House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Science May Be Hazardous to Your Health

House of Leaves is certainly sarcastic. It uses a Borges-like found-manuscript containing numerous pseudo-factual references to ‘document’ the creation of a video production of questionable authenticity. The question is whether the book is frivolous or serious sarcasm. Frivolity would place it in a class with pieces like The Blair Witch Project which simply and openly waste readers’ time with pointless and unrewarded anticipation. Although that may be where it belongs as a whole, there are parts that might in fact be a more serious critique of the human obsession with abstract knowledge, what is generally termed Science (or at least academic science). If House of Leaves has such a serious component, perhaps it might qualify as a cautionary allegory.

The house on Ash Tree Lane, the cosmos of the book, as it were, presents an epistemological problem. It appears to be one quarter of an inch bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. This is a typical start for a scientific inquiry. Some quantity is measured - size, speed, volume, trajectory - and is used to confirm or reject a theory or hypothesis. The only really interesting measurement, however, is that which detects a difference at some increased level of precision from previous measurements. This difference, once confirmed, is what provokes questions about existing theories and can lead to new knowledge. Or so some schools of the philosophy of science hold.

Once started, the inquiry to understand the difference in measurement takes on its own momentum. Other people are recruited into the effort - specialists with high-tech instruments, teams which invest time and resources, even family members who may be effectively ignored in favour of the inquiry. It is really at this stage that the inquiry becomes properly scientific in the sense that it is a publicly shared effort not merely personal research. Investigative work is planned, tasks allocated, responsibilities assigned.

What often happens then, with Science as well as the house as Ash Tree Lane, is that the inquiry opens up completely unexpected theoretical avenues - not unlike, say, the formulation of quantum mechanics from ‘established’ Newtonian physics at the beginning of the 20th century. Rather than determining the true dimensions of the house, those involved find that their investigations appear to be changing the house. Rooms appear, corridors lead to yet more distant rooms, great halls open up, stairways penetrate unknown depths. The mystery of the house deepens. As new spaces are discovered, the former level of ignorance looks trivial in retrospect.

From an insignificant initial difference, therefore, enormously different perceptions arise. Everyone involved becomes confused. Professional rivalries flare up. Careers are made and lost. Families fragment. Friendships are destroyed. The house itself seems a mysterious living creature which may be a hostile danger to those investigating it. Yet to those outside, those who are not part of the community of inquiry, the house appears as it always has. If asked, these outsiders would think the insiders were hallucinating. The insiders are aware of this so are hesitant to report their findings, largely because they really don’t have any. Typical science.

From a literary point of view, House of Leaves would probably have made an interesting short story or novella - at least if it does have any of the serious content I suggest. The fact that it goes on for 700 pages or so does count against my theory. It’s wildly excessive. On the other hand, the parallel narrative of the finder of the originary document who goes slowly mad as he reads it, does suggest that the penalty for pushing unprepared into the study of human knowledge has some very serious potential side effects. Perhaps that’s what the author indicates when he says, “See, the irony is it makes no difference that the documentary at the heart of this book is fiction. [The author] knew from the get go that what's real or isn't real doesn't matter here. The consequences are the same.” Like I said: sarcasm of indeterminate type.

View all my reviews