Gives Pale Fire a run for its money as my favorite stand alone novel. Whereas Pale Fire used one (maybe 2 depending on how many Botkin theories you subscribe to) layers of indirection to communicate the narrator's schizophrenia, Danielewski leverages a minimum of 3. When reading about this book, I thought it would be overwhelming but the typesetting does wonders to help keep the various plot lines straight. To briefly summarize, the book is about a series of home videos about a wounded family and their haunted house called "The Navidson Record." The "main" channel of the book is the analysis of the home movies compiled by one Zamplano. The second channel of narration is the color commentary provided by Zomplano's neighbor – a wounded 20-something year old playboy name Truant who finds Zomplano dead in his apartment with a draft manuscript of the book we read. And finally, the editors provide further corrections and light commentary on the content provided by Navidson, Zomplano, and Truant.

With all these footnotes and analyses coming from different directions, asynchronous contradictions and disagreements between the authors as they all gradually go insane in their study of the house the book presents itself as a cult classic (400 footnotes of fabricated analysis of the Navidson record curated by Zomplano + dozens of footnote digressions from Truant being pushed further into madness by Zomplano's ramblings).

It sounds like it would just be a labyrinth of scholium, but between all the footnotes which themselves amount to a humorous and occasionally chilling story – the descriptions of the Navidson Record itself which details the haunted house is legitimately unsettling. As Danielewski builds a crescendo of suspense as members of the Navidson Record approach their imminent demise he'll interrupt himself with a page and a half long diatribe from another schizo commentator.

Whereas APF would have me flipping back and forth searching for clues whose relevance only became evident after reading an aside from Kinbote several annotations later, Danielewski is actually a bit more gentle with the non-linearity of HoL. The footnotes, though serpentine, are numbered and easy to reference. The frequent references to the appendices shrink the size of the novel as you finish you find yourself closer to the middle of the physical book (something something, the walls are closing in, and you feel more and more claustrophobic).

The entries in the appendices themselves are also exquisite standalone stories. Concise depiction of paranoia and schizophrenia exhibited by Truant's mother is a foil to the paranoia exhibited by the son himself. Though Truant is more indulgent. I would almost take points off for the verbosity of Truant's wretched monologues if not for the fact that I know that Danielewski is doing it on purpose for a reason, and all his insanity has a payoff. Danielewski is a master. He captures several distinct tones between the layered narratives, and the painstaking detail of all the typesetting, typos themselves, and arrangement make this book a fucking work of art. Even the things that seem like mistakes actually uncover the deeper conspiracy taking place within the book which I won't spoil but gave me one of the most orgasmic "AHA" moments.

Danielewski captures the ratiocinations of a drunk, of a mistress, of a cuck, of a disabled person, and abused person, and a child. Everything that makes Quintin Compton's chapter from The Sound and the Fury excellent is dialed to 12 in this book. One of the best examples of Danielewski beating Pamplano's critics to the punch appears on pp 395 where MZD, through Zamplano, provides an insanely good piece of analysis of the characters in the subject of analysis itself. This chapter is a perfect 10/10 of narrative prose, style, execution, and syntax. There are literal inkstains permeating the pages of this chapter which become part of the story.

Truant's rotten teeth going hand in hand with his riff on the olde English long 'S' which appears as an 'f' is another such instance of blending of the narrative fiction and objective syntax.

I cannot overstate how this book continued to impress me and pull me in.

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