The second narrative within the text is a commentary on the original 'Navidson Record,' written by an old blind man called Zampanò. Will Navidson is a successful photographer, best known for a picture of a girl ('Delial') in war-torn Sudan. The first narrative is a videocassette, 'The Navidson Record,' recording the strange occurrences at the Navidson family house, encompassing recordings of several explorations into the House. The text of House of Leaves is actually three different narratives, united by the single theme of the House on Ash Tree Lane (the pseudononymous 'House of Leaves'). Through the figure of the house, Danielewski offers an unprecedented textual meditation on the nature of nothingness and the way in which this relates to literature, architecture, and philosophy.Īs House of Leaves is relatively recent and its impact upon critical circles remains to be seen, it is worth providing a short synopsis. More properly, this means that rather than nihilism having a construction, it is that which exists before construction or is that upon which a construction is built. The problem of nihilism is implicit in most postmodern or poststructuralist fiction, but House of Leaves suggests a much more radical approach in which nihilism is something that can never come into Being.

This is because House of Leaves introduces the idea that nihilism exists beneath all forms of discourse, whether linguistic (the literary) or visual (the architectural). Danielewski's House of Leaves and reveals that House of Leaves is not intended for the reader, whoever he or she may be. 'This is not for you' is the dedication in Mark Z. With the release of the series, the New York Times declared Danielewski 'America's foremost literary Magus.' His latest release, The Little Blue Kite, is in bookstores now.MFS Modern Fiction Studies 51.1 (2005) 88-109 Between 2015-2017, Pantheon released five volumes of The Familiar, each an 880-page installment about a 12-year-old girl who finds a kitten and sets off a chain reaction with global consequences. In 2015, Danielewski's THROWN, a reflection on Matthew Barney's CREMASTER 2, was displayed at the Guggenheim Museum during its Storylines exhibition.

His books have been translated into multiple languages, and his work has been the focus of university classes and literary events. He is the author of the award-winning and bestselling novel House of Leaves, National Book Award finalist Only Rev oluti ons, and the novella The Fifty Year Sword, which was performed on Halloween three years in a row at REDCAT. Danielewski was born in New York City and lives in Los Angeles.

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