"House of Leaves": Chapter 10

Chapter 10 of “House of Leaves” is nearly one hundred pages long. At first glance, that is an intimidating number of pages. No one is usually excited to have to read that many pages just to continue to the next chapter. Usually. This book is not the average, usual book.

While it takes one hundred pages to reach the end of the chapter, there are only about fifty pages worth of text. To some, this is an annoying waste of paper. Those who hold that belief are not the ones who should be reading this book. This book is unusual and uses these types of tactics to help carry the themes and messages along throughout the story. In one instance, there is a single word written per page in a sequence of six pages. The scene described the descent a group of explorers is taking down a staircase into an unknown area. The placement of the words forces you to slow down and take in each word one at a time while understanding the stair-like reference the words are forming.

The amount of space from one page to the other, from one word to the other, forces a buildup of anticipation and nervousness in the reader. The group of men is in the process of venturing down into the darkness to attempt to rescue their friends who had previously gone before them and had been missing for nine days. No one, including the reader, is aware of the original search party’s safety or location. The scene is crucial for readers. It is building up to potentially discovering answers to questions we have long been having. It becomes excruciating to have to wait over a course of pages with only a singular word on them to discover these answers.

While this was not the first venture down the staircase, this tactic could not have been applied to any other exploration. This is because of the time difference between the two descents. The first group of searchers to discover the staircase found it to be several miles long downwards and hundreds of feet wide. In order to reach the bottom of the stairs, it requires several days longer than estimated by the team. Their journey was dangerous and exhausting. The second team experienced a simpler and shorter exploration.

The display of the words helps to illuminate the second arrival of explorers and their experience. The sentences used before the sequence are short and get shorter the closer they get to the sequence. Once the reader reaches the six-page sequence of one-word pages, it is almost unnoticeable. While not immediately understood, the symbolism used throughout the book to represent the emotional and physical struggle each character is going through is astronomically deep and amazing. These events happen throughout the entire course of the book and can only be expected to happen in the rest of the novel.