![]() ![]() His only other companions are the various birds that roost or nest in the halls, and the thirteen dead. He fishes, gathers shellfish and seaweed, and twice a week meets for an hour with a man who he calls The Other. Our protagonist has no idea how he came to be here, but he is happy with his life in this place. It has clouds on its upper floor, and ocean and tides in its basement, and the rooms are filled with many beautiful and strange statues. Piranesi is a young man who lives in a marble house with infinite rooms, stairways, and vestibules. It was critically acclaimed having been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, it did win the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction. ![]() “Piranesi” is a very different fantasy novel by English author Susanna Clarke. This superbly told tale is sure to be recognized as one of the year's most inventive novels.Ī Very Different and Magical Fantasy Novel With great subtlety, Clarke gradually elaborates an explanatory backstory to her tale's events and reveals sinister occult machinations that build to a crescendo of genuine horror. In their discussions about 16, it becomes increasingly clear the Other is gaslighting Piranesi about his memory, their relationship, and the reality they share. After the Other worriedly asks Piranesi if he's seen in the house a person they refer to as 16, Piranesi's curiosity is piqued, and all the more so after the Other instructs him to hide. Meanwhile, the Other is pursuing the "Great and Secret Knowledge" of the ancients. So immense is the House that its many parts support their own internal climates, all of which Piranesi vividly describes ("I squeezed myself into the Woman's Niche and waited until I heard the Tides roaring in the Lower Halls and felt the Walls vibrating with the force of what was about to happen"). The story unfolds as journal entries written by the eponymous narrator, who, along with an enigmatic master known as the Other (and 13 skeletons whom Piranesi regards as persons) inhabits the House, a vast, labyrinthine structure of statue-adorned halls and vestibules. We won’t spoil any more details about the captivating events and plot twists that unfold-the less you know about this unpredictable novel, the better.Ĭlarke wraps a twisty mystery inside a metaphysical fantasy in her extraordinary new novel, her first since 2004's Jonathan Strange & Mr. We wanted to figure out exactly who Piranesi is and how he ended up recording the tides and living on saltwater fish inside this surreal Escher painting of a home. But soon enough, we couldn’t put this strange story down. At first, we didn’t know what to think about the hero’s odd, heartbreakingly innocent first-person narration. Clarke, the author of the delightful bestseller Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, turns this quirky notion into a thrilling and esoteric mystery. The bottommost floor is filled with an ocean, the topmost is sprinkled with clouds, and the rest is a maze of pillars, staircases, and exquisite marble statues. A man called Piranesi lives in a fantastically sprawling building that goes on and on for miles. With her second novel, Susanna Clarke thinks outside the room the box is in. ![]() 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. From 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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