Has anyone else read this? I got it for Christmas and I can't stop reading it. Basically a mix of horror, academic criticism, and a bunch of other shit. Pretty fucked up book, I'm really enjoying it.

I couldn't put it down either. Ahem, except for that one time a couple of years ago, when I put it down for some dumb reason or another. But once I picked it back up again this year, I couldn't put it down.

The audacity of the narrative astounds me, and just when it starts to border on pretension, it reels itself back in and the humanity of it shines through. I think that the academic criticism aspect is poking fun at the pretension of academic criticism, though, and once I realized that, it made those parts incredibly entertaining.

The core story, though, is pretty incredible. I honestly got irritated with some of Johnny's tale/footnotes, though. Are you reading it entirely in sequence, or are you skipping back to the apendicies when the book suggests you to?

I like that it seems to make fun of criticism as well. I've been reading all the footnotes and periphery stuff til the end (sometimes having to flip a bunch of pages forward to do so) but generally avoiding appendices and the like. I'll read that stuff at the end.

Does it get a lot scarier? I'm at the point where Holloway starts to flip out, and I'm wondering if this is a book I'll have to only read in the daytime.

And yeah, Johnny Truant's stuff gets annoying, especially when it delves into stream of conciousness rambling. The soft-core porn parts are a strange touch too. Overall it doesn't bother me too much, fortunately.

About halfway through, I read the appendix featuring Johnny's mother's letters to him from the mental hospital, but only because a footnote referenced it. I forget at exactly what part it was suggested, but I'm glad I did so, and it made my understanding of Johnny greater, especially through the latter parts of the book. Plus it was yet another story-within-the-main-story that I really dug.

As far as the scariness goes, it's stays equally unsettling pretty much the entire time. This was one of the scariest books I've ever read, with most of the credit going to everything being presented through filmed footage. It was so easy to visualize everything, and to let my imagination get the best of me as I imagined myself viewing the Navidson Report.

I pick this up every time I go to the bookstore, but I always put it back thinking it will be too confusing/hard to follow/incohesive apparently I am wrong?

It's more annoying than difficult sometimes. Definitely worth it though.

The novelty of the writing method wears out fast. I thought the story was pretty good, but it would have worked much better without the footnotes and scribilings.

That was the problem I had with it. After the feeling that you are reading a novel that is presented in a unique way wears off, I felt like I was reading a MOR Stephen King novel with a few ramblings crammed in for "integrity". I might give it another shot seeing as how I only had about another 150 pages to go.

The writing method didn't bother me at all, because it was successful as narrative. Yes, it was unique, but it was effective as well. True, I got annoyed with the footnotes, but only because of the content of Truant's ramblings, and not because they were footnotes. Susanna Clarke uses footnotes similarly in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, to fantastic effect.

I'm used to it from reading a bit of Joyce, so it doesn't bother me. I think the criticism is important for the very reason that the house may be a metaphor for knowledge--a labrynth without end--so the book has a similarly labrynthine layout. Plus, I've enjoyed this more than any Stephen King or other horror writer that I've read. It has a certain detachment from the proceedings that makes everything scarier.

You a Kubrick fan?

You can tell, eh? I do think that if someone can make a film version that does the book justice, it will be the "The Shining" for the 21st century.

My copy was on my doorstep when I got home today. I will try to get through this and Underworld by the time classes start up again next Monday.

I finished it tonight, my brother is going to start reading it since I liked it. Really good book full of food for thought beyond just the story, which is really creepy and well done in and of itself.

I think a big factor in the overall creepiness is the point of view of the main narrative, something that probably can't be achieved in a film version. Unless they went a Blair Witch route and just showed the footage of the Navidson report. But the critique of Zampano, making the reader a detached observer, instead of a participant of the story, is what makes it work for me.

*SPOILER*

The culmination of creepiness came at the discovery of the memoirs describing the staircase in the woods of Colonial Virginia. For some reason that segment filled me with the most dread I've felt in a long time. It's that kind of inexplicable stark alien unknown that gets to me.

Okay, just in the beginning, but I already prefer the non-Johnny narrative sections. Which I guess are largely Zampano’s writings. Johnny’s sections tend to weaken the story for me. It’s building, and then, bam, another pager or two on LA nightlife. Very cool though, the main part about the house that is, and Navidson’s family.

Bump

Bought this out of the blue today from a few suggestions on 4chon. It'll be the first reading material not labeled "Harry Potter" or "Graduate Texts in Mathematics" for me in about half a year, and the first "hard" novel for me since I read A Heartbreaking WOSG two years back.

I flipped through this before getting it, and I think I'll be okay. I got through most of Ulysses and three pages of Finnegan's Wake (I dunno which is the bigger accomplishment) so I'm sort of used to changes in style. It's at least a hundred year old novelty at this point.

I admit I'm a huge King fan, and my favorite short story from him is 1408 (I haven't seen the film). I've also read The Shining and caught this book suggestion on a thread that linked to a long but well-written "viral marketing" blog for the film "The Dionaea House," which turned out to be canceled this year. I dunno - something's always creepy about a haunted house to me, except going to the mockups around Halloween.