No, Mr. Brownlee, you are missing the point. The Book Mistress’s response on how to read Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is a perfectly reasonable one. We hard-core readers often forget that some people are thrown off guard by anything diverging from a traditional structure. Thus, a “normal” explanation for how to read something that seems so apparent to us might be of great value for them.
This doesn’t take anything away from idiosyncratic readers who are prepared to skip around from middle to end to beginning, nor does this sully those who wish to consult “The Navison Record” exclusively for answers.
We can read how we want to, we can leave your read behind
‘Cause your friends read here and I read there
And the reads are all just fine