![]() Piranesi is helping the Other on his search for the Great and Secret Knowledge, something that will grant them the power to control lesser minds, to live forever, and even to turn into an animal at will. ![]() I’ll be super vague so as not to spoil, so forgive me if I don’t make complete sense. Although again, it’s not so much what’s there on the surface level as how Piranesi deals with everything. But let me assure you that there is a plot and that I, at least, found it intriguing and exciting. I can’t really tell you any more than that without spoiling the plot for you. Other than that, Piranesi is alone with his work, catches fish and collects seaweed for food, makes and mends his own clothes to the best of his abilities, and lives a rather happy life, surrounded by the beauty of his home. He takes good and proper care of the bones of the 13 dead people in the Halls and he looks forward to his meetings with the Other, who sometimes brings him gifts. One thing I personally wouldn’t like about the House – and the thing Piranesi sometimes feels makes his home just a little less perfect – is the loneliness. Although the Halls are described as being much the same, Piranesi’s perception of them and the meaning he gives each individual statue, each flock of birds, turns it into this wonderous place that’s kind of appealing. Fair warning, it takes a little while before the secrets unravel and it becomes clear who and where Piranesi really is, but I don’t think that’s even the point of the novel. It felt a little like being in a dream myself, wandering the Halls with Piranesi, and at the same time I was kept constantly engaged because I was trying to solve the mystery of this place. He mostly does this research for himself, because it gives him pleasure to explore his beautiful world, but sometimes the Other, the man who meets with him every Tuesday and Friday, sends him on little missions to find out things for him. His “research” is systematic, he indexes his journals for later reference, he has figured out how the Tides move and when certain Halls on his level will be flooded. I kept speculating where we were, if the House is a place in the real world, or a secondary fantasy place, if it was maybe all in Piranesi’s head or some sort of crazy dream… Number two: Piranesi’s notes are astounding! Not so much because they reveal things of great interest to the readers – describing various statues or the behaviour of the birds who live in the House alongside him aren’t all that exciting, to be honest – but because he works and writes like a scientist. Number one: We start the story in an utterly strange place that obviously hides a mystery or two. When reading this book, I first noticed two things. The lower floors are flooded by the ocean, the upper floors are among the clouds, so Piranesi lives on the ground floor, exploring his world Hall by Hall, taking meticulous notes of everything he finds. It tells, through journal entries, the story of Piranesi, who lives in the House, a gigantic complex of halls lined with statues. This relatively slim novel (especially compared to the 1000 page Jonathan Strange) should not be underestimated, however. Piranesi is a departure from Clarke’s previous work in more ways than one. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.įor readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds. ![]() There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But Piranesi is not afraid he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. ![]() Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Opening line: When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness thejoining of three Tides. It has nothing to do with Jonathan Strange and is quite different in every way except one: It’s just as brilliant and shows Susanna Clarke’s amazing skill as a writer.Īnd what a breath of fresh air after I plowed through the slog that was The Rage of Dragons… I loved that book so, so much – it is one of my all-time favorites – and was all the more excited when I found out she had finally published a new novel. Susanna Clarke blew everyone away with her brilliant, chunky novel Jonathan Strange & Mr.
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