A Drowned House | Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Title: Piranesi
Author: Susanna Clarke
Published: September 15, 2020
Genre(s): Fantasy
Page Count: 245
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

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. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

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 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.

Like a great many children, I was a fan of the Chronicles of Narnia series. I know that Lewis’s pointed allegory is off-putting to many, but there are some truly great fantasy moments in those books. (The Horse’s Boy is the best one, don’t @ me). But anyway. While Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is nothing at all like C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I hope readers will understand me when I say that this book has Big Magician’s Nephew Energy.

This isn’t a long book. It’s not a difficult read, and although the story is mysterious, I don’t think it’s confusing. Rather, Piranesi is beautiful, strange, and otherworldly. It’s a book about a solitary man who lives in endless Halls, full of Statutes and the Sea. It’s a book about how the man fills his days, about how he takes joy in the House and in his companions, the silent Statutes. And I suppose it’s about how Piranesi learns the truth—although unveiling the mysteries of Piranesi’s life wasn’t what made me love this book.

Is it weird to say that I loved Piranesi because of its aesthetic? Clarke’s writing gloriously captures the setting of the House, half-drowned by the sea, crumbling into dust. Although you wonder if Piranesi is perhaps a prisoner of the House, you also can’t help but think it doesn’t matter—the House is Beautiful and it is Good, and like Piranesi, you want to live there forever.

Maybe other people didn’t grow up delighted by the thought of exploring crumbling castles and mansions. Maybe they didn’t read about Charn and yearn to live there alone in its empty, lifeless ruins. Maybe the idea of a book about a man whose daily life consists of meticulously cataloguing hundreds of absurd statutes sends other readers into a tailspin of boredom. I’m dunno, fam. I’m just here to report that Piranesi is a whole mood for me.

To be clear, this book does have a plot. It’s a good plot, too. Very satisfying, etc. Because Piranesi (by the way, Piranesi isn’t his Real Name) is not the only one who lives in the House. There’s also The Other, a scholar of dubious brilliance, who has enlisted Piranesi into his progress toward…something. Really, even as a consummate spoiler-reader, I think that this is one of the few books I’ve read where knowing anything going in makes the author’s method of drawing up the curtain less effective. Much of Piranesi‘s success depends on the style and allure of Clarke’s prose, so describing the plot in my own, less-than-stellar prose, really doesn’t do anybody a lick of good. But, in short: there is a story beyond exploring a half-drowned, labyrinthine statue hall.

But really… I’m just here for the beautiful, dreamy image of an empty, silent House, buffeted by tides, festooned with salty seaweed, tended by a man who loves and honors it—all in peaceful solitude.