but hey I did like it and I really do think this is a lot like grave encounters so if you like that sort of ghost hunting stuff, if you like the puzzle geometry, if you like an escher architecture to a house that you can have people in, then oh yeah like this has aspects of that. If you enjoyed something like Jesse Pinkman's character, if you enjoyed the books like Less Than Zero, if you like that sort of Bret Easton Ellis struggling character that is their own worst enemy, then you will like the Johnny Truman aspects of this. If you like to see how the two things coalesce. If you like things like Memento or The Endless where we're in a world that is very familiar but slanted and warped in very subtle ways and it's that subtlety that gives you that cosmic horror terror feeling. If you like that then this will be for you for certain. I'm not going to go really really deep in this. Suffice it to say that I had very conflicted thoughts about this book when I was done it. Definitely swaying to discontent and all of the things that people say negatively about this book definitely bubbled around in my head alongside I liked it. It was a fun read. I also didn't like reading it because of all those things that people say are very very true about this book. He asks a lot of his reader too much in fact for what this story contains. And it's something that I say often about books and stories and movies and things like that is that it could have been shorter and I feel like it's such a cop out when I say that but I would love to see an abridged version of this if there are coals notes for House of Leaves let me know because that would be fun to revisit sometime. But yeah I've often joked to myself that I wish The Horror Show with Brian Keane had a Brian Keane headlines podcast that went along with it that was maybe five minutes long that just cut out all the important headlines of stuff that he talked about as far as comics books, his new releases, other people's work and what's going on in the horror scene. That would be so cool but same sort of thing I wouldn't mind House of Leaves headlines book. So here are some of my thoughts from oh I don't know it's probably the last fourth of the book probably where I'm grappling a little more with the storyline and talking a little bit about what is being presented in the last portion of the book. It's a short time later and I've now hit a giant section which is illegible of course with giant garbage footnotes and I'm not sure what to do. Okay so yeah still reading the gigantic tome that is House of Leaves and a couple little things. I am starting to enjoy Johnny Truman's story a little bit probably because his mind has deteriorated to a point that I can relate to. We've been watching Breaking Bad. I've never watched it before but I've been very aware of the story of Breaking Bad but um Jesse Pinkman's character reminds me quite a bit of what Johnny Truman was up until the time that he started compiling some panos, navits and record kind of cocksure and a bit of a party ass and kind of a frat boy that'll never ever grow up sort of thing with extra street wise party edge very strange individual but he reminded me of Jesse Pinkman quite a bit and actually Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad has a higher standard of morals and ethics than Johnny Truman had at one point I believe and that's probably why I didn't like him as a person but now that he's deteriorated so we're hitting sort of like a common denominator of humankind at its worst I can relate to him a little better and I'm enjoying what he has to say. We're also hitting a point of dreams and dream interpretation to a certain extent and I had mentioned in previous videos the dreams that I used to have quite often and what is kind of enchanting to me about House of Lease is finding of secret rooms, passages. I would often dream that there was a closet or something that would open to another room if you've watched Futurama and see Bender's apartment that looks like a little closet for a robot to sleep in but then there's a wall behind it which is where it's a full apartment okay, Supri lives in the full apartment that Bender never used. That sort of thing is what I would often dream of or finding like hey let's move this bookcase, oh there's a door there and open it and there's a duplicate of the house behind it sort of like a duplex but no one knew what was there or and this is one that I've seen on Reddit when you look up recurring dreams of houses and secret rooms, secret passages. People will dream of finding a room or an attic with all their childhood toys or old furniture of their parents or their grandmother's house and stuff like that like yeah I'd have those dreams quite often not so much lately but from time to time. One dream that I used to have a lot was Rickety Stairs and I know it's not really related to House of Lease but it had come up in my previous video and I don't have them anymore but I used to always have Rickety Stair dreams and who knows maybe someday I'll get into a large story time about why I could have possibly been having those sorts of dreams but they do signify not being able to progress in your life to a place you feel you ought to be or are striving toward and there's barriers between you and it. The hidden rooms dream is sort of similar in that you are progressing in life and you're unlocking new things and you're discovering new things. I probably have those dreams a lot because I'm constantly learning, teaching, researching and especially as being a writer and a journalist learning all sorts of crazy stuff so that makes a lot of sense for me. Interestingly it sort of does tie into what's going on in this book just the general idea of finding a secret room and where that leads. Maybe this one isn't so good. Another thing that I had noticed in this book quite finally I understand there are coded sections within this and I was really enjoying reading one of the first I guess I don't know if there's other ones letters from Navitson to Karen after the fact after the incident in the house. I'm trying to stay away from spoilers here but there was a like a love letter so to speak a very dark and twisted love letter he admits he's drunk when he writes it but it's quite long it's interesting it's rambling it gives you some insight into his character and a few little mysteries so far but at the end of it in one of the footnotes it says straight up there's a line and there about it being coded and how all of the greatest love letters are coded for the one and not the other. I don't have the time to look up codes in this I'm not gonna go reading the first letters of lines or eliminating every w and seeing what I get like I know there's some codes in this after I read this book I'm gonna go and look at all the hard work other people have done on it but at the end of that it does explicitly say there's a code and I sort of idly scanned it and I'm like I don't have time for this um I enjoyed the letter it kind of ruined it for me by mentioning there's a code to look up I don't know if I'll ever have the time in my golden years to revisit this and dig through it that way but knowing that you can is interesting to me having it dangled in front of me and knowing that because it's being dangled in front of me it means it probably isn't there makes me feel kind of foolish for looking at all so I don't know if anyone else has really found all the codes and if anyone has spent a year reading this book um I'm very interested to hear your insight um I do see how someone who is susceptible to puzzles could probably get very lost in this I am susceptible to puzzles to a certain extent but this one I'm drawing a big lines I'm drawing big big lines to keep myself from being sucked in when I can read it at my leisure and then go and see what other people have investigated that sounds like fun to me but yeah okay so I haven't been really referring to things online while I read this because I think that that's something best left for when I'm done reading this book so I haven't really looked too much stuff up but I do have my iPad with me just in case I did look up the actual photo of a girl with a vulture and some other Pulitzer prize winning photos just because I got sidetracked and that's part of why I'm not doing that there is still a struggle for me reading this book because it's just so much that feels like useless information I'm trying to convince myself it'll all come together at one point right but yeah so I've enjoyed that I've enjoyed quite a bit of the duality in talk of mothers so far and I've discovered my favorite page it's this whoa not that but those diagonal pages are just fun to read it's it's fun some of the going through a particular hallway for those that have read it it is kind of a hard no it's not climax it's hard for me to say because I'm not done yet right but that was fun but as soon as I hit those diagonal pages it just it just felt neat to read but yeah so yeah that feeling of reading something neat a lot of the other scattered typography has just not appealed to me but that page certainly did so I can see that appeal and addendum to that last notable my favorite page is that it's also the only time I've had to turn this book over entirely to actually read something it's that loss where I've been denying the book that joy for so long by not turning it all the way over I've finally been defeated I've finally lost and it's a satisfying loss it's also the subject matter of these particular diagonal pages that I do enjoy quite a bit you'll have to forgive me my absolutely ridiculous hair right now it's been up it's been down it's a hot it's a hot night here in Canada land okay I've got a different hair do today entirely don't I uh yeah I am getting close to the end I'm at the I've finished the book I'm into appendices but as I said previously I count that as all part of the book so I'm just uh I don't know I've got maybe an eighth left or something like that I've read Johnny Trun's diary entries near the end and I'm into Zampano's diary entries in the appendix and I find them interesting I like that I like the slight mirroring within the story I like uh Johnny's journey to sort of discover some of the origins of this and his meeting with the band those aren't spoilery things and I'm um pretty sure I won't give a spoilery anything that's what I'm really hoping to not have to do it all here but uh when I say I'm enjoying it it's it's despite feeling like um I'm being dragged through reading it so it's not like I don't know I'm gonna try and assign a star rating to this um so I don't know how skewed that'll be but I'm probably you know if it ends up being over four stars I'm just gonna give it a one-star handicap because I just I I'm not enjoying reading it I'm enjoying the story and I'm enjoying the characters but I'm not enjoying reading it finally I've reached the point in the book with Johnny's mother's letters I feel like I've hit that part in a show like um Requiem for a Dream where everyone's balling their eyes out in the winter act fourth act fourth season uh the darkest part although this feels strangely uplifting and I think I owe a lot of my joy in reading the sections so far is to the font choice I don't know what it is like a bookman or something like that it's really a very pretty font the font in question was Dante go figure uh font I've never really used and I can see why it reminds me a lot of children's books go figure those are two reasons it's a perfect choice Dante Inferno and it's great for children's books that seems like a weird thing but yeah lovely stuff reminds me of Winnie the Pooh now if you recall like I said I had next emotions about reading this I would recommend it to those who enjoy cosmic horror enjoy things about people being their own worst enemy don't have any trouble with drug culture stories and things like that it's it's interesting it's very interesting and if you've looked at it as a challenging read if it is on your bucket list so to speak go for it you know it's uh it doesn't take as long you can assign reading to it and there are other people's plans for that it's not as long as it looks and you will find that you like once you get it and you flip through it you will read the first maybe quarter of the book very normally it's very dense it's very normal the next quarter of the book will fly by in an afternoon the next quarter of the book depending on your interest level can go quick or slow depending and the last quarter of the book if you're uninterested in what you've read so far could go by very quickly or if you are interested and wanting to absorb and untangle a lot of this it can go pretty slow but in the rewarding way so before I get spoiler-ific or anything I did run this through the book score thank you very much to heartbeats and the trees for developing such a wonderful tool and wow this is probably the lowest scoring book it's like a 2.5 stars I scored like a 42 or 43 and I stopped actually dinging it because I thought I was being too mean because there were things I enjoyed think of all the things that you can enjoy about a book and this wins that Unenjoyment Award of 2020 but I really did enjoy the house itself I enjoyed the mystery of what was going on in the house I enjoyed the descriptions of the house I enjoyed when they were deep down in the house I enjoyed that feeling hence my constant allusions to Grave Encounters the movie I enjoyed De Zampano the character who had compiled the Navanson record in the first place who only makes very cursory appearances in a third-party regurgitation we never really actually meet Zampano and I loved that character Johnny's mom I liked that character that's somebody who we only really meet through a third-party or for her epistolary appearance in the end of the book so it's book ended by these really cool characters I like and in the meat of it all is this setting that I really like but that's not really what it's about and there's not enough time spent there and if it were it would be a very different book it would be a story with a beginning middle and end not um this spiral staircase running up and down as it were I will say there is an our huge communities devoted to this book which has just celebrated its 20-year anniversary of being a book right so if you are like me and want to save time there's a few puzzling things within this book that are explained for you elsewhere online it is a keystroke away so you don't need to take the time but you can actually if you don't mind writing in your books with a pencil you can circle things and figure the small easy puzzles out yourself very rewarding if you're into that so it is fun if you don't want to destroy your book you can find the things online you can take a picture with your phone and mark things up on computer or on your phone that's probably the most convenient way if you want to preserve your copy now that said you can enjoy this book without the puzzles but there is one a letter a letter I won't spoil it any further than that where you will need to get the full contacts and the full gut punchery of it all you will need to do that one puzzle everything else is you don't need to follow footnotes around the book like a maniac you don't need to do any of that to get the story you can read this in the laziest manner possible and in the most straightforward manner possible and treat it like a damn book and you can still get everything you need to get out of this you don't need to have it destroy your life for years or whatever it is because that's the idea I get of the way that some people treat this book that it's gonna ruin them or whatever it's not it's it's an interesting book and that's it okay so on that note it does ask a lot of a person for a very simple story so if that's not your cup of tea if you don't want to be run around a book for a very simple story then go and watch other people's more in-depth reviews and you'll get what you want out of it if you're very interested like I was and these sort of videos I've spurred you on and you want no spoilers you want no the key to this all then I will thank you very much for watching and if you enjoyed this or read or I'm going to read House of Leaves let me know in the comments below I will have another moment here to spoil the book and it won't take long so you're not missing out much if you're tuning out right away I'm giving you a big long rambling warning here in a five four three two one method that if you don't click away I'm going to spoil the last page of the book so yeah it's Ragnarok that's it it's Ragnarok that's what this story boils down to the last page Iggdrasil I somewhat recognize that and I'm like oh it's Norris it's about Ragnarok and after you know I thought that after reading the word Iggdrasil I thought oh my god the house is a tree of life it is the multidimensional thing that is upon what worlds collide at the end leaving a male and female alive to repopulate and carry forward with a new brave world it's Ragnarok that's it it's Ragnarok so that's it I had fun with it it was sort of a letdown once I read the Iggdrasil page and I thought oh my it's that's it those who say it's a house of leaves in that the book has the pages and the pages of the leaves and the book is the house get it I think that's sort of uh dumbing it down to a certain extent and and kind of misrepresenting the whole book for people so I hope that those reading don't uh hang on that punny explanation for this book too much and I don't know what the author has to say because like I said earlier I'm interested to have finished reading this book so I can go and read other people's extrapolations from this book and see what the author himself has to say about it uh it's not necessarily a house of leaves it's Ragnarok and that's kind of neat I don't know I give it that it's neat so as I said before thank you very much for watching if you've read this if you have any input on that let's leave Ragnarok out of the comments as best we can I might be completely wrong if you think I'm completely wrong we could speak in code I don't know in the comments or something like that you could just tell me straight up that you think I'm wrong you're entirely entitled to do that I could be just simplifying it even more than those who alluded to this as the house itself so yeah that is my take on house of leaves interestingly uh I'm glad I read it definitely it will stick with me to a certain extent more so for its reputation than the story and the house itself as it's described in such short sections that it is actually a horror novel that has scary creepy ideas it will lead me to other stories and books and nightmares of my own that have a lot more effect and impact I'll just stop there hi there today on typical leaves what