August Book Club: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

‘In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows.’

Piranesi (2020) is a fantasy novel that follows a sympathetic protagonist through a mysterious labyrinth. The namesake main character reveres the labyrinth, which he has named the House, full of ancient statues of mythical creatures, dead bodies, and crashing tides.

To begin with, I worried that the long, hyper-detailed descriptions of places and things would alienate me during reading. Take this, for example, as a chapter opening: ‘Entry for the Tenth Day of the Fifth Month in the Year the Albatross came to the South-Western Halls.’ However, I soon learned to love these seemingly excessive attributions and names because they were evidently the structure of Piranesi's wonderful mind. His penchant for journaling, organising, and specific names accumulates into a vivid view of his mind's coping mechanisms and ability to untangle his strange world. Susanna Clarke's consistency in the narrative voice is astounding and quickly hooked me emotionally. I was intrigued by Piranesi's unfaltering positivity and resilience. That being said, it's obvious that resilience is not a trait Piranesi himself would claim. The House, he argues, provides everything a human could need, as long as they are resourceful.

This interior narrative feels like an intentional shift from Clarke’s earlier work, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which was sprawling, verbose, and often satirical in tone. While that novel created a layered world of politics, war, and scholarship (through pastiche and footnotes) it is quiet, contemplative, and unencumbered by history in quite the same way. And yet, Clarke’s interest in knowledge, power, and other worlds remains intact. The two novels may seem stylistically dissimilar, but they share a preoccupation with the human cost of obsession and interpretations of fantasy. Where Jonathan Strange was grand and outward-facing, Piranesi is introspective and slow-burning.

While Piranesi is often labelled as a fantasy novel, I found its genre to be far more fluid. There are certainly fantastical elements including the strange world, tidal halls, and unexplainable transportation between these places. However, they are presented with such matter-of-fact clarity that the novel often reads more like speculative fiction or philosophical allegory. It resists the tropes of high fantasy: there are no quests, no magic systems, no epic battles. Instead, Clarke leans into something quieter and more ambiguous, reminiscent at times of magical realism or even mystery. The slow uncovering of the world’s logic, filtered entirely through Piranesi’s perspective, blurs the line between the real and the imagined. This genre ambiguity works in the novel’s favour, allowing it to explore ideas of memory, isolation, and perception without being bound by expectation. It’s resistance to categorisation has resulted in a wide range of reader perceptions with some people theorising that the entire House is an outcome of mental instability and others flatly disagreeing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the intricacy and bizarre details of the setting, finding that it surpasses the mundanity of other (almost) single-setting novels. The House is (to Piranesi at least) abundance itself, providing food via the tides, a home for birds, and countless statues. Piranesi even names the remains of dead people found in the house, ranging from the Biscuit-Box Man to the Concealed Person.

Piranesi's treatment of the dead is another reason why his worldview is captivating. He does not hallucinate that they are living or that they can hear him, but he still regularly brings them offerings, including food. It becomes clear that his perceptions of life and death are not binary; but again, this does not discredit his intelligence. In fact, Piranesi implies that he is not as classically intelligent as the only other human in the world. The Other, as he is called, is Piranesi's friend, and the pair discuss scientific exploration once a week.

As the narrative unfolds, the Other reveals himself as a fairly short-sighted individual who does not possess the same reverence or understanding of the House. He has succumbed to his ego and longs for the glory of a major scientific breakthrough. Though he is a deceptive individual, he never veers into a cartoonish villain, instead possessing quietly haunting attributes. My mind briefly went to Patrick Bateman from Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho. Although, I think it was predominantly descriptions of the Other's meticulous appearance that sparked this thought. Against the natural backdrop of the House, with its vulnerability to nature and Piranesi's depleted clothes, the Other's manicured appearance feels almost dystopian. Still, Piranesi does not disparage the Other, simply deducing that they are different people with varying needs. This philosophy also provides him peace of mind when the Other appears in yet another clean-dried, polished suit, while Piranesi wears rags. Piranesi believes that the House provides the Other with more material items because he is not capable of providing for himself. Again, Piranesi views the House as an organism with reasoning, though he never probes it for answers, instead desiring to know it very well. He is more concerned with whats than whys.

In some ways, Piranesi is a naive character. However, he is never frustrating or, frankly, dumb. He simply does not possess all of the facts. Clarke makes it no secret to the reader that the Other is suspicious. And yet, I never felt as though I was screaming at Piranesi to wake up. There was no hint of this pantomime trope. Instead, our protagonist is wise. His acceptance towards the end of the story is indicative of his natural, reasonable way. The House maintains his reverence, and yet he does not succumb to living in it permanently. I also loved that he never attempted to be his old self, instead viewing Matthew and Piranesi as forms of himself. This unrelenting honesty prompts very real questions to readers about human nature and social conformity.

What was so special about this read was that it never felt like these 'big' questions were forced or painted onto the story. They simply grew from an impeccably consistent, engaging protagonist. A wide range of allegories, including ones regarding religion, substance use, and mental stability, can certainly be found within this novel. If you enjoy character-led, introspective books that use setting as a catalyst for change, then you will undoubtedly get so much from this treasure of a book.

Rating:

★★★★½