Piranesi

Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi has been on my shelf since it came out in 2020, and I don’t know why it took me so long to finally read it, but now was the right time for me. It’s told from the journals of Piranesi, one of only two living people in the world they inhabit. Their world is more like a large labyrinth of a house, and Piranesi devotes his time to inspecting and noting down every inch of it. But when he learns of more people, Piranesi discovers a greater mystery to his home than he could have imagined.

What I Liked:

• Labyrinthine world and storytelling. Piranesi starts off with the titular character describing his world—a giant house with an ocean running through it—in minute detail. The corridors, the statues lining the halls, the birds he sees… It makes the beginning hard to get into, simply from so much specific yet rootless world-building. But the writing also mirrors the physical space that Piranesi inhabits. Bit by bit, we get to see the house as more than just a setting, but as a representation of Piranesi’s inquisitive nature.
• Piranesi’s journal entries. The book is told from Piranesi’s journals, and I enjoyed the more freeform sections that format leads to: bullet-point lists, even an index because he writes about so many topics. He notes down everything he observes and does in a day, from conversations with The Other to describing the halls he walks. These very journals quickly turn into a tool for recovering memories and making sense of the world around him. It’s like detective work from his constructed, written reality.
• Slowly unraveling everything he knows. From learning of (and speaking to) new people to recovering lost journals, the world as Piranesi knows it rapidly crumbles away. The reader’s own understanding of the book’s setting undergoes a similar deconstruction. It’s like the floors are shifting underneath you, making you lose your footing, but you’re still eager to see where the next step takes you.
• Genre-defying reveals. I won’t spoil the ending… but now that I’ve finished, I don’t even know how to categorize this novel. I think it’s open to interpretation!

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• Slow start. I’ll admit, the initial descriptions of the house did feel tedious. It’s not an easy jumping-in point, but it does soon start to make sense why it begins this way.

Audiobook:

Chiwetel Ejiofor does a magnificent job of narrating Piranesi. He captures the character’s curious and analytical nature, as well as his naïveté and desire for human connection. This audiobook elevates an already captivating story.

Final Thoughts

Piranesi isn’t what I anticipated all these years, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. And after the reveals late in the book, I feel this merits a reread. Some elements of this book reminded me of House of Leaves, which I read in college; it also deserves a reread. Piranesi is thoughtful and unexpected, and certainly memorable.

Get the Book

You can buy Piranesi here – it’s available as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Audiobook Narrator	Chiwetel Ejiofor
Audience	Adult
Genre	Fantasy; Mystery
Number of Pages	245
Format I Read	Audiobook & Hardcover (BOTM)
Original Publication Date	September 15, 2020
Publisher	Bloomsbury

Official Summary

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.