Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski

by Mark Z. Danielewski

De l'Institut psychiatrique Whalestoe, où elle passe les dernières années de sa vie, Pelafina H. Lièvre envoie à son fils, Johnny Truant, une série de lettres. Une correspondance magnifique et tragique, d'une intense émotion, qui révèle la profondeur de la relation instable et changeante qui unit une mère à l'esprit brillant, bien que malade, à son talentueux fils qu'elle n'a jamais cessé d'aimer.Originellement contenues à l'intérieur du monumental La Maison des feuilles, ces lettres se suffisent à elles-mêmes pour brosser l'étonnant portrait de Pelafina et Johnny. Le corpus original est augmenté d'une préface de Walden D. Wyrtha et de onze lettres inédites.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Poetry, Mystery, Adult, Fantasy, Literature

Paperback

First published October 10, 2000

About the author

Mark Z. Danielewski is an American author best known for his books House of Leaves, Only Revolutions, The Fifty Year Sword, The Little Blue Kite, and The Familiar series.

Danielewski studied English Literature at Yale. He then decided to move to Berkeley, California, where he took a summer program in Latin at the University of California, Berkeley. He also spent time in Paris, preoccupied mostly with writing.

In the early 1990s, he pursued graduate studies at the USC School of Cinema-Television. He later served as an assistant editor and worked on sound for Derrida, a documentary based on the life of the Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher Jacques Derrida.

His second novel, Only Revolutions, was released in 2006. The novel was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award.

His novel The Fifty Year Sword was released in the Netherlands in 2005. A new version with stitched illustrations was released in the United States 2012 (including a limited-edition release featuring a latched box that held the book). On Halloween 2010-2012, Danielewski "conducted" staged readings of the book at the REDCAT Theater inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Each year was different and included features such as large-scale shadows, music, and performances from actors such as Betsy Brandt (Breaking Bad).

On May 12, 2015, he released the first volume, The Familiar (Volume 1): One Rainy Day in May in his announced 27-volume series The Familiar. The story "concerns a 12-year-old girl who finds a kitten..." The second volume, The Familiar (Volume 2): Into the Forest was released on Oct. 27, 2015, The Familiar (Volume 3): Honeysuckle & Pain came out June 14, 2016, and The Familiar (Volume 4): Hades arrived in bookstores on Feb. 7, 2017, and The Familiar (Volume 5): Redwood was released on Halloween 2017.

His latest release, The Little Blue Kite, is out now.

Quick Facts

He is the son of Polish avant-garde film director Tad Danielewski and the brother of singer and songwriter Annie Decatur Danielewski, a.k.a. Poe.

House of Leaves, Danielewski's first novel, has gained a considerable cult following. In 2000, Danielewski toured with his sister across America at Borders Books and Music locations, promoting Poe’s album Haunted, which reflects elements of House of Leaves.

Danielewski's work is characterized by experimental choices in form, such as intricate and multi-layered narratives and typographical variation.

In 2015, his piece Thrown, a reflection on Matthew Barney's Cremaster 2, appeared on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Official "Yarn + Ink" apparel inspired by his books House of Leaves and The Familiar is now available through his official website, Amazon and Etsy.

His latest short story, "There's a Place for You" was released on www.markzdanielewski.com in August 2020.

Read more on his Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z....

Reviews

[Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

" . . . For I shall be just the same, standing by, like some old still-growing tree, her rustle lost in fall but found again come spring.

And of course you can lean on me. You can hide in me too. High above.

And when you are tired and wish to close your eyes you can rest in me. I will not let go.

Remember: I shall be your roots and I will be your shade though the sun burns my leaves. I shall quench your thirst and I will feed you fruit though time takes my seed. And when you are lost and can tell nothing of this earth I will give you hope. And my voice you will always hear and my heart you will always share, for I will shelter you and I will comfort you. And even when I am nothing left, not even in death, I will remember you."

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt a bit foolish picking this up at first, seeing it as an unnecessary companion piece to the novel House of Leaves, especially considering that the vast majority of the material contained inside is present in the original book. In spite of that, it does what it does remarkably well. Anyone familiar with the original novel will understand me when I say that the author leaves details murky at best; what The Whalestoe Letters does is force a closer look at P.'s writing (some of the most emotionally charged material in the book), and the handful of additional letters added clears the air and has tremendous value in their own right.

I'm strongly considering lending out this book as a stand-alone piece without even recommending the novel it's based on. For an unnecessary companion piece to a favorite novel of mine, that's some very high praise.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's impossible to talk about this without involving House of Leaves, since a good 80% of the material here reprints one of its appendices, and while the letters stand on their own to a certain degree, many of their implications only reach their fullest bloom in the light of the larger work. With that said, one's assessment of the letters depends a whole lot on how one feels about HoL -- I'd put myself on the moderately-obsessed side of the spectrum, having read the thing twice and developed my own master theory for what's going on, though I haven't delved into the full message-board arcana (I'm familiar enough with the book that even though it's been four or five years since I last read it, I recognized almost all of the new material in this collection without having to go back and check).

Even with that substantial tailwind heading into reading the letters, though, I felt like the book's pretty slight -- lengthwise, of course, but also in what it adds to the story presented in the larger book. The new letters and the new introduction slightly flesh out what's already there -- Johnny's mother is very smart, very smothering, and very unstable -- but while they add a new wobble or two to the overall manic-depressive/sane-insane cycles she goes through, there's nothing essentially different or even much richer in the added material. In fact in a few cases the new pieces serve to undermine to overall mimesis of the work -- several of the added letters rely very heavily on the kinds of typographical and graphic design tricks that enliven HoL, but since they're notionally being written by an institutionalized woman on a typewriter, the changes in font size and sideways text are hard to rationalize within the fiction's conceits.

It might be that the better way to read this is as something freestanding -- for someone who doesn't already know HoL, these letters could come off as a novel, compelling picture of a descent into madness. But it's hard for me to approach the book in that way, so I'm not sure whether it winds up succeeding in that task.

[Melanie Bouthillette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is part of another book House of Leaves. It's part of the footnotes and Johnny Truant side of things. There is a hidden message .

[Candace Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Whalestoe Letters is a short epistolary novel (83 pages long), which is whole unto itself; however, these letters were originally published as part of Danielewski’s much longer novel, House of Leaves (over 650 pages). The narrator of The Whalestoe Letters is Pelafina H. Lièvre, and the entire book consists of a series of letters to her son Johnny Truant while she is a patient at The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio. Johnny Truant, Pelafina's son, is in foster care through much of the time span of the book, from 1982 —1989, but an adult by the end.

I taught this book in my Women in Literature class at the community college for several semesters, and though I was worried that my students might be turned off by the many foreign phrases and allusions (some which are almost impenetrable even with the help of Google), my students on the whole enjoyed it very much. All of the allusions and foreign phrases, as I tried to point out to them, are not gratuitous, but serve to highlight the character of Pelafina, who is as highly intelligent as she is disturbed. She is, I might add, a most fascinating character.

I have read this short novel many times, and the genius of it is that Danielewski makes me deeply empathize with Pelafina, a mother one might easily hate after learning of the circumstances that led to her institutionalization (that I will not spoil for you here). As an aside, the narrator of House of Leaves, mentioned above, is a grown-up Johnny Truant, Pelafina’s son.

For anyone who enjoys novels or works about mental illness such as The Bell Jar by American poet Sylvia Plath, or I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg, this is definitely one to add to your reading list.

[Toonerdygirls · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved HOL, but this is the book that I would read and reread. Thrown in my book bag, worming its way into my head for a college art final. She feels so much, of course she was locked up. When people say this is the heart and soul of the book, I agree. It's heartbreaking, even on its own. Both her story and Johnny truant's have a lot of nuances, so I don't see people who prefer straight forward books liking this.

[Jerry Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely didn't expect something like this from a companion novella to House of Leaves. This was elegant, beautiful and heart breaking. At the same time, it made sense and stirred confusion with the open endings and interpretations.

This is a series of letters from Truant's mom addressed to him, over her years at the asylum. It doesn't really matter whether you read it before or after HoL, or as a standalone- It will destroy you. It's painful, gets visceral by the end yet serves as a powerful ancillary book giving a genealogical predisposition to his downward spiral.

I think, this with Poe's "Haunted" will complete the whole essential HoL material.

[Matias Vasquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fun! 3 stars because it wasn't long enough, so it lacks the world building and melodrama that this genre can achieve. But then, you know, the longer book does exist. However, it was beautiful. The tension between love and madness is... Chef's kiss.

[Jake Kilroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get it. I get what this was. I get this was a companion piece to House Of Leaves. But it stressed me the fuck out. It's just letters from Johnny's mom from her mental institution as she's straight up losing it, and as my mother's guilt trips get me crazy and losing her would make me crazy, this just hit the weirdest, most awful nerves I have inside me. It just shook my heart. It affected me in the most poisonous, saddest way. It was well-written, but what it is, even in its most basic terms, is such a difficult thing for a son to read. It's well fucking done, for sure, but it didn't offer up more to House Of Leaves or to its own side story. It just existed and was interesting and crushed my happiness. Ugh. Too much.

[TAP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Further reading for House of Leaves.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and it definitely should be read alongside house of leaves during the letters portion of the book. There is roughly 9 letters in this that are not in house of leaves.

[Joseph Hamm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Whalestoe Letters: The Extended Edition.

It’s really difficult to accurate state how I feel about this book/rate it. On one hand, the story is excellently written, a truly wonderful example of an epistolary novella. The main protagonist is also a very dynamic and complex character, which I appreciate. To be honest The Whalestoe Letters might be my favorite part of House of Leaves.

Therein lies my dilemma though. About 75% of this story is just taken from the appendix of House of Leaves, and I really don’t know if the newly added material is worth buying. The whole story pretty much remains intact from House of Leaves, and the eleven new letters, while interesting, didn’t really add anything substantial for me or changed my perspective on the narrative. In fact, I actually enjoyed the foreword to the novella more than the novella itself, as the foreword was not included in House of Leaves, it gave a meta explanation for why this was published, and gave a bit more insight into a new character and their dynamic with the protagonist.

On a side note too, I have no idea why they put the list of where the new letters not featured in House of Leaves are at the back of the book instead of the front. I literally had my copy of HOL opened and was manually flipping through pages of both books to make sure I didn’t miss anything new, and then right at the very end of the book I discovered I had a built-in cheat sheet. Kinda annoying.

Overall though, I can’t deny that the story is wonderfully written, and remains one of the highlights of the HOL universe. I’d recommend buying this version with HOL since it’s really cheap and instead of reading the appendix found in the original novel, read this instead. I wish I had done that.

[Traummachine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
This book is a series of letters sent from a mother in an asylum to her son, the protagonist in House Of Leaves. Until recently, I thought this was all included as an appendix in House, but this stand-alone version adds 11 new letters and a Forward about the mother and how the new letters surfaced.

For House Of Leaves fans, I can't say these additions are a must-read, but the back of Whalestoe calls out which letters are the 11 new ones, and looking back on them they definitely fill out the back story of Johnny and his relationship with his mum. A couple of the new letters are done with the crazy experimental layout much expected of Danielewski by now. Between that and the additional background, I'm glad I've got this, but I don't really think you're missing a lot if you never read it before/during/after House Of Leaves. Cool, but not needed.

But on its own, this is a tragic, touching, and disturbing tale of the disintegration of a mother's mind. Like Flowers For Algernon, it's heartbreaking to witness her descent into madness in her own hand. But unlike Flowers, she doesn't realize it's happening. Worse, she becomes lucid again toward the end, and I was never really sure whether she was correct, lying, or truly deceived in her latter lucid moments. Good stuff, I forgot how good the Letters were.

[Lauren Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thing here is that I've already reviewed House of Leaves, and this book, almost in its entirety, is included in the appendix of House.

Where I will give this book props, though, is in the additional introduction. There are also several additional letters, but they weren't missed in the House copy, so I didn't really see them as necessary. Interesting, perhaps, but not necessary.

It's a good read and a good story that stands firmly on its own, so I would definitely recommend it. It is lacking in much of the mature content that makes House of Leaves not suitable for children, and it is a very good story in itself.

Kudos to MZD for capitalizing on us suckers' tendency to buy multiple copies of his products.

[Christopher Trader · Rating 1 out of 5]

What can I say? I tried. I just couldn't get through it. Just too pretentious. I got about 1/4 of the way through it, but I consider books I can't complete to be "read" because I'll never go back to them.

[Corinna Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember this being my favorite part of House of Leaves

[HelloB · Rating 3 out of 5]

|| recensione e soluzioni || LibraryThing || tarocchi ||

Giacché sarò come sempre, in attesa, come un antico albero che continua a crescere, e in autunno smette di frusciare ma ricomincia all’arrivo della primavera.

Certo che puoi appoggiarti a me. Puoi anche nasconderti in me. Quassù in alto.

E quando sei stanco e vorresti chiudere gli occhi potrai riposare in me. Non andrò da nessuna parte.

Ricorda: io ti sarò radice e ti sarò ombra sebbene il sole mi bruci le foglie. Spegnerò la tua sete e ti nutrirò di frutti sebbene il tempo mi rubi i semi. E quando sarai perso e di questa terra nulla riconoscerai io ti darò speranza. E sempre udirai la mia voce e sempre avrai il mio cuore, perché io ti sarò riparo e ti conforterò. E quando non sarò che polvere, perfine nella morte, io ti ricorderò ✨💖

Non mi aspettavo certo una cosa del genere da un libretto (78 pagine) che accompagna Casa di Foglie. È stata una lettura bella e straziante allo stesso tempo. Non è una semplice raccolta di lettere che racconta il declino della mente di una madre col pensiero sempre rivolto al figlio, è molto di più ❤ Aver prima letto Casa di Foglie non è necessario, ma alcuni passaggi ne fanno sicuramente riferimento.

Non ho capito il perché Pelafina venga definita geniale 🤔 sa parlare due lingue morte e ha una cultura per quanto riguarda i dei greci, però da qui a definirla geniale ce ne passa secondo me. Ma non è solo nella trama che le viene dato questo attributo, bensì proprio nel libro stesso chi parla di lei la descrive subito come geniale, un’intelligenza fuori dal comune, brillante 0.0

Sono contenta di averlo letto in italiano perché secondo me è tradotto benissimo (anche come stile e melodia delle frasi, la scelta delle parole..) e in originale (inglese) non mi sarebbe piaciuto allo stesso livello.

La pagina dove si deve leggere solo la prima lettera di ogni parola mi ha distrutto ^^’ consiglio l’uso di un evidenziatore.

[Clarissa Valirya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raccolta di lettere della madre del nostro Johnny, personaggio che seguiamo nel celebre libro "casa di foglie" di quello svitato di Danielewski. Altrettanto enigmatico e un plus integrativo alla storia. Che storia neanche si può chiamare.
Scrittura sublime e impaginazione da perdere la testa. Come al solito.

[Kaya]

For the love of all things holy, if you plan on reading or have already read “House of Leaves,” please read this accompanying book. It gives so much (necessary) context to the MC’s state of mind in HOL and solidifies (imo) a more concrete understanding of the narrative and authorship of the original text.

[mnemonide · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was left in awe after House of Leaves. Speechless. Not good, not bad.
Just empty.

But this piece was gorgeous. So beautiful.
I think part of me actually preferred it.
The insight into the broken mind and the fragility of this woman's brain was simply inefable.
Heartbreaking.
Even if you know the outcome. And the story.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

December 24 1988 has ruined my life

[Coni · Rating 4 out of 5]

2021 Update:
Since I'm rereading House of Leaves, I picked up this one again. This time I paid more attention to the letters that were missing from the appendix in House of Leaves. I told myself I wasn't going to read this separately and stick to what was in the appendix, but then I found myself picking it up again. I do like how it is split up into three parts, which is missing from the appendix. I actually got more out of it this time. I do agree that you miss the bigger story on how it affects her son, but I now feel it does stand up on its own.

--------------
2016 Original Review:
Part of the appendix of House of Leaves. It actually works well as a stand alone book of a woman in a mental institution writing letters to her son. It has a few extra letters that were not part of the appendix in House of Leaves that do add a bit more to this haunting story of this woman. What is missing though is how it affects her son. It adds to the story in House of Leaves as part of the appendix, but reading this on its own, you only get part of the bigger story.

[Mark Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also scattered throughout House of Leaves, these are the letters of Johnny Truant's mother, written from the institution (Whalestone) where she lived, from the day she tried to kill her son to the day she died. The letters are wonderful and strange, drifting in and out of sanity. Johnnt Truant's mother may not know she is insane, she may not remember trying to kill him, but in her way, she loves her son above anything else in the world.

In House of Leaves, the Whalestone Letters advance Johnny Truant's plot, providing a creepy background to and partial explanation for his own descent into madness. Alone, they are strange and beautiful, mad and loving, and worth reading.

[GracieKat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt so cheated with this book. Yes, there were the extra letters but they seemed to be just a rehash of the others and offered so little new material that I actually had to look in House of Leaves to tell which ones were the additions and which ones were the old ones.

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating and sad book. Told via letters from a schizophrenic woman to her son, they tell a story in an emotionally rewarding way.

[Patricia]

SO GOOD.

[Andrin Albrecht · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure how much sense it makes to review a publication that’s really just a re-release of some excerpts from another book (even though there is a bit of new material in here, nothing game-changing, but enough to give “The Whalestoe Letters” a reason to exist in their own right). There’s definitely nothing to actively criticize here: This slim book is a collection of letters Johnny Truant’s mother sends him from an insane asylum, and they are heartbreaking, playful, haunting, chill-inducing, a sweet and monstrous masterclass in unreliable narration. They fit marvelously into the cyclopean cosmos of Danielewski’ “House of Leaves” but are also able to stand on their own, and that’s maybe the most important thing that can be said in this volume’s favor: If you have no patience or postmodern games, for cavernous footnotes and stories within stories within stories, for a 700-page typographical experiment and the legions of cultish fans that come with it—if instead you are, understandably, in the mood for character, for elegant prose, for psychological depth and interpersonal relationships—then “The Whalestoe Letters” will be a viable alternative to Danielewski’s other, much more megalomaniac works. If you’re teaching an “Introduction to Literary” class at college and are looking for an accessible yet rewarding piece through which to discuss unreliable narration, trauma, psychoanalysis, voice, and the mode of the epistolary, this book’s got you covered. If you’re a diehard Danielewski fan and want to consider “House of Leaves” from a new perspective, you won’t be disappointed either. “The Whalestoe Letters” is a delicious standalone read, a neat addition to a large-scale literary puzzle. It does not offer anything brand new, but it makes a rather compelling case that not every text worth reading has to.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai commencé à lire La Maison des feuilles il y a quelque temps, mais ne l'ai pas fini car je pense qu'il mérite beaucoup plus de temps que je ne peux lui accorder pour le moment (métier de libraire oblige). Un jour je le lirai posément, entièrement, complètement. Dans les commentaires de mon short Youtube au sujet de La Maison des feuilles, quelqu'un m'a dit qu'il était préférable de lire ce petit opus qu'est Les Lettres de Pelafina, du même auteur, pour mieux comprendre. Ce livre est en effet comme une annexe d'une annexe de La Maison des feuilles, qui contient lui-même certaines lettres de Pelafina, la mère de Johnny (le jeune homme qui recueille les divers documents du vieil homme qui occupait, avant, son appartement) ; en voici d'autres qui n'ont apparemment pas toutes été envoyées, car elles ont été retrouvées dans l'asile où était enfermée Pelafina. Certaines de ces lettres ne se trouvent donc pas dans La Maison des feuilles.
On y découvre progressivement des choses sur Johnny, sur son père (mort dans un accident de la route) et surtout sur Pelafina elle-même, cette mère si bouleversée d'être séparée de son petit garçon et terrifiée d'apprendre à quel point il est maltraité à l'école et dans sa nouvelle famille...
Il y a même une lettre en message codé qui demande pas mal de concentration pour la lire.
C'est malin, maintenant j'ai encore plus hâte d'être à la retraite pour pouvoir prendre le temps de lire La Maison des feuilles !

[Isabella Worthington · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so crazy to me. I can't even lie, I did cry a few times. This is book does have all of the emotions and it has a lot of different elements in it.
For one, the whole entire story is told in the form of letters. This is a type of form of novel for me, is something that I find enjoyable. Throughout the entire story, readers can have a lot of forms of heartbreak. For me, I had a lot of tears shed because when you think about how she is a mother, and how she is stuck. She is forced to mother her son through letters, and sometimes, I think that Johnny is just giving her a false sort of hope, and hoping that he is going to be able to get through his situation that he is going through.
Another thing that I personally noticed was that I was never sure if I could see if any of her stories were actually the truth. She is an unreliable narrator in my eyes, and to me, this makes it hard to believe her stories, yet I want to so badly, to make sure that she is able to have someone be on her side.
I would totally recommend this book to everyone, and I am going to be remembering the name of this book, because if I decide that I want to be depressed, this is going to be one of the few books like I know I can turn to make me cry, and help me get all of my emotions out.

[Ceyrone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of this author. It’s insane the way his mind works, the creativity and the talent that goes into creating the novels and stories that he does, is truly impressive. I am always in awe. The letters where originally contained in House of Leaves, which I loved, this is a heartbreaking portrait of a mother and child. The letters are written between 1982 and 1989, Johnny Truant’s mother, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent her final years. The letters are beautiful, heartfelt and tragic and reveals deeply moving and powerful relationship between a mother and a son, and her love for her son.

“…Remember: I shall be your roots and I will be your shade though the sun burns my leaves. I shall quench your thirst and I will feed you fruit though time takes my seed. And when you are lost and can tell nothing of this earth I will give you hope. And my voice you will always hear and my heart you will always share, for I will shelter you and I will comfort you. And even when I am nothing left, not even in death, I will remember you."