First Drafts

House of Leaves has left me in a bind. For the most part, the plot isn't as convoluted as I expected it to be. It seems very intimidating when you first open the book. The text becomes very, lets say, different as you proceed further and further into the book. From what I've gathered, its a story inside a story, with another story in the footnotes.

The typography seems to be the draw for me at the moment. Kevin mentioned two things that I had crossed my mind, one being that within the first couple of pages, you come across the word "house" highlighted in blue, much like a hyperlink, which in return brings up that point that it was in fact originally on the Internet. Its now driving me insane to see where that hyperlink would bring the reader. Kevin also brought up Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, which is the most incomprehensible piece of literature I have read, while I appreciate it as a landmark piece of literature from one of my favorite authors, it drives me nuts on an annual basis.

Which intrigued me was that it reads like a first draft, from the cross outs, the change in font, the change in color, to the text boxes that seem like notes, but also read as anecdotes, or outside commentary. Right now I'm doing my best to differentiate the characters, but I have a feeling that it is going to take multiple read throughs if this book to fully grasp. I was even contemplating just reading the footnotes (off the record, as a former history major, I've realllllllly grown to loathe footnotes).

This made me chuckle.