Piranesi

Unruly Stacks reviewed Piranesi

Well Worth Waiting For

5 stars

I've been excited by Susanna Clarke's writing since I first picked up Jonathan Strange, and when I first heard this book was coming out, I was suddenly aware that I hadn't heard about her in a long while! Some Googling revealed that she'd been suffering from severe health issues for years now, and this book was the result of more years of hardship than I could fathom. I preordered it immediately, and read it the moment it arrived.

Wow. So different, so quiet, and so, so good.

I've read plenty of reviews that disparage the book (usually because they felt the plot was thin or easily deduced, or because the narration was too simple or unrelatable), but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was surprised when reveals came, I was drawn into the narration and worldbuilding, and I found the narrator endearing, if a bit alien in perspective. …

I've been excited by Susanna Clarke's writing since I first picked up Jonathan Strange, and when I first heard this book was coming out, I was suddenly aware that I hadn't heard about her in a long while! Some Googling revealed that she'd been suffering from severe health issues for years now, and this book was the result of more years of hardship than I could fathom. I preordered it immediately, and read it the moment it arrived.

Wow. So different, so quiet, and so, so good.

I've read plenty of reviews that disparage the book (usually because they felt the plot was thin or easily deduced, or because the narration was too simple or unrelatable), but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was surprised when reveals came, I was drawn into the narration and worldbuilding, and I found the narrator endearing, if a bit alien in perspective. It even holds up to rereads!

All told, I found it delightful, and hopefully you will/have too!

screamsbeneath reviewed Piranesi

Unfolding into the (Un)known

5 stars

I didn't know what to expect coming into this and I firmly recommend trying to go in with as little knowledge as you possibly can. The unfolding that occurs throughout the narrative was the payoff, the end just another event along a wave of experience.

A library book that has inevitably made it to my own collection, amongst the shelf of favorites that are destined to be reread over and over again.

AvonVilla@ramblingreaders.org reviewed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

A superb and origianl work of fantasy

5 stars

It's hard to describe the setting and the feelings this novel evokes because it's so original. It's like looking at a painting by Giorgio de Chirico, with its mysterious, unnerving ancient buildings looming in the background, casting imposing shadows across a sunset landsacpe. You crane your neck to see what is beyond the edge of the frame. What else is in this strange, surreal world? But you are limited by what the painting can show you.

De Chirico was my frame of reference, but the book was inspired by another artist I was unfamiliar with, and his name was also Piranesi. In Clarke's novel, the path between our reality and the surreal world is opened, for a moment. It's like a waking dream.

Those who would deny reality are the villains, yet the beauty of the dream world remains. Somehow we wish we could be the Piranesi at the start …

It's hard to describe the setting and the feelings this novel evokes because it's so original. It's like looking at a painting by Giorgio de Chirico, with its mysterious, unnerving ancient buildings looming in the background, casting imposing shadows across a sunset landsacpe. You crane your neck to see what is beyond the edge of the frame. What else is in this strange, surreal world? But you are limited by what the painting can show you.

De Chirico was my frame of reference, but the book was inspired by another artist I was unfamiliar with, and his name was also Piranesi. In Clarke's novel, the path between our reality and the surreal world is opened, for a moment. It's like a waking dream.

Those who would deny reality are the villains, yet the beauty of the dream world remains. Somehow we wish we could be the Piranesi at the start of the book, living in the mysterious, endless halls of his dreamlike dimension, a dangerous and lonely universe, but somehow beautiful at the same time.

Jonathan Hartley reviewed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Splendid tale, in a symbolic setting which is strikingly and evocatively minimal.

4 stars

Content warning Minor spoiler, which reveals a mid-book event which is very different in setting than the consistency of the opening chapters might suggest.

I really enjoyed this. I was captured by the reliable hook of an initially confounding fantastic or symbolic setting, gradually made comprehensible as information is revealed and the reader acclimatizes to the concepts in play. The infinite architectures of The House reminds me of the similarly spectacular House of Leaves, or the YouTube Backrooms phenomenon. It makes me want to revisit the symbolic locations of Banks "The Bridge". It reminds me of deeply evocative late nights, lost in endless videogame worlds.

About 2/3 of the way through, I caught a reference as a character is using childhood memories as part of a ritual to reopen a doorway to a lost world, from the rose garden of his childhood home. As potential doorways begin appearing, he notes "The color of the roses was supernaturally bright."

This is no doubt a deliberate reference to Aldus Huxley's "Doors of Perception" (bookwyrm.social/book/168195/s/the-doors-of-perception-and-heaven-and-hell-perennial-classics), a trip report on the opening of said doors during the psychedelic experience of mescaline, in which repeated reference is made to a supernaturally bright and vivid vase of flowers, "shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged".

Shauna reviewed Piranesi

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

5 stars

This is one of those books that's unlike any other. It's surreal and dreamy and the sheer "what the heck's going on?" factor compelled me to read it all in one day.

A novel like this - light on plot, with an extremely limited cast of characters, told in an epistolary style - really sinks or swims on the narrative voice. Luckily the titular Piranesi is fun to read, and comes across as practical and clever, curious and sweet. His ignorance is charming rather than frustrating, and of course his naivete is all part of the mystery.

Highly recommended to anyone who loves an atmospheric and/or experimental story.

Karvala@lectura.social reviewed Piranesi

Review of 'Piranesi' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Al principio no sabía muy bien dónde me había metido y estaba un poco perdida, pero enseguida me ha enganchado. En cuanto estás apunto de aburrirte, pasan cosas y te enganchas más. La segunda mitad no podía dejarlo.

lep@bookwyrm.social reviewed Piranesi

No rating

Nice little book. Had to read it in one sitting.

James reviewed Piranesi

Reality plus a little magic

4 stars

I really enjoyed the book, the smaller world that the protagonist lives in is very simple and is intriguing, but not somewhere I feel I need to return to. The larger universe though is interesting, with its reality plus a little magic vibe. I enjoyed the unravelling mystery and it compelled me to read it much faster than I've read books of similar size. The first few chapters describing the House reminded me of the descriptions of The Sleeper Service in Iain M Banks' book Excession. To the point where I thought the book was going to go in a sci-fi direction.

polymerwitch reviewed Piranesi

A beautiful book that quiets and comforts my mind

5 stars

If we were born in another world what form would the shadows cast upon the walls of our cave take? What mythologies and art would inform our identity? What are the limits that malicious people have to do harm through warping and confining our realities? How does the society around me shape the person I am at any given time?

Piranesi explores these questions in a labyrinth of an endless house full of statues that is flooded by the sea. The answers are in the faces of our neighbors and in the hushing pose of the faun.

Dana Rail reviewed Piranesi

Review of 'Piranesi' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I've waited so long for a sequel to Strange & Norrell, but was thrilled to see the publication of this second, much different novel, which may (or may well not) be in the same "universe", as it were, as S & N.

The upshot: this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful books I have ever read, I can't recommend it enough.

(PS, it's a finalist in both the 2020 Nebula and Hugo awards.)

Library Orb

rated it

Jan. 26, 2023

anaulin@bookwyrm.social

rated it

Sept. 14, 2023

Marek

rated it

Jan 5