House of Leaves - A Place of Absence

[@Sky-hk2sc]

I think the liminal space segment is an excellent assessment of the fear of the unfamiliar. Humans (and bird people) find comfort in the familiar - the known - it's like our truth. But liminal spaces distort that truth. It takes something that feels familiar and makes them unrecognisable. When a house shifts as easily as leaves subjected to change; growing, rotting, falling off, there is no longer any comfort of the familiar to hide behind. When the house becomes just as maze-lile as the veins of a leaf, there is no normalcy to return to. However abstracted it is, the house will remain a house, but it will never be the same again.

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Damn… that was beautifully put, thank you for always watching! (:^

[@Sky-hk2sc]

@@CuriousRobinKnows thank you for making the video! (And good editing as always)

[@Heinos_music]

Out of the dozens of video's I've seen analysing the -house- book, this one is the best. The visuals are on point, I love the vision you have for the aesthetic of the book.

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

It was made with a lot of love for the book, thank you for your kind words and thank you for watching!

[@chrisl3447]

I agree! It was difficult to find a satisfying video but this one does a great job at summing it all up and this one was the best. Thank you!

[@joshuamcpeak.]

probably the best words to describe the house on ash tree lane are those spoken by johnny truant in the first few pages: "this is not for you." the house is not for the navidsons or zampanò or johnny, and it punishes them for believing so. the navidsons are driven out, exposed to the deaths of friends and family. zampanò is found dead in his trashed apartment at the start of the novel. johnny goes mad, obsessed with the house to the point of self-destruction. imo, johnny is warning the reader with those beginning words, foreshadowing the labyrinth of words the book will put them through. the house is not for mankind. the house is not for you. excellent video, you've got a new sub :)

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

And even with all those warnings, we still enter the house… thank you for watching!

[@Cl_dzieciak]

I mean Navidson ended up as a better, happier person in spite of all that suffering. For me the House was a metaphor of getting to the lowest point, losing your mind complacently and find a peace in that insanity. Then accepting yourself with all your laws and moving on. I don't think that the House was some evil entity - it wanted to help Navidson in its own twisted way.

[@fallbladew967]

This is criminaly under rated, such an amazing video about House of Leaves

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Thank you!

[@hxsort]

Amazing video on HoL. This is some serious quality gold content. "You see emptiness here is the purported familiar and your house is endlessly familiar, endlessly repetitive. Hallways, corridors, rooms, over and over again. [...] A lifeless, objectless, soulless place. Godless too." (HoL, p.359) "The walls are endlessly bare. Nothing hangs on them, nothing defines them. They are without texture. Even to the keenest eye or most sentient fingertip, they remain unreadable. You will never find a mark there. No trace survives. The walls obliterate everything. They are permanently absolved of all record. Oblique, forever obscure and unwritten. Behold the fect pantheon of absence." (HoL, p. 423) Every time I see anything on House of Leaves, I wanna go back. Explore the house again. But I fear the shifting walls might get me. What will I find at the heart of the house this time? Am I ready for it? Can one ever be ready for it? Thanks for this incredible video!

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

That first quote made by skin crawl, again! It is true that even though it is so unsettling, the house at Ash Tree Lane is truly magnetic and it's easy to want to visit it again. Thanks for watching!

[@Person-who-exists]

No book has ever scared me, not even this... but house of leaves has completely terrified me and gripped my mind, even now I think about it almost weekly.

[@bigronnie9629]

The greatest summation to the best novel I've ever read. Thank you so much for this. It's criminal you don't have a higher sub count. Your voice is really needed on this platform

[@checkmatetrav]

This is a great video and exactly as I would have pictured the navidson reccord.

[@jonathangraf7671]

I'm literally watching this while drawing a maze. Well done!

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Be careful not to get lost in your own creation, thanks for watching!

[@zpks.]

Really interesting perspective on the book!

[@stibba4286]

amazing production value, great video

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Thank you!

[@ollyonthemoon]

An amazing video, one of the best Hol videos I've ever seen, great job!

[@Liz-iu5lx]

This video is GREAT. Wow. What a work of art.

[@IReallyLikeSnails]

It’s incomprehensible that this doesn’t have more views. Instant sub! Keep up the excellent work :)

[@bank8489]

6:36 fragments of euclid! i played that game so so much a few years ago

[@weirddreams_fe]

I just finished the book. Sometimes it was too much. Of everything, really. I need sometime to process. Thanks for such a great video!

[@jerrioboi]

Would like to buy the book but have held off, afraid that I might get lost or uninterested while reading. This video is definitely a good visual representation of it and stirred up my interest. There's a question I wanna ask, what is the piano piece music used in Chapter 2 of this video when describing a home?

[@youprettywow]

Thank you! I needed this. I keep trying to read the book but keep getting lost in the details. Now I might be able to actually finish it

[@bigronnie9629]

Be warned this is the only story where the climax gave me a literal panic attack and left me sobbing.

[@trickeried]

Excellent

[@DaveFarr]

This was really well done. It makes me want to read HoL again, and I''ll be sharing this with people I think might enjoy the book.

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

That's exactly the idea, thank you for watching and sharing!

[@matiascura3727]

Wow, this was so good. Why isn’t your channel much more popular? New sub definitely.

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Very kind words! Thank you for watching and subscribing!

[@davidnighten5553]

This video is fantastically made...

[@PablodelaRocha]

Still reading the book and just found your amazing video. Thank you for this. I'm loving the experience of reading nd your video just made it richer.

[@LunaCorbden]

His sister, Poe, is a musician who made an album “Haunted” that complements the book. I had this album circa 2000 but didn’t know this. So it came as a shock when I was reading HoL twenty years later and the scene about the drive up Mullholand Drive, recognized the lyrics from the Hey Pretty Drive Remix. After that the HoL references fell right out of every song. There are new clues there, too. “Why do they call it a house of leaves?”

[@Raptor13270]

Do you play video games? Alan Wake and Control are both inspired by HoL. Narrative and setting. The Alan Wake series feature songs by Poe and the latest entry has songs written for the game. I actually discovered HoL because of these games and Poe’s music!

[@LunaCorbden]

@ wow I did not know that! I can’t play video games anymore (brain fog) but I will look for a walkthrough/let’s play.

[@Raptor13270]

@@LunaCorbden Alan Wake’s characters remind me of some of HoL’s characters. Control’s setting “The Oldest House” is based off the Navidsons’ house with its shape shifting properties. The issue with this game is that there’s a lot of content found inside in-game documents. Lets plays may not cover this. They’re actually part of the same universe, so if you want to watch in order, then it’s: Alan Wake 1 > Alan Wake American Nightmare (optional) > Control > Alan Wake 2

[@greywolf9783]

It's called a house of leaves because a book is paper(leaves) given a roof and floor(the book covers and spine). It's also a way of expressing how confusing what you're walking into is leaves in great numbers, making seeing where you're going very hard. The forests were our first mazes, after all. And a house of leaves, by that logic, would be very hard to navigate.

[@amy_grace]

Fun fact: when it was time to actually typeset House of Leaves, MZD flew out to New York and spent a week on a borrowed computer in his publisher's office laying everything out himself-partly to make sure it was all correct, but also because he didn't want to inflict that task on anybody else 😂

[@MrBloodycape]

So good!

[@andrew45038]

Just picked up the book today I read the first chapter and man I’m in for a journey loved your video❤️

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Indeed you are! Thanks for watching!

[@panef]

Nice!

[@deborah3709]

This is so well done!!

[@andresatf361]

amazing video, will be a long time sub.

[@Liz-iu5lx]

This video itself is a work of art.

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Thank you!

[@Ravuun]

Did you ever listen to the related album Haunted? It was creaed by Poe, who is the author's sister, at the same time he was writing this bo. It:s a grea album.

[@greywolf9783]

The book, like the house, is a maze. The Navidson record seems to be the only way out... or is it just the entrance of the maze?

[@s.a.m8365]

Firstly, fantastic assessment of the "book", I thought it very engaging and well written however I do think to improve your future projects you should try working on your vocal performance (not trying to be mean, just a note). Secondly, I've never heard a better definition of liminal spaces. Great video

[@CuriousRobinKnows]

Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@TheCrystalChassis]

I'm desperate to see a decent film adaptation of this, or at least part of it. Perhaps just the tapes. I've suggested it to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead and they liked the comment so fingers crossed 😆. I think they would be perfect for the material.

[@greywolf9783]

It's called a house of leaves because a book is paper(leaves) given a roof and floor(the book covers and spine). It's also a way of expressing how confusing what you're walking into is leaves in great numbers, making seeing where you're going very hard. The forests were our first mazes, after all. And a house of leaves, by that logic, would be very hard to navigate.

[@AnthonyRusso93]

Terrifying? Hardly. The suspense and thriller genres are not mutually inclusive with horror. It is scary like Donnie Darko is scary. It isn't. Unlike Donnie Darko it isn't a super hero movie nor does it have the either or conclusion or even a finite number of conclusions for that matter. It also has a much better internal logic lacking the corny tropes, self-important neologisms in the lore lexicon, lacking the specificity, and most importantly it is far less conclusive. But Donnie Darko being finite is more easily illustrative of something that is harder to notice about Danielewski's labyrinth: all clues are red herrings. The analysis is an exercise in futility much like Navi's efforts to uncover all the House's secrets. If one is lucky enough to have their Karen drag them out they must not ever return lest they risk staying lost should they find themselves lost again. You can not trust a dang word that comes from legendary sigmamale Johnny Truant like oh my god Johnny we get it you score with chicks all the time and you are "the beast" just like Alister Crowley fighting till you knuckles bleed and winning trips to Europe all things that so totally really happened guys trust me fr.