I didn’t get along with Susanna Clarke’s most popular book, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, at all. I’ll say that up front. I tried, I really did. I tried reading the book (twice), I tried listening to the audiobook, and I even tried watching the TV show. None of them got very far at all. I had decided Susanna Clarke and I were just on different wavelengths, and decided to move on with my life. Then Piranesi came out, and I kept hearing heaps of praise about it (plus it’s a lot shorter than the previous book, which is much more my speed). I was considering giving it another try when my round of The BookTube Prize came up and it was in my group. So the decision was made – I was going to read it, no matter what.
I found this a lot easier to get into than Jonathan Strange, but that’s really not saying much. It still requires a chunk of time invested at the outset as it’s slow to develop, and the main character is a bit all over the place. The book is about a character known as Piranesi (after the artist of the same name who was best known for his detailed images of complex prisons that contained multitudes of chambers and had a maze-like quality to them, kind of like some of M.C. Escher‘s repeating staircases). Piranesi inhabits a world that seems to consist of many large rooms and halls full of intricate carvings of beings and, occasionally, skeletons of real people. At first we know very little about his context. We don’t know how he came to be there (or if, indeed, he was always there) – we don’t even know where there actually is. We don’t know who his sole companion – known simply as The Other – is or where he disappears to when not with Piranesi. We don’t know what happened to the people whose skeletons Piranesi cares for and we don’t even know where there actually is.
The story progresses slowly, building the world and teasing out strange morsels of information and misinformation. We slowly start to understand where Piranesi is and what the relationship is between him and The Other. We learn what we know through Piranesi’s writings in his meticulously kept journals, which he also then refers back to later in the text as he tries to gather the strands of his fraying memory.
The book is, in essence, a mystery. But it takes a while to understand that, or to figure out what the mystery is. We are given tiny crumbs here and there, but none make any sense until we are nearing the climax of the story. Understanding requires suspension of disbelief, patience and very close attention. It probably helps to have some understanding of mythology and art history, but not having either of those myself, that’s just a guess.
I can’t say much more about the plot of this book without giving away any elements that are best left for the reader to discover. It’s a very strange and unsettling reading experience, and I found myself having to take small breaks occasionally as I read. There are several fantastic twists and turns, though the story never seems to lose its tone of solitude and quiet contemplation.
I appreciated what this book set out to do, and I think Clarke did a wonderful job of creating a deeply immersive plot within a world that doesn’t share much in common with our own. Despite the time spent on world-building, however, I found I never really could picture it. My mind built vague images of some of the rooms he described but then stretched into a kind of murky distance because I wasn’t able to fill in the blanks. I couldn’t imagine if Piranesi’s surroundings were a never-ending series of huge chambers or if there were grounds and gardens outside. I wasn’t sure if the rooms were as large in scale as I pictured, and if the statues were free-standing or emerging from the walls. I couldn’t quite picture where the water was coming form or receding to and if this meant that there was ocean surrounding the structure he inhabited in. I didn’t mind too much that I had only a vague and sketchy idea of the surroundings, but I did find it a bit odd at times that I couldn’t seem to fill the rest in.
The character development was well done, because we have to learn along the way that our main character isn’t exactly who he presents himself to be – or, indeed, who he believes he is. We learn to question everyone’s motives and not trust anyone. I liked that aspect of the book and found it to be very effectively carried out.
In the end I was glad that I’d read the book, but the general feeling of a very dense setting and plot that overwhelmed me in Clarke’s previous book existed here as well, albeit to a lesser degree. I think there could have been a bit more in the way of concrete development. Though I don’t have the background to pick up on all the interwoven references to other works of mythology, academia and art, I definitely felt throughout that there was a huge amount of effort put into making those connections for those who had the context to appreciate them. Maybe that makes it brilliant for those readers, but for me it felt like there was constantly bits of it going over my head, which is fine except it took something away from the part of the plot I was able to follow.
I’m glad I gave this book a try, and the parts of it that worked for me worked very well. But in the end it didn’t blow my socks off, and I felt like it was a bit more work than I was up for. I don’t think Clarke and I get on, and I think this might be where we part ways. I’m not going to say I’ll never read her again, but I won’t be queueing up at the bookstore for her next release, and this definitely didn’t make me want to double back and try Jonathan Strange again!
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. – Goodreads
Book Title: Piranesi
Author: Susanna Clarke
Series: No
Edition: Hardback/Audiobook
Published By: Bloomsbury
Released: September 15, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Mythology, Intrigue
Pages: 245
Date Read: May 5-7, 2021
Rating: 8/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.30/5 (55,841 ratings)
My BookTube Prize Ranking: 4th out of 6