Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Piranesi

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Piranesi by Viktor Plesl, Susanna Clarke

34 reviews

glitterenby's review against another edition

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reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”

Piranesi has lived his entire life in “the House,” wandering it’s endless, cavernous halls and vestibules full of statues, watching the crashing oceans that occasionally cause great floods and the clouds that obscure his vision of the upper level. He divides his time among gathering the supplies that he needs to survive (“The House provides much food for the active and enterprising person. There is no excuse for going hungry!”), caring with almost religious reverence for the Dead that he has found tucked in odd places, and gathering information about his surroundings. He documents his explorations meticulously in a hand-written journal and shares them with his mysterious friend, “the Other,” with whom he meets for an hour twice per week. His life is everything that he needs, and he is thankful for it. But one day, the Other tells Piranesi something that sends him back through his old journal entries, and slowly, his understanding of himself and his world begins to unravel.

I rarely give books five-star ratings, but I gave one to this book with hardly a second thought. It is the best piece of fiction I have read in years. Unfortunately, because of the nature of this book, if I say much about the plot, I will ruin much of what it makes it great; I can say, however, that the sophisticated way in which it deals with themes of Christianity, confinement, and identity affected me deeply, so deeply, in fact, that I cried when I finished reading.

I can also say that I loved being in the head of Piranesi. This story is told via his journal entries, which do a splendid job of communicating his personality and his changing mental states. Normally, I don’t gravitate toward books that are in the form of journals because I find that they provide too limited of a view of events, but, in this case, that limited view of events is an essential element of what makes this story work. This story’s impact comes in no small part from finding our way out of a limited and incorrect understanding along with Piranesi. I experienced confusion, surprise, and revelation alongside him, and this process was made all the more enjoyable for me because I was deeply invested in him. His dedication to the comfort and well-being of everyone around him –the Other, the resident animals, even the Dead– made me love him and hope that he would survive the mysteries of the House.

This book’s prose is also absolutely gorgeous in an understated and precise way. We are given (through the writings of Piranesi) descriptions that are vivid because of their use of sense detail and metaphor. These descriptions, however, did not draw attention to themselves or draw me out of the flow of the book. One of my favorite examples is found early on in the book:

“The Vestibule was full of birds and the birds were all aflight. They circled and spiraled, creating a whiling dance. They filled the Vestibule like a column of smoke, which grew darker and denser in places and the next moment lighter and airier. I have witnessed this dance on several occasions, always in the evening and in the later months of the year.”

My one qualm with this book is that how it deals with LGBTQ+ representation worries me. The only character who is identified as queer is also one of the most dangerous, erratic characters in the book and seems to be sexually predatory. While I definitely think there is a place for negative queer characters in literature -and this character is fascinating- the fact that he is the only representation might be seen as playing into the stereotypes of queer people as being morally bankrupt. I wish that Clark had included a positive character who is obviously queer to counter that issue.

Overall, though, I am deeply impressed with this book and recommend it especially to lovers of books that invite you to ask questions and sit in the darkness of lacking certainty.

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kayleypew's review against another edition

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lonelylooper's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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mohana's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

The book was great until the homophobia left me feeling weird.

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cherryboo's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated

1.75

I'll preface my review with this; I had heard so many good things about the book, and so I went into it optimistically.

The writing is absolutely gorgeous, and I only finished it to read more of the lovely prose.
However, a fair warning to everyone ahead of time, this book, through the lens of Christianity, supports so so many problematic beliefs that make it so I would struggle to recommend this book to someone else.

Susanna unacceptably vilifies gay men, and explicitly writes that being gay is and was a choice, with the main conflict within the story being about how said "villainous" gay man kidnapped young men to abuse them for his experiments which is a disgusting trope that has time and time again been proven to be an exaggerated claim used for scaremongering tactics.

In addition, Clarke uses the aesthetics of Greco-Roman culture which is revered within the West but inserts heavy-handed unabashed support of Christian themes in order to conflate their relationship. This not only creates additional justification for Christianity's beliefs by elevating it to the status of reverence that is held for the former, but also erases the fact that the Romans were actually extremely opposed to Christianity.

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I'm not saying that this book is inherently or objectively bad; it's actually still really really good which is why I finished it. But I believe that denying the fact that there are problematic elements to the book would be extremely ignorant as well.

Content Warnings

pnwbibliophile's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Overall, I thought the writing was beautiful, literary, and reflective. The setting was how I imagine being in a classical statued labryrith where the atmosphere is suffused with the beauty and otherworldliness of Enya’s music (vibe-wise, not music literally playing in the halls) yet the plot and perils end up feeling a bit like the dark academia of The Secret History. Then add in that feeling you got watching 90s screensavers panning through endless halls. That is the essence of this novel.

What I absolutely loved was the introspection of the main character that felt profound even though he was considering such basic themes as trust, betrayal, identity, and personal change. Good storytelling elevates these universal themes and makes them seem like something new you’ve never heard before even though you have.

This would have been more enjoyable had the author not chosen to add in casual homophobia by making the only two gay men in the book problematic. One is portrayed as the “gay predator villain” stereotype and the second described as “a prostitute” and having “prolonged periods of mental illness,” biplar disorder, and also that the people who knew him were “drug addicts.” This was published in 2020 so it’s rather hard for me to make excuses for the author and Bloomsbury letting this slip through. Were there no sensitivity readers for this? At a certain point in history we have to stop giving passes on this sort of thing. We passed that time a good 15 years ago.

Why am I so sensitive to this? Because gay men were exclusively portrayed in this light (as villains, as degenerates, as partaking in all manner of vice, or as deceitful) in media until censorship laws changed in the mid 1900s. LGBTQ+ people weren’t allowed to be portrayed in a good light or have happy endings because of the “morals” of the time. That is why I take it so seriously. It reads as if the author’s telling us this is exclusively how she sees gay men or at the minimum, she doesnt find this portrayal offensive. Veiled homophobia is still homophobia. Without the homophobia, this would have been a 4/5 star read. The homophobia brought it down to a 3/5.

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violerwolf's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Susanna Clarke asks the bold question: what if “The Backrooms” wasn’t a boring horror gimmick?

Intriguing mysteries, deep symbolism and philosophical reflection, and a riveting but small cast of characters make this book impossible to put down. I can’t wait to reread it.

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mobymaize's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

What a truly joyful, kind, and beautiful read. Piranesi reminds me of my dreams of endless homes, endless reflections of life & the love of the world & its inhabitants that I hold so dear.

Holy fuck this book rocks.

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sunflower7skull's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Very interesting book. Very psychological with a very slow start, but I found it very intruiging as I continued, especially with the unreliable narrator aspect. I enjoyed the mystery, though I found it somewhat predictable at times. I honestly don't get the hype myself, but I can see why others would like it!

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queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The mystery was intense and it had me hooked start to finish. I loved Piranesi as a character, as tragic as he was. It brushed right up against the myth of the Labyrinth, but it wasn't so overt that it felt redundant.

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