Dans ce mémoire, nous tenterons de démontrer comment le roman House of Leaves de Mark Z. Danielewski se présente littéralement comme un labyrinthe dans lequel se perdent ses lecteurs et qui s'étend constamment à travers les lectures qu'on peut en faire. House of Leaves met en scène plusieurs narrateurs qui se superposent, les uns commentant les autres. Ces différents niveaux de narration s'interpénètrent, transgressant ainsi leur hiérarchie ontologique. Nous montrerons, en nous appuyant sur les théories de la lecture de Bertrand Gervais, comment cette transgression se fait par le biais d'une forme d'interprétation partageant les caractéristiques de la lecture littéraire. La figure du labyrinthe représente le mieux cette forme d'interprétation et elle est inscrite à même le texte dans les traces de ce qui fonde le travail de lecture d'un des personnages. Pour chaque palier d'interprétation, cette figure représente à la fois, en suivant la métaphore de la lecture littéraire, le texte lu, la lecture elle-même et le discours qui en résulte. Les traits de la figure sont reconnaissables dans chacun des principaux actes d'interprétation et les personnages-interprètes se comportent en accord avec la mise en récit du mythe du labyrinthe. Le texte, par la complexité propre à sa nature labyrinthique, suscite constamment une interprétation chez ses lecteurs. De cette façon, il happe ceux-ci qui, dans une logique d'invagination, viennent à le contenir en eux pour ensuite lui donner une matérialité sous la forme d'un discours pouvant être supporté par toutes sortes de médias. Le labyrinthe se répand sous la forme de ce texte contenu dans le roman de Danielewski, mais menaçant constamment de sortir de ses limites. House of Leaves se veut une œuvre totale utilisant le plus possible toutes les pratiques signifiantes que l'on trouve dans un livre pour perdre le lecteur tout en s'étendant dans d'autres discours, dans d'autres médias. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski, labyrinthe, lecture, interprétation, figure.

Cette thèse veut explorer l’idée de l’existence d’un roman de la non-linéarité, à travers un inventaire de la critique et l’analyse comparée de quatre ouvrages considérés comme appartenant à cette tradition (The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman, de Laurence Sterne ; Pale fire, de Vladimir Nabokov ; La vie mode d’emploi, de Georges Perec ; House of leaves, de Mark Z. Danielewski).Dans le premier chapitre, est postulée la thèse de deux traditions dans l’histoire du roman : la tradition du roman réaliste, et une tradition caractérisée par l’utilisation de formes non linéaires. L’analyse des études sur la tradition réflexive du roman, sur la théorie du chaos appliquée à la littérature, sur les marges textuelles, sur la lecture et sur l’intertextualité seront pris en compte pour soutenir cette thèse.Sur la base de ces questionnements, le deuxième chapitre esquisse une définition du roman de la nonlinéarité, qui comprend un répertoire des procédés et des thèmes communs à cette tradition, ainsi qu’une réflexion sur ses approches du monde et de l’identité humaine.Le troisième chapitre laisse la place à l’analyse des textes du corpus. Les quatre romans sont analysés chacun pour ses spécificités, et aussi dans la perspective de vérifier le postulat d’une tradition d’un roman de la non-linéarité. En s’appuyant sur de nombreux exemples extraits des romans pris en considération, l’analyse s’articule en huit sections : le problème du commencement ; l’intertextualité ; la complexité du récit de vie ; les questions de l’interruption, de la procrastination et de l’absence ; les approches dutemps ; les approches du langage ; le thème du jeu ; l’impossibilité de la fin. / This thesis aims to explore the idea of the existence of a novel of nonlinearity, through an inspection of the criticism and the comparative analysis of four works considered as belonging to this tradition (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne; Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov; Life, a User’s Manual (La vie mode d’emploi), by Georges Perec; and House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski).The first chapter postulates the thesis of two traditions in the history of the novel: the tradition of the realist novel, and a tradition distinguished by the use of nonlinear forms. In order to support this thesis, I’ll take into account studies about the reflexive tradition of the novel, about chaos theory as applied to literature, about the margins of the text, about the reading experience, and about intertextuality.On the basis of this examination, the second chapter outlines a definition of the novel of nonlinearity, which includes a repertoire of the literary devices and themes common to this tradition, and a reflection about its perspectives upon the world and human identity.The third chapter is dedicated to the analyses of the texts included in the corpus. The four novels are analyzed for their distinctive features, and also in the aim of verifying the premise of the existence of a novel of nonlinearity. Drawing on numerous examples selected from the novels, these analyses are structured in eight sections: the problem of beginning; intertextuality; the complexity of life narratives; the issues of interruption, procrastination and absence; the approaches to time; the approaches to language; the theme of the game; and the impossibility of an ending.

Walking in the house of Daedalus – An analysis of the katabasis motif in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves   This study analyses the depiction of the labyrinth as a symbolic landscape in regard to both subject and form in the multi-layered novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Using the mythological katabasis motif as a structural principle, this study discusses modern labyrinthine narratives wherein selfhood is constructed through an infernal journey between a descent and a return. This study analyses the novel with a thematic perspective from two points of view; how the labyrinth acts as central motif for the self in the novel and how the novel visually depicts the narrative through typographical choices throughout the text. The study’s main question is how the novel depicts the labyrinth in regard to its historical and cultural context and how it inscribes itself into a tradition of narratives that depicts the labyrinth as a metaphor for the mind and as a symbol for the exploration of the self.   The result shows that House of Leaves uses a complex cluster of narratives to tell a katabatic story, both through the narrative and the form. Through the symbolic landscape and through the use of a genre typical and uncanny horror story, House of Leaves tells a story about alienation, guilt and love where the characters psychological developments changes in regard to confrontations with the labyrinth and through the symbolical tests that exists throughout the katabatic journey. The characters ascends traumatized from the labyrinth, but are at the same time rewarded with personal insight

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves and Audrey Niffenegger's two visual novels The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress all contain examples of manipulated paratext - paratexts being the devices involved in the presentation of the text such as titles, author names, font, introductions, illustrations, appendices, advertising, and interviews. The emphasis these authors place on these usually inconspicuous devices is an expression of the irrational themes contained within these texts. The irrational is an underlying theme of the Gothic genre and through examining the use of manipulated paratexts this thesis demonstrates how these texts make use of the irrational Gothic elements that are present within the postmodern. While Danielewski and Niffenegger both have these similar themes, the effects they create are extremely different. Niffenegger creates écriture feminine, or feminine writing as described by Hélène Cixous, by prioritising illustrations that feature marginalised bodily expression in order to convey the narrative rather than text. Danielewski, on the other hand, produces a text that is a pure pastiche of Gothic and postmodern devices in order to emulate the postmodern media in its creation of hyperreality and to reproduce the sensation of a media that possesses and changes its consumers. House of Leaves is the instigator for a number of similar texts that have been published since the turn of the millennium which will be considered an emerging literary movement.

In House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski has produced a text which epitomises the traits and concerns of postmodernist literature. Through his attention to aspects such as metafiction, intertextuality and parody, Danielewski develops a narrative structure which is best understood as a literary labyrinth. It is a structure intended to reflect the social conditions of the twenty-first century and comment on the experience of people living at this time. Some of the meaning-making strategies within the book’s labyrinthine structure are thus discussed in detail in order to demonstrate the relevance and importance of House of Leaves as social commentary. House of Leaves is an exemplary postmodernist text, but it is also one that seeks to guide the reader beyond the intellectual impasse of the postmodernist paradigm toward a renewed ethical and political engagement with the world. One of the most important goals of both Danielewski’s novel and this thesis is to attempt to redefine the postmodernist perspective in such a way as to insist on the necessity of what I call a new realism. This is founded upon an awareness of the pervasiveness of the self-perpetuating ideology of capitalism, even in the perspective of postmodernism (which purports to subvert all authoritative ideologies). Playing a crucial role in perpetuating the status quo of capitalism is the growth of entertainment culture, which works to sideline crucial political issues by replacing information with infotainment. The result is an intensification of the processes of commodification. Such an intensification, it is argued, may be countered by a radical scepticism which draws upon the methods and insights of contemporary science.

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