Mark Z. Danielewski

[The New Nonsense]

A few days ago (9/15/10) Mark Z. Danielewski's message boards announced this:

"Later this month publishers will receive the first 5 volumes of Mark Z. Danielewski's 27 volume project entitled The Familiar. The story concerns a 12 year old girl who finds a kitten..."

27 volumes? I know MZD like to push limits, but wow... I'm wondering if they will be bound 5 or so "volumes" per book? Many are speculating this could be his return to experimental horror. I hope so.

I'm a HUGE fan of House of Leaves; in fact, I think it very well could be the Ulysses of horror. However, his follow up book, Only Revolutions, left me scratching my head and a bit disappointed. I hope this is a return to his earlier HOL style, or at least something less abstract.

[Nemonymous]

Great fan of OF LEAVES.
Surely a 27 volume novel about a girl and her kitten is not ambitious enough.
Proust has recently written a 52 volume novel entitled DYING TOO SOON.
And I wrote NEMONYMOUS NIGHT in 273 volumes, recently reduced to one.

[Evans]

Quote Originally Posted by The New Nonsense

A few days ago (9/15/10) Mark Z. Danielewski's message boards announced this: "Later this month publishers will receive the first 5 volumes of Mark Z. Danielewski's 27 volume project entitled The Familiar. The story concerns a 12 year old girl who finds a kitten..." 27 volumes? I know MZD like to push limits, but wow... I'm wondering if they will be bound 5 or so "volumes" per book? Many are speculating this could be his return to experimental horror. I hope so. I'm a HUGE fan of House of Leaves; in fact, I think it very well could be the Ulysses of horror. However, his follow up book, Only Revolutions, left me scratching my head and a bit disappointed. I hope this is a return to his earlier HOL style, or at least something less abstract.

Hmm is that a coded message in your post there, New Nonsense?

[bendk]

I read House of Leaves when it first came out and I enjoyed it very much, although some of the page layouts left me scratching my head. I knew that MZD followed it up with a slim volume related to Leaves, but I haven't followed his work since. Leaves is a book you can easily lose yourself in, no doubt MZD's intention. I am not sure how much time, though, that I want to devote to such a project. I did the same thing with Ulysses by Joyce in my mid twenties. I bought a Ulysses Encyclopedia and looked up nearly everything about it. It does enrich your experience of the novel, but it takes a lot of time. I started to do the same thing with Finnegans Wake but gave that up very quickly. I don't get it, and that's fine with me. I have wanted to post more on HOL in the past, but I can't find my copy. It is probably hiding in storage somewhere...or maybe it just got lost.

[The New Nonsense]

Quote Originally Posted by Evans

Hmm is that a coded message your post there, New Nonsense?

Ha. Nope. It's just an in-joke for Danielewski fans -- but I'll let you in on it. Here's a clue From Wiki:

Colors
Throughout the entirety of House of Leaves (even including the cover and publishing information), the word house is colored blue (grey for non-color editions of the book and light grey for red editions), as in house, and is, in many places in the book, offset from the rest of the text in different directions at different times. Foreign-language equivalents of house, such as the German Haus and the French maison are also blue. Red and full-color editions of House of Leaves have the word Minotaur and all struck passages colored red.i
On the inside cover, where the Library of Congress information is listed, there is a note about differences in editions. In the full-color edition of House of Leaves, a struck line appears in purple in Chapter XXI.
Purple is associated throughout the novel with Pelafina, as it is the color of her long nails, and also the color of the ink Johnny is putting into needles when he has his panic attack in the supply closet.



The inside of the cover mentions a full-color "first edition" version including braille. The following editions are known and confirmed to exist:

• Black-and-White Edition—No colored words. Plain black text. House in grey. No Braille. Black and white appendices.
• Blue Edition—House in blue. Minotaur and struck passages in regular black text. No Braille. Black and white appendices.
• Red Edition—House in light grey. Minotaur and struck passages in red. No Braille. Black and white appendices.
• Full Color Edition—House in blue. Minotaur and struck passages inred. On the jacket, A Novel and the Pantheon logo in purple. In the book, First Edition and the struck line in Chapter XXI in purple. The word "braille" is replaced with seven Xs. Appendices are full color plates.

The use of color in Danielewski's next full-length novel, Only Revolutions, is even more prevalent, with four colors other than black used throughout (also, the word house is also printed in blue in some sections of this novel).

[Mamatas]

I'm excited—I even liked Only Revolutions, which I recommend reading aloud for best effect.

[starrysothoth]

I sincerely hope the new project is in the House of Leaves mold. Sometime I'd be very interested to see Danielewski comment on his literary influences. I would be really surprised if there are no weird fiction authors in there somewhere. I haven't ever heard of him referencing any outright though.

[yellowish haze]

House of Leaves is among my all-time favourite novels. Another all-time favourite piece of fiction that, I would claim, was written by Mark Z. Danielewski but has never been credited to him is 'The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada', which appeared in Nemonymous #2. And here are my reasons for this claim.

[nomis]

Fascinating, Mr Haze. This only adds to my suspicion that I really ought to get around to reading HoL one of these days.

[starrysothoth]

Quote Originally Posted by yellowish haze

House of Leaves is among my all-time favourite novels. Another all-time favourite piece of fiction that, I would claim, was written by Mark Z. Danielewski but has never been credited to him is 'The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada', which appeared in Nemonymous #2. And here are my reasons for this claim.

Wonderful investigative piece. This whets my appetite all the more to find out whether or not there are definitive links between Mr. Danielewski and the weird. I'm going to try a more extensive search for this in the near future. At the very least, I think you've made a convincing case that whoever wrote this tale was influenced by HOL.