Editing House of Leaves (section)

==Reception==
According to [[Book Marks]], primarily from American publications, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on nine critic reviews: five "rave", two "positive", one "mixed", and one "pan".<ref>{{Cite web |title=House of Leaves |url=https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/house-of-leaves/ |access-date=16 January 2024 |website=[[Book Marks]]}}</ref> ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": ''[[Sunday Times]]'' review under "Love It" and ''[[The Guardian|Guardian]]'', ''[[The Observer|Observer]]'', and ''[[Literary Review]]'' reviews under "Pretty Good" and ''[[The Independent|Independent]]'' review under "Ok" and ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'' review under "Rubbish".<ref>{{cite news |title=Books of the moment: What the papers said |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph/149292774/|access-date=19 July 2024 |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=22 Jul 2000|page=64}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Books of the moment: What the papers said |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph/153130819/|access-date=19 July 2024|work=The Daily Telegraph |date=15 Jul 2000|page=68}}</ref> Globally, [[Complete Review]] summarized the consensus as, "No consensus. Some incredibly effusive, others hardly impressed. Most like at least aspects of the house-horror story, but opinion is sharply divided regarding the literary devices and trickery."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-04 |title=House of Leaves|url=https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/danielmz/houseofl.htm|access-date=2023-10-04 |website=Complete Review}}</ref> 

Steven Poole, writing in ''The Guardian'', admired the book and interpreted it as a parody of academia: "Danielewski . . . weaves around his brutally efficient and genuinely chilling story a delightful and often very funny satire of academic criticism."<ref name="Poole 2000">{{Cite web |last=Poole |first=Steven |date=2000-07-15 |title=Guardian review: House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/jul/15/fiction.reviews |access-date=2019-12-07 |website=the Guardian |archive-date=2019-12-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207234511/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/jul/15/fiction.reviews |url-status=live }}</ref> Steven Moore, writing in ''The Washington Post'', also praised the novel: "Danielewski's achievement lies in taking some staples of horror fiction – the haunted house, the mysterious manuscript that casts a spell on its hapless reader – and using his impressive erudition to recover the mythological and psychological origins of horror, and then enlisting the full array of avant-garde literary techniques to reinvigorate a genre long abandoned to hacks."<ref name="Moore 2000">{{Cite news |last=Moore |first=Steven |date=2000-04-09 |title=The Ash Tree Project |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-04/09/037r-040900-idx.html |access-date=2019-12-07 |newspaper=Washington Post |archive-date=2019-09-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190911035034/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-04/09/037r-040900-idx.html |url-status=live }}</ref> ''The Village Voice''<nowiki/>'s Emily Barton was less impressed: "Danielewski’s bloated and bollixed first novel certainly attempts to pass itself off as an ambitious work; the question for each reader is if the payoff makes the effort of slogging through its endless posturing worthwhile."<ref name="Barton 2000">{{Cite web |last=Barton |first=Emily |date=2000-04-11 |title=Typographical Terror |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2000/04/11/typographical-terror/ |access-date=2019-12-07 |website=The Village Voice |archive-date=2019-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208000010/https://www.villagevoice.com/2000/04/11/typographical-terror/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Scholar David Letzler identified the book as an [[encyclopedic novel]], drawing on the faux-academic writing conventions and narrative "cruft" of [[David Foster Wallace]]'s ''[[Infinite Jest]]'' in particular.<ref name=Cruft>Letzler, David. "Encyclopedic Novels and the Cruft of Fiction: Infinite Jest’s Endnotes." Studies in the Novel, vol. 44 no. 3, 2012, p. 308-309. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2012.0036.</ref>

A 2013 ''New York Times'' article featured a conversation between [[Stephen King]] and his son, [[Joe Hill (writer)|Joe Hill]], and made reference to the novel:

<blockquote>Joe and Stephen were having another typical conversation: hashing out what novel could be considered the ''[[Moby-Dick]]'' of horror. 'That one with all the footnotes, they argued – no, not that one, the other one: Mark Danielewski's ''House of Leaves''.'<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/magazine/stephen-kings-family-business.html|title=Stephen King's Family Business|last=Dominus|first=Susan|date=2013-07-31|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2017-01-24}}</ref></blockquote>