Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
I am a little late to the party for reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It was (and maybe still is?) a bestseller and I read about it from many sources back when it came out during the lockdown. (Will there come a day when people don’t know the word “lockdown”? Or will it be like we use “the depression”?) Everything I heard about it struck me as really weird. And it is weird, but now that I’ve read it, I like it very much.
It reminds me a lot of the Narnia stories, especially where there’s a professor and the two kids go into pools that are portals to other worlds. Also, the creation story of Narnia. One reason for this affiliation in my mind is that Piranesi is about a different world. And there is a kind of magician not-such-a-good-person in the story. There are some direct references, too, such as the statue of a fawn which is a favorite of the main characters, and once he dreams he sees the fawn in a snowy wood talking to a little girl. Susanna Clarke herself says, “This critique of progress was something I borrowed from CS Lewis.” There’s a Tolkien feel to it, too. The statues are noble and some have swords, even one broken one. The feeling you are glimpsing an ancient world surrounds you throughout. Also, it’s described as a fantasy and although that seems to be hugely popular right now, I have an initial distaste for anything called fantasy. Even though my favorite books are Chronicles of Narnia, so much that I often think of them in the same way I do the Bible for insights into my life.
The story is about a man in a house that loves him. (I know. That’s weird.) The house has many halls and vestibules and many, many statues. Piranesi, the main character, often expresses gratitude to the house in the same way we would to God. He gets comfort and strength from the various statues lining the walls. I marvel at Clarke’s imagination in coming up with the world of the house where the tides come in, sometimes gently but most often crashing into the walls with booms and threatening drowning.
Piranesi is writing his journal in the book—that’s how the story is told—his journal entries. As you read, you slowly start to wonder and realize what’s going on in the same “real time” that Piranesi does. It’s fascinating.
Now that I’ve read the book, I plan to go back to a podcast I listen to, “Speaking With Joy,” and play the episodes where Joy Clarkson does a “summer book club” with Piranesi. I skipped those episodes back in 2021 when they came out.
Most of the book is not what I would call funny, but this little piece of writing made me laugh:
As well as my regular meetings with the Other and the quiet, consolatory presence of the Dead, there are birds. Birds are not difficut to understand. Their behaviour (sic—Susanna Clarke is British. Because why not?) what they are thinking. Generally it runs along the lines of: Is this food? Is this? What about this? This might be food. I am almost certain that this is. Or occasionally: It is raining. I do not like it.
I’ve heard people “quote” dogs as saying the same thing. :D
I don’t want to give away spoilers so I am trying to figure out what else to write about the book. Everyoune knows the house is another world, so I don’t think it’s spoiling anything by me telling you that Piranesi eventually meets people from the “real world” (although he thinks of the house as the real world). In the beginning, he thinks the world only contains himself and “the Other,” as he calls the only other living human who interacts with him.
I like what this blurb says:
Piranesi is a gorgeous, spellbinding mystery that gently unravels page by page. Precisely the sort of book that I love wordlessly handing to someone so they have the pleasure of uncovering its secrets for themselves. This book is a treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered.” ~~Erin Morgenstern, author of The Starless Sea