House of horror
Got a few minutes to spare? This online tale is absolutely brilliant, both in concept and execution. It's the sort of idea I really wish I'd thought of first. Read through the emails, then be sure to go through the "updates" page, following the links and reading everything.
Kudos to the writer(s) behind this project. It reminds me on several different levels of Mark Danielewski's amazing novel House of Leaves, which also features both a creepy house and a wonderfully Nabakovian playfulness with regards to narrative and medium. (That last sentence sounded kinda pretentious. My apologies.)
Comments
Aaaa! Very scary!
You've got to watch out for that Nabakovian playfulness.
Posted by: michele | November 4, 2004 10:26 PM
That was pretty awesome. I sorta wish I could have been reading along as he posted updates, rather than reading it all at once. You know, to keep me in suspense.
Posted by: joel boonstra | November 5, 2004 1:06 AM
Good find. Re House of Leaves, something you'd recommend? (Sorry, the whole "Nabakovian playfulness" thing is lost on this red-state type. ;-)
Posted by: pcg | November 5, 2004 7:34 PM
Yeah, I'm not really sure what "Nabakovian playfulness" is. But I sure felt smart using it in a sentence!
Yes, I'd definitely recommend House of Leaves--it's a haunted house horror story at heart, but it plays around a lot with different styles of narrative--parts of it are journal entries, other parts film transcripts, newspaper articles, academic papers, etc. It all gels together to form a very weird but fascinating book, IMHO.
It is, however, extremely graphic in numerous places. If that sounds unpleasant, you might try Vladimir Nabakov's Pale Fire instead--it uses many of the same tricks (House of Leaves is clearly playing off of it) but is less over-the-top.
If by some stroke of luck we manage to hook up while I'm out in CA, I could loan you my copy of either book.
(BTW, Michele read and enjoyed HoL as well. She wrote briefly about her interpretation of it, but her post is pretty spoiler-ific, so be careful.)
Posted by: jrau | November 5, 2004 9:43 PM