“Piranesi“ by Susanna Clarke:
A delightful genre bending novel, a surprising dreamlike world full of suspense, mystery, murder and bookish thinking.
it is a study of solitude and isolation, of someone living in in a mysterious world of vast interconnected halls, precisely 7,678 of them, that go on for miles in all directions, with stairs leading up to more and more levels, forming an infinite labyrinth of halls and vestibules in which countless marble statues have their home. The halls in the basement of the palace are regularly flooded by the tides of oceans that lead to crashing sweeps of water covering everything.
“The beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite”: this is the reverential proclamation of Piranesi, a man about 30 years old, who believes he lived in this place “since the world began”. He seems curiously content with his fate, even though he seems to be utterly alone. He wanders about this enormous, bewildering palace, exploring and cataloguing it meticulously. He believes himself to be one of the two inhabitants of the house, the other being “The Other“, a man, different from him, twice his age with whom he meets occassionally.
There is a sense of isolation but also the feeling that this could be paradise. Piranesi clearly is devoted to his home and draws all of his life’s purpose from it. Piranesi is not his real name but a name given to him by the Other in reference to an Italian 16th century architect, archaeologist and artist, famous for his drawings of intricate etchings of Rome and atmospheric prisons.
We learn more and more of this universe and slowly understand it as a metaphor for the alternative universe that we all inhabit in our heads. It is a world which was created by ideas flowing out of another, our real, world and is a representation of ideas and concepts and a link to “ancient knowledge long forgotten“.
Clarke manages a vivd tale full of suspense and apprehension, while at the same time keeping the prose simple and concise. At first confusing and mysterious, the tale slowly shifts in shocking twists and revelations and comes to a satisfying end.
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