Piranesi’s primary relationship is not with the Other, nor is it with the interloper in the House who arrives to disturb their equanimity. Thus, we gain early insights into his character - and character is essential in this man without a past. Of this, Piranesi writes, “One Bee - this always gives me a slight sensation of queasiness - crawls over her left Eye.” This last quality is hinted at on the first page, in a description of the statue of a woman carrying a beehive.
But, from the beginning, we are introduced to his most predominant qualities: scientific curiosity - that which leads him to explore and catalog his discoveries - and empathy. Piranesi is, at first glance, a blank slate, with no past and no name.
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He has figured out how to survive on dried seaweed and fish, and how to navigate halls so immense and complex that the Other refers to them as a “labyrinth.” The House is flooded in places, and it has a system of tides that Piranesi has painstakingly memorized. Meanwhile, Piranesi spends his days making discoveries about the House and its workings. It is understood that Piranesi is assisting the Other in his quest for powerful ancient knowledge, which the Other believes the House contains. The Other meets with Piranesi twice a week, asks him questions, and taps out notes on a “shining device” that the reader will instantly identify. Piranesi’s only friend is a man he calls “the Other,” who also gave him his name. The plot makes for a separate and more obtrusive mystery than the setting: a man who is clearly from our world lives in the House, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Its vast halls, its teeming ecosystem, and above all, the statues that represent various mythological concepts and figures comprise a universe in miniature. But while Clarke has always woven mystery into her enchanted worlds, there is perhaps nothing in her creation more mysterious than the House in which the protagonist of Piranesi finds himself.
Instead of an alternate Regency England, Piranesi takes place in the present day - up to the minute, or at least the late 2010s. In Piranesi, Clarke takes a turn away from familiar ground. Her sentences conjure magic more effectively than a system ever could. Clarke stands out as a fantasy writer due to her use of language, which sings from the page. Without the density that can make Jonathan Strange daunting at times, the tales in The Ladies of Grace Adieu hold the same incantatory enchantment. There is no comforting magic system to explicate the unknown, and no anointed hero to eradicate the dark.Ĭlarke’s short stories, showcased in her 2006 collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, deserve equal attention. Although it begins with a light satire of English society and academia, Clarke’s epic about English magic escorts the reader on a journey into ever murkier realms of enchantment. However, while both stories are set in England and concern magic, the similarities end there: Jonathan Strange presents a complex, dark, and enigmatic world - everything Harry Potter is not.
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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.SUSANNA CLARKE FIRST BURST on the scene with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in 2004 on a wave of publicity partly fueled by comparisons with Harry Potter. 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. Piranesi Susanna Clarke € 26.99 If not in stock, the expected delivery time to our store for this item will be 3-5 working days.įrom the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality.
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