Mark Z danielewski thread. what do you think he's on to?

what do you think of his books? i'm currently reading the familiar volume 3, and it's fucking great.

Other urls found in this thread:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6J0JIjVKfI
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

What's good about it? I am not investing a book series that is planned to be 27 novels unless it someone can explain what makes it good

what makes it good is that it uses a lot of visual surprises, secrets, codes and meta concepts in a smart and intriguing ways, while still being a fun read. it's complex, yet it's not a drag to read through. it's a good middle ground between books you read for fun, and books that'll melt your mind. also, it connects not only all his other books, but also a lot of other books that are not his, and our world into the story.

But is the story interesting? House of Leaves sure as heck wasn't.

Why didn't you think so? I was thinking about picking it up recently.

He's a gimmick writer trying to pass himself off as the supreme post-modernist. Until you posted, I hadn't heard from him in so long that I'd hoped that he'd given up. He's a weak writer, who relies on contrived page layouts and 'codes' to cover for his subpar work.

This, although the bit where they're actually finally exploring the fucking corridors of the house-within-the-house did give me a moment of frisson (until his self-insert druggie punk ruined it by sperging all through the next six pages of footnotes).

What is your opinion on House of Leaves?

it's a story about a girl and a cat who isn't really a cat(?). and her dad, who gets these strange programming jobs. and her mom, who's a psychologist in training. and a drug gang, a detective, an asian drug addict, the right hand of a mayor, a taxi driver and a scientist with a very curious object, who is on the run from a corporation. these stories intertwine in interesting ways, and not just in the way that a character talks to another one. i mean someone sells drugs, and it shows up in another characters chapter, setting in motion the events which will cause another character's plot, etc etc. but so far, it's still very subtle, and a lot of characters don't directly know eachother.

good experimental literature. it uses the layout in interesting ways( if you look at a page from a certain angle, it looks like you're looking directly into a hallway through the pages). it uses the book itself in interesting ways, not just for the story, but as a way to expand the overarching concept. it's a fun book to get into experimental literature.

>it's a Schnorkh chapter

What the hell do yall mean by "codes"?

touché

It's littered with shit like this:
>If you have a US hardcover edition of the novel, you'll notice strange four character patterns covering the endpapers. Are those characters just there to make cool designs? No, actually the characters are Hexidecimal code, when compiled in a hex editor and made into an AIFF file, the code actually plays as Mark Z. Danielewski's sister Poe singing "Johnny Angry" in a 2 second clip from her track "Angry Johnny" from the album release "Hello".

That's all they mean. If you're into /mu/ then this analogy will clearly explain everything about House Of Leaves, Danielewski, and his rabid, rabid fans: He is the 'Tool' of literature.

it sounds pretty gimmicky m8, I can't see what kind of story Danielewski is writing that is going to need 27 volumes

noone can. it's written like a tv-show, where every 5 books is a season, and then a little extra at the end. he doesn't know yet what's going to happen by book 10 i think, but he studies the audience's discussions and i think he will try to shape it that way to not be predictable or cheesy.

it's not a gimmick, since it actually adds new layers and perspecives to the book.

your post is so inarticulate and suggestive of ray-dit origins that it effectively becomes a counter-endorsement, as far as I'm concerned, to be desu

>everything I don't like is reddit
kill yourself my man

>He is the 'Tool' of literature.

that's so goddamn hurtful...but only if people understand how lame Tool is.

Too fucking funny ... this is like an interview out of Natural Born Killers.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6J0JIjVKfI

Dad named his daughter Poe, mother had a mental breakdown, getting a family of total narcissists feel as I do a little research and decide whether or not I want to read what this guy has to say or blow him off. Probably the latter since I tend to lose interest in contemporary writers who spill their beans all over the place.

this interview was about 15-17 years ago if i recall correctly. that's not an accurate representation of the man he is now.

>he studies the audience's discussions and i think he will try to shape it that way to not be predictable or cheesy.

This is pretty neat if true, but 27 volumes is still serious overkill and what's stopping me from actually investing my time in the series. Should've cut down the length and serialised it on the internet.