A period of time spent at home means I have made a return to fiction. My true love will always be non-fiction books, but these last weeks I've been in desperate need of escapism and distraction. Enter Susanna Clarke with Piranesi.
Piranesi is one of those books that I've seen from the corner of my eye for a few years now, knowing nothing more than the fact the title sounded intriguing. Then I saw a TikTok (yes, I know, but see above re - desperate need for escapism) listing it as the one book the creator wishes he could read again for the first time. And so, with little else to do, I looked into it.
The first thing that captured me in Piranesi was the beauty of its setting. This strange tale is set in a world made up of gothic halls filled with statues, glimpses of the sky dappling the marble floor, and the sea booming and swishing audibly at all times. A labyrinth, as it is eventually named. The imagery is strong, and although the first chapters of the book really take the time with world-building, I felt I would have happily read an entire book simply filled with these descriptions. Who needs a plot?
But there is one, subtly creeping into the world that Piranesi, our narrator, had carefully established for us: more surprising and intriguing than I could have guessed. Combine a potentially unreliable narrator with an unreliable side cast; occultism, magic, tides, the sea, and somewhat menacing, uncertain undertones for a perfect pace that builds throughout the book to a conclusion that is dramatic but not overly in any way - and an ending that doesn't undo everything the author took such care with.
Piranesi is one of those books that make you forget you're reading. The craft is incredible. Written in a first-person voice that a reader enjoys, but knows not to necessarily trust (somehow always making one feel just a little uncomfortable), we see things from this lonely narrator's point of view and with his understanding: a 'shining device', never clarified but presumed; or the 'thing like a slice of a larger cylinder cut down at an angle, with a yellow hose coming out of it'. We meet strange statues, from the woman carrying a beehive to the gardener or the minotaurs in the First Vestibule, and never know if we are to consider them as cast, or set. Clarke keeps us constantly questioning.
But there is one, subtly creeping into the world that Piranesi, our narrator, had carefully established for us: more surprising and intriguing than I could have guessed. Combine a potentially unreliable narrator with an unreliable side cast; occultism, magic, tides, the sea, and somewhat menacing, uncertain undertones for a perfect pace that builds throughout the book to a conclusion that is dramatic but not overly in any way - and an ending that doesn't undo everything the author took such care with.
Piranesi is one of those books that make you forget you're reading. The craft is incredible. Written in a first-person voice that a reader enjoys, but knows not to necessarily trust (somehow always making one feel just a little uncomfortable), we see things from this lonely narrator's point of view and with his understanding: a 'shining device', never clarified but presumed; or the 'thing like a slice of a larger cylinder cut down at an angle, with a yellow hose coming out of it'. We meet strange statues, from the woman carrying a beehive to the gardener or the minotaurs in the First Vestibule, and never know if we are to consider them as cast, or set. Clarke keeps us constantly questioning.
I couldn't resist the strange draw of the book. But so strange is it, in fact, that although I read it in just a few sittings, each sitting required a little bit of stepping back from my actual day, putting aside what I know, and clearing some headspace. Going 'back in' felt, each time, like sinking under the surface. It is a wonderful feeling, and reflective of the strength of the author's vision.
It is hard to write about Piranesi without giving too much away. I don't know that I've read anything that comes even remotely close to its strangeness, beauty or atmosphere. I craved more the minute I finished reading this book, reluctant - like Piranesi himself - to differentiate between worlds. A book that is the perfect mixture of an indescribable nature with a magic that extends way beyond its covers.
