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A review by vivaldi
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I decided to read this, like, a few weeks before the book got published - thanks to the positive reviews coming from a few of my favourite authors. And it absolutely lives up to the expectations from the rave reviews that I've seen.
I was initially surprised about the length of the novel. Normally the books I enjoy are considerably longer but this is one of the best 200-something page read that I've came across since a while. It's very condensed, page-turning, and substantial. It's also packed with a lot of timeless and meta themes that left me a lot of food of thoughts to think about long after finishing it. It's a rare feat because I usually read books heavy with meta central themes in multiple sessions but I found myself indulging the entirety of the book in a single sitting right before bedtime and everything just clicked together.
Beauty of the story is spellbinding and the after thoughts is Infinite. But the 200-something pages is a wonderful journey of knowledge (both self and others), memory, and everything that makes us human. It pulled of an impressive feat of establishing a solid worldbuilding for its length. Everything being mentioned has its own place and its meanings in this world and it feels absolutely satisfying to read about how it clicked together.
It can be a challenging read as the earlier portion of Piranesi is written in a highly symbolic & abstract style imbued with a lot of the magic system (but it's also what made the book so alluring at first like the magical glossing on a wrapper). As the story progresses, the journal entries gradually become more realistic and concrete. So while the start can prove to be hard to take in, the effect of going from the abstract to the concrete is beautifully done. And this is how satisfying it was for me to see everything clicking together and realise the big plot twist. It had me thinking: what is left of one's belief system when what one ardently believed in is in fact an illusion painted by their own perception. Along this token, Piranesi's character development is very solid and I found him very likeable.
I ploughed through this highly meta read effortlessly because there are sections which prompted me to laugh out loud. Particularly on Piranesi's lens on the concrete and the subjective, as well as the surprising apperances of the additional side characters. It's a haunting read - a sad beautiful tragic, but it's also something which provides you a few important moments of comic relief to laugh it out loud.
I'm delighted to discover this out through the serendipity of going through the reviews of my usual go-to authors. I will certainly look out for Susanna Clarke's other works!
I was initially surprised about the length of the novel. Normally the books I enjoy are considerably longer but this is one of the best 200-something page read that I've came across since a while. It's very condensed, page-turning, and substantial. It's also packed with a lot of timeless and meta themes that left me a lot of food of thoughts to think about long after finishing it. It's a rare feat because I usually read books heavy with meta central themes in multiple sessions but I found myself indulging the entirety of the book in a single sitting right before bedtime and everything just clicked together.
Beauty of the story is spellbinding and the after thoughts is Infinite. But the 200-something pages is a wonderful journey of knowledge (both self and others), memory, and everything that makes us human. It pulled of an impressive feat of establishing a solid worldbuilding for its length. Everything being mentioned has its own place and its meanings in this world and it feels absolutely satisfying to read about how it clicked together.
It can be a challenging read as the earlier portion of Piranesi is written in a highly symbolic & abstract style imbued with a lot of the magic system (but it's also what made the book so alluring at first like the magical glossing on a wrapper). As the story progresses, the journal entries gradually become more realistic and concrete. So while the start can prove to be hard to take in, the effect of going from the abstract to the concrete is beautifully done. And this is how satisfying it was for me to see everything clicking together and realise the big plot twist. It had me thinking: what is left of one's belief system when what one ardently believed in is in fact an illusion painted by their own perception. Along this token, Piranesi's character development is very solid and I found him very likeable.
I ploughed through this highly meta read effortlessly because there are sections which prompted me to laugh out loud. Particularly on Piranesi's lens on the concrete and the subjective, as well as the surprising apperances of the additional side characters. It's a haunting read - a sad beautiful tragic, but it's also something which provides you a few important moments of comic relief to laugh it out loud.
I'm delighted to discover this out through the serendipity of going through the reviews of my usual go-to authors. I will certainly look out for Susanna Clarke's other works!