Scan barcode
A review by flying_monkey
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'd been waiting for another novel from Susanna Clarke for years. Unlike Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this is not by any means a massive book, but it is just as compelling and I found myself more than half way through it after a leisurely lunch and the ferry ride back. And I couldn't stop there.
Piranesi is one of those stories that used to be called 'slipstream,' 'the new weird' or 'urban fantasy'; at first it appears to be a surrealist fantasy, with a young man named (not by himself) after the Italian painter of endless dungeons, living apparently almost entirely alone in an world composed of seemingly infinite palatial rooms filled lined with statues of every kind of person and scene imaginable. The rooms themselves seem to contain worlds, oceans, clouds... but no other people, save for a few skeletal remains. Piranesi scribbles down his thoughts, records his quest to understand this place, and minutes his regular meetings with 'the other', a researcher who seems to come from elsewhere - but where could that be if these rooms are all there is to the world? Gradually more is revealed but Piranesi at first can't face the reality of these revelations, which simply don't accord with the worldview that gives his life meaning.
I think this brightly written and almost completely satisfying short novel will bring Susanna Clarke new fans. With its off-centre but very European magical anthropology, it has things in common with someone like Italo Calvino, or John Crowley's Aegypt series or even M. John's Harrison's sensibility, but is also wonderfully fresh. Definitely one of the best things I've read in 2020, or as Piranesi might term it, "the year the plague came to the world."
Piranesi is one of those stories that used to be called 'slipstream,' 'the new weird' or 'urban fantasy'; at first it appears to be a surrealist fantasy, with a young man named (not by himself) after the Italian painter of endless dungeons, living apparently almost entirely alone in an world composed of seemingly infinite palatial rooms filled lined with statues of every kind of person and scene imaginable. The rooms themselves seem to contain worlds, oceans, clouds... but no other people, save for a few skeletal remains. Piranesi scribbles down his thoughts, records his quest to understand this place, and minutes his regular meetings with 'the other', a researcher who seems to come from elsewhere - but where could that be if these rooms are all there is to the world? Gradually more is revealed but Piranesi at first can't face the reality of these revelations, which simply don't accord with the worldview that gives his life meaning.
I think this brightly written and almost completely satisfying short novel will bring Susanna Clarke new fans. With its off-centre but very European magical anthropology, it has things in common with someone like Italo Calvino, or John Crowley's Aegypt series or even M. John's Harrison's sensibility, but is also wonderfully fresh. Definitely one of the best things I've read in 2020, or as Piranesi might term it, "the year the plague came to the world."
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness