SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: https://t.co/tVfMpuJ0Bh
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) October 26, 2020
Short Review: 7.5 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): In a strange endless world of rooms, waters and statues the Man called Piranesi lives, exploring and taking notes in his journal. But when he discovers that there might be more people besides the one other, everything changes.
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) October 26, 2020
Fascinating short novel
2/3
Piranesis is the long awaited second novel from British author Susanna Clarke, writer of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which I have not read). It's a short fantasy novel, featuring a protagonist mostly alone in a strange labyrinthian world, which suggested that it might be the type of description-based SF/F that I usually don't really love. But enough praise for it got me interested, and my libraries had a billion copies, so I reserved it just the same.
And Piranesi really wasn't what I feared - while it is description-based, it is very much so only in terms of developing the character of its protagonist, the eponymous "Piranesi". It's a rather short novel - 245 pages in paperback-size pages despite its hard cover - packing both a mystery about a world and questions about reality and personalities within its short page-length. At the same time, I didn't really love it as much as some critics seem to have - it seems to be another book that's both too long and too short, spending too long on some aspects and not enough time on others, particularly at the ending and with regards to another character. This one is going to be hard to explain, so bear with me.
------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Piranesi is one of two living people in the House, a world with seemingly infinite rooms, corridors lined with thousands of statues, and different levels - one where the tide sometimes rises to dangerous levels, one which is fit for habitation, and one where one can observe the sky. "Piranesi" is not actually his name", but it is what the other living person - The Other - calls him, so it works well enough. Every day Piranesi wanders through the House, occasionally taking notes in his journal of what he finds in its various rooms, as he discovers more and more of the world. It's a solitary life, and Piranesi treasures the two hours a week he meets with the Other, who has ambitions of finding some sort of hidden knowledge within the world, which he swears is truly out there.
But when Piranesi's exploration, and the Other's words, suggest to Piranesi that there is more than the House, and that other living people exist, Piranesi finds himself on a distressing quest: to find those others and discover what really is - even if doing so will only cause him pain.
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Piranesi is a book told through the protagonist's (who I will refer to as "Piranesi" for ease, even if it's not actually his name) journal entries. Each part of the book consists of a number of journal entries, with the book's parts each being titled after a specific topic that the entries in that part will focus around (with some of those parts being only a few pages long). This is, as I mentioned above the jump, very much a book of descriptions, as the science-based mind of Piranesi is very focused upon recording everything he encounters and that he seems, with him sometimes notetaking about memories and journal entries of the past.
Which works because this is very much a character study of Piranesi and perhaps a few others (who I'll get to in a bit). It becomes apparently early on to the reader, even though it isn't to Piranesi, that the House is some sort of parallel world to our real world in something like the modern day (the title's of Piranesi's journals form the first clue very early on among many) and that Piranesi is from our own world, but he doesn't seem to remember that. Meanwhile it similarly becomes clear that The Other, the only other person we see alive to start, seems to be traveling back and forth between the worlds. And yet...Piranesi is more distressed that the outside world might exist than that he might have forgotten it. Despite being alone, in a place with no people for the most part, with no recognizable future, he has come to build his identity around The House and is happy for it. And the idea that there was an older version of him that was something else is anathema to him.
Through discoveries by Piranesi and older journal entries, written by an older him that did have memories, we read about a few various others who Clarke essentially uses to contrast with the protagonist, all disciples of who is basically a mad scientist who first discovered the way to the House and in his megalomania drew the disciples there to their death....or to the loss of their own sanities. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil really, but its notable how the quest for something else in our world ruins these people, in contrast to that of what we see in Piranesi. That contrast is eventually shown by one final spoiler character, who in straddling the two worlds, and knowing everything about the truth of them both, finds the House almost a more calming place than the real world.
It's an interesting story, although I just don't think there's enough meat in Piranesi (the character) to make it more than a curiosity - his story felt like it kind of started to drag until it came to a climactic conclusion that really doesn't make any impact except as a way to end the "conflict." By contrast, I really wanted to know more about that abovementioned spoiler character, and to contrast her experiences with that of Piranesi*, and honestly I could've been interested in seeing more of just the general epilogue as well. In that way this book is both too short and too long, an experience that didn't quite fully fit what I was most interested in.
Spoiler in ROT13: Gur fcbvyre punenpgre vf n qrgrpgvir sebz bhe jbeyq jub unf fghzoyrq bagb gur frperg bs Cvenarfv'f jbeyq naq ubj gb trg gurer, jvgu gur nvz ng svefg naq ernyyl va gur raq bs erfphvat uvz...naq jub svaqf n ovg bs pnyzarff naq inyhr va Cvenarfv'f jbeyq, znxvat ure pbagenfg jvgu Cvenarfv: Ur jub vf gelvat gb svaq inyhr ntnva va gur erny jbeyq, srryvat gung gur bgure bar vf uvf erny ubzr, naq ure ivpr irefn. Vg'f na vagrerfgvat pbagenfg V'z qrfpevovat cbbeyl orpnhfr V'z jevgvat guvf n juvyr nsgre V ernq vg, ohg V jvfu gurer jnf zber nobhg ure naq ubj fur sbhaq Cvenarfv'f jbeyq va gur raq, sebz ure bja crefcrpgvir.
Piranesi is a book told through the protagonist's (who I will refer to as "Piranesi" for ease, even if it's not actually his name) journal entries. Each part of the book consists of a number of journal entries, with the book's parts each being titled after a specific topic that the entries in that part will focus around (with some of those parts being only a few pages long). This is, as I mentioned above the jump, very much a book of descriptions, as the science-based mind of Piranesi is very focused upon recording everything he encounters and that he seems, with him sometimes notetaking about memories and journal entries of the past.
Which works because this is very much a character study of Piranesi and perhaps a few others (who I'll get to in a bit). It becomes apparently early on to the reader, even though it isn't to Piranesi, that the House is some sort of parallel world to our real world in something like the modern day (the title's of Piranesi's journals form the first clue very early on among many) and that Piranesi is from our own world, but he doesn't seem to remember that. Meanwhile it similarly becomes clear that The Other, the only other person we see alive to start, seems to be traveling back and forth between the worlds. And yet...Piranesi is more distressed that the outside world might exist than that he might have forgotten it. Despite being alone, in a place with no people for the most part, with no recognizable future, he has come to build his identity around The House and is happy for it. And the idea that there was an older version of him that was something else is anathema to him.
Through discoveries by Piranesi and older journal entries, written by an older him that did have memories, we read about a few various others who Clarke essentially uses to contrast with the protagonist, all disciples of who is basically a mad scientist who first discovered the way to the House and in his megalomania drew the disciples there to their death....or to the loss of their own sanities. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil really, but its notable how the quest for something else in our world ruins these people, in contrast to that of what we see in Piranesi. That contrast is eventually shown by one final spoiler character, who in straddling the two worlds, and knowing everything about the truth of them both, finds the House almost a more calming place than the real world.
It's an interesting story, although I just don't think there's enough meat in Piranesi (the character) to make it more than a curiosity - his story felt like it kind of started to drag until it came to a climactic conclusion that really doesn't make any impact except as a way to end the "conflict." By contrast, I really wanted to know more about that abovementioned spoiler character, and to contrast her experiences with that of Piranesi*, and honestly I could've been interested in seeing more of just the general epilogue as well. In that way this book is both too short and too long, an experience that didn't quite fully fit what I was most interested in.
Spoiler in ROT13: Gur fcbvyre punenpgre vf n qrgrpgvir sebz bhe jbeyq jub unf fghzoyrq bagb gur frperg bs Cvenarfv'f jbeyq naq ubj gb trg gurer, jvgu gur nvz ng svefg naq ernyyl va gur raq bs erfphvat uvz...naq jub svaqf n ovg bs pnyzarff naq inyhr va Cvenarfv'f jbeyq, znxvat ure pbagenfg jvgu Cvenarfv: Ur jub vf gelvat gb svaq inyhr ntnva va gur erny jbeyq, srryvat gung gur bgure bar vf uvf erny ubzr, naq ure ivpr irefn. Vg'f na vagrerfgvat pbagenfg V'z qrfpevovat cbbeyl orpnhfr V'z jevgvat guvf n juvyr nsgre V ernq vg, ohg V jvfu gurer jnf zber nobhg ure naq ubj fur sbhaq Cvenarfv'f jbeyq va gur raq, sebz ure bja crefcrpgvir.
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