I first read “House of Leaves” about a decade ago and loved it immediately.

Specifically:

  • Narrative at multiple levels.
  • Found-document style
  • Multimodal writing (letters, footnotes, mess)

I also liked the core mystery: what was that house all about.

My favorite parts were descriptions of measuring the house, exploring the stair case, etc. When Zampano is summarizing the parts of the Navidson record that focus on Navidson + family + friends trying to understand the house.

I guess, I also liked that there was mystery at all the levels.

  • What is real?
  • Who is reliable
  • Which parts are reliable.

Just great fun.

I was not into the secret messages, I’m too lazy.

I don’t care much for Johnny’s story/writing, other than when he’s footnotes add to better understanding Zampano text. Although there was a deeply scary moment when he was describing sitting in the dark reading and monsters creeping up and it mirrored the reader’s experience well - i.e. me - and he got me :) I was scared.

I did not care for the letters from Johnny’s mother.

I didn’t much care for having to turn the book around to read the spiraling text and such.

When I re-read it, I typically skip to my favorite parts of the navidson record retelling of House exploration.

Also, imagine if there was more academic stuff on the history of the area, and then more on after Navidson left the house/lot.

More house!

Anyway, let’s try and breakdown two things:

  1. What exactly were the levels of narration in the book.
  2. What was the tone and style at each level?

I tried with a few LLMs, most were wrong-ish, but gpt4o did a good job:

Levels of Narrative

So there is the documentary film, there is academic analysis of the film by Zampano, there is Johnny finding the manuscript and adding footnotes, there’s the editor’s footnotes, and there’s the letters from Johnny’s mother.

  1. The Navidson Record (Primary Story): This layer presents itself as an academic-style analysis of a fictional documentary called The Navidson Record. The documentary follows Will Navidson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, who moves into a house with his family only to discover that the interior dimensions of the house are larger than the exterior. A mysterious, seemingly infinite labyrinth appears inside, leading to an eerie exploration of space, time, and existential horror.
  2. Zampanò’s Manuscript: The academic analysis of The Navidson Record is written by an elderly blind man named Zampanò. His manuscript is dense, filled with footnotes, scholarly references (many of which are fictitious), and discussions of the film’s supposed impact on philosophy, psychology, and film theory. Zampanò himself appears to be obsessed with the house’s mystery, and his writings suggest something sinister about it.
  3. Johnny Truant’s Story: Johnny Truant, a troubled tattoo parlor apprentice, discovers Zampanò’s manuscript after the old man dies. As he edits and organizes the text, Johnny’s own life starts unraveling—he experiences hallucinations, paranoia, and a psychological breakdown. His footnotes, often long and rambling, detail his traumatic childhood, relationships, drug use, and descent into madness.
  4. Editors’ Footnotes and Commentary: A fictional team of editors compiles Johnny’s notes and Zampanò’s manuscript, adding their own comments and corrections. Their presence adds another level of unreliability and raises questions about the authenticity of the entire book.
  5. Letters from Johnny’s Mother (The Pelafina Letters): Included toward the end of the book, these letters reveal the tragic story of Johnny’s institutionalized mother, Pelafina H. Lièvre. Her letters are filled with cryptic messages and possible hidden meanings, hinting at connections between Johnny’s past, his mental instability, and the deeper horror underlying the story.

Good stuff.

Writing Tone and Style

  1. The Navidson Record (Primary Story)
    • Tone: Cold, analytical, and suspenseful.
    • Writing Style: Written as a pseudo-academic film analysis, filled with technical descriptions, citations, and references to scholarly works (many of which are fabricated). Despite this detached tone, the story itself is deeply unsettling, creating an eerie and slow-building horror as Navidson and his family confront the impossible dimensions of the house.
  2. Zampanò’s Manuscript
    • Tone: Erudite, obsessive, and unreliable.
    • Writing Style: Dense and labyrinthine, often mimicking real academic texts but with a self-important, over-analytical feel. Zampanò’s writing is littered with footnotes, obscure references, and highly detailed critiques of The Navidson Record—yet key sources and quotes are fabricated, suggesting his analysis is unstable or deceptive. There are also occasional hints of paranoia, as if Zampanò feared something pursuing him.
  3. Johnny Truant’s Story
    • Tone: Informal, chaotic, and emotionally raw.
    • Writing Style: Casual, profane, and meandering. Johnny’s footnotes frequently veer into personal tangents—stories about his wild nights, traumatic childhood, and deteriorating mental state. His narrative is unreliable and fragmented, sometimes poetic, other times rambling, reflecting his descent into paranoia and psychosis.
  4. Editors’ Footnotes and Commentary
    • Tone: Dry, authoritative, but subtly skeptical.
    • Writing Style: Clean and professional, often pointing out inconsistencies in Johnny’s transcription of Zampanò’s work. The editors distance themselves from the text, as if they are merely compiling and presenting it objectively—though their inclusion raises questions about how much of Johnny’s story is even real.
  5. Pelafina’s Letters (Johnny’s Mother)
    • Tone: Elegant, lyrical, yet deeply unsettling.
    • Writing Style: Highly articulate and sophisticated, with long, elaborate sentences. Pelafina’s letters oscillate between loving motherly advice and cryptic, unsettling messages. As her mental illness worsens, her writing becomes more fragmented and surreal, containing hidden acrostics and codes that suggest deeper meanings.

Plot

Also, let’s outline the main plot, e.g. of the Navidson Record itself as filtered by Zampano, Johnny, and the editors.

I. The Arrival at the House

  • Will Navidson moves into a new home in rural Virginia with his wife Karen Green, and their children, Chad (5) and Daisy (3).
  • The move is meant to be a fresh start, as Will and Karen’s relationship is strained due to his workaholic nature and Karen’s fear of commitment.
  • Navidson sets up cameras around the house to capture their new life, intending to make a home-movie documentary.

II. The First Anomaly: The House is Bigger Inside

  • Navidson notices that the inside of the house is slightly larger than the outside dimensions—a small, impossible discrepancy of about ¼ inch.
  • He measures again and again, confirming the inconsistency.
  • His brother, Tom Navidson, visits and helps him re-measure, but the results remain the same.

III. The Hallway Appears

  • One day, a new door suddenly appears in the house, leading to a dark, cold hallway.
  • The hallway should extend outside the house but doesn’t—it exists in an impossible, shifting space.
  • The hallway is completely light-absorbing, silent, and appears infinite.
  • Karen, terrified, insists that the family ignore it, but Navidson is fascinated.

IV. First Exploration: The Short Reconnaissance

  • Navidson and Tom enter the hallway cautiously and find that it expands into a maze of endless corridors and stairways.
  • The passage shifts unpredictably, and walls change positions.
  • They mark their path with chalk and string but quickly become disoriented before retreating.

V. Second Exploration: Bringing in the Experts

  • Navidson hires a group of professionals:
    • Holloway Roberts, a seasoned explorer and leader.
    • Jed Leeder and Wax Hookman, two experienced climbers and adventurers.
  • They enter the abyss with advanced gear and discover a massive spiral staircase descending into darkness.
  • They descend but find no bottom.
  • The explorers leave but prepare for a larger-scale expedition.

VI. Third Exploration: Descent into Madness

  • Holloway, Jed, and Wax return for a longer mission.
  • The deeper they go, the more the house seems to react, shifting and disorienting them.
  • Holloway begins to break down mentally, experiencing paranoia and aggression.
  • They find a massive, open chamber known as the Great Hall, which seems like an endless void.
  • Holloway accidentally fires his gun, creating an impossibly loud sound that reverberates endlessly.

VII. Disaster: The Kill and the Fall

  • Holloway becomes convinced they are being followed by something unseen.
  • He shoots at Jed and Wax, but they escape.
  • In a state of paranoia, Holloway wanders off alone and is lost in the dark.
  • Navidson, worried, enters the labyrinth with Tom to rescue them.
  • They find Holloway’s corpse—he fell or jumped to his death.
  • The house suddenly begins collapsing, forcing them to flee.

VIII. The House Strikes Back: The Great Collapse

  • The house shifts violently, closing off passageways and separating Navidson from Tom.
  • Tom heroically lowers Daisy out a window before he himself is swallowed by the abyss.
  • The house destroys all evidence of the hallway, leaving no trace of what happened.

IX. Karen and the Children Escape

  • Karen, traumatized, takes the children and leaves Navidson.
  • She has always feared being trapped, and the house has embodied that fear.
  • Navidson, feeling unfulfilled and still obsessed, decides to return alone.

X. Navidson’s Final Journey

  • Navidson re-enters the house alone, bringing minimal supplies and a video camera.
  • He descends the endless staircase, attempting to reach the abyss’s bottom.
  • The house is now completely silent and unresponsive, as if it is waiting.
  • Days (or weeks?) pass, and Navidson becomes skeletal, starving, and delirious.
  • He finally collapses inside a completely empty void.

XI. The Impossible Escape and the House’s Vanishing

  • Just before death, Navidson finds himself inexplicably back in his bedroom.
  • The house, as if it spat him out, is now completely normal.
  • Navidson escapes the house for good.
  • Shortly after, the house physically collapses into nothing, leaving only an empty lot.

XII. The Aftermath

  • Navidson, forever changed, tracks down Karen.
  • Karen, despite her past fears, reunites with him, and they move to a new, ordinary home.
  • The documentary footage of The Navidson Record is said to be widely studied—but its authenticity is questionable, leading to the greater mystery of whether any of it really happened.

That looks about right.

Man, imagine having to put that together yourself, rather than have gpt4o generate it in 5 seconds?

I guess I would “understand” it better if I put it together manually, but do I need to? Would it change me in helpful ways?