I just finished "House Of Leaves" - a book about a book about a book which is a semi-academic study of a photographer and his family who discover a mysterious shape-shifting, space- and time-defying labyrinth in their house, and who go on to make a set of movies about it. And it's possible that the whole thing is recursive. Whew. The actual physical book handles handles all of this via chains of footnotes (not quite this complex); endless endnotes; distinct typefaces; and wild, sprawling, colorful typography. It's very metametametametametametameta. But roughly, it's the story of someone who finds the manuscript of the book about the family, and becomes so engrossed with it, while simultaneously suffering some kind of mental breakdown, that his life disintegrates around him; and this is told in parallel with the story in the found book.
Thankfully, the typography clearly separates the main layers, so there's little of the typical narrative confusion that plagues many post-modern books; if the typeface is large and fixed-width and the margins are small, you're in the top-level story; if it's a smaller serif typeface and the margins are wide, you're in the book about the family and their labyrinth. The footnotes follow the typeface of the story they pertain to. Etc.. Which isn't to say it's an easy read! The top-level narrator occasionally lies. A couple of the layers are only subtly implied. Tangents abound. The typography itself breaks down and spirals out of control as the narrators' (the top-level narrator, and the person who wrote the manuscript) mental states deteriorate. And you end up spinning the book around, as the text changes orientation, or goes backwards; and in some places, it whittles down to barely a word or two per page. Plus, the color of the text is significant; and much of the text is 'damaged' or 'redacted'; and any one of the ever-present footnotes might be important to the story, or it might be just a source reference to a fictional academic journal which discusses some aspect of the fictional story about the fictional family and their movies; or it might be the start of a ... two page list of names. But you still have to look at it to tell! It's nearly a physically demanding read.
I liked it. The overall construction is complex but well done, and not so complex that you can't follow. The typography is clever. The stories are interesting. The detail is rich without being overwhelming (ex. Infinite Jest). The shared themes and structures in the various layers gives you a lot to chew on.
But, I'm very tired of endlessly complex stories. Between this, As I Lay Dying, Infinite Jest, Revenge, Game Of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, etc., my patience with the countless-interlocking-storylines genre has run out. Bring back simplicity!!!
