Susanna Clarke, Bloomsbury 2020
I’ve just finished reading Piranesi. What do I think about it? It’s hard to say. Like being asked to describe a dream, or being asked how I feel after listening to a mesmeric piece of music.
Peaceful. I feel peaceful. Like I have returned to this outer world after spending time with Piranesi in his inner world. ‘Inner’ makes it sound like his world is insubstantial, but it isn’t.
I wasn’t sure where the story was going when it began. I met Piranesi and he showed me his world; a house (a palace, rather) with many, many halls, rivers, seas, mountains and clouds (clearly more than a palace). Peopled with statues and littered with crumbling stairs and broken floors, yet its marble-made immensity rises up in my mind and astounds.
By one third through, I was hooked. I enjoyed wandering through the halls with Piranesi and I didn’t trust his research companion, the Other. I didn’t know where things were going. Was Piranesi hallucinating? Was he in a coma in a hospital? Was his world a gigantic allegory or metaphor for our world, or for his internal world?
The sense of unease and mystery builds. The ending is satisfying. We get to understand more about the place, and more about who Piranesi is. We identify with him and sympathise with him.
What I learnt most was the way that ancient people venerated their dead. They travelled with them, and they shared in their ongoing lives.
This is a thought-provoking book. It’s worth reading.
March 2022