Its fun-house games and Escher-like tricks - lists, footnotes, photo collages, poems and typographical experiments not imagined by Sterne in “Tristram Shandy” - all contribute to the novel’s exploration of the abyss beneath the prison house of language, film and, possibly, life. I don’t know any secret handshakes, but I consider “House of Leaves” the most ingenious, profound and important novel published by an American so far this century. After one of his college readings, I witnessed cultists clutching ragged texts form a signing line worthy of the T.S.A. But MZD or Z, as he signs his books, is no mere masked Internet phenomenon. Danielewski actively uses social media to supplement his novels’ cryptic designs, and his website encourages followers to post recondite explications of his works. Alchemists of the past became cult figures by both keeping and revealing secrets. He transmutes the pages of base books into rare new forms and formats. He doesn’t just transform leaden narratives like the haunted house tale (“House of Leaves”) or the teenage romance (“Only Revolutions”). Danielewski, America’s foremost literary Magus. Turning thought into writing is an “alchemical wonder,” says Mark Z.
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