My Head Is Full of Books: Review: PIRANESI (+Friday56 Link-Up)

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Review: PIRANESI (+Friday56 Link-Up)

Title: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Book Beginnings quote:

When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of Three Tides.

Friday56 quote:

They were all enamoured with the idea of progress and believed that whatever was new must be superior to what was old. As if merit was a function of chronology!

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.

Review: I decided to read Piranesi for a variety of reasons. One, though I don't recall anyone's actual review of the book, I had a general feeling everyone loved it. And when I peeked at what others' said in their Goodreads reviews, I was right. Two, Piranesi is offered as a book club kit at my library and the thought struck me that some librarian somewhere thought this would be a good discussion book. I like books I can talk about. And lastly, I noted Piranesi won the Women's Prize in 2021 and since I am making an effort to read the past winners, it was a no-brainer I should read it sooner than later.

My husband and I decided to listen to it on a recent car trip, thinking it was short enough we could finish it on the roundtrip. I had no idea, one doesn't see the printed words when listening, that the book was full of capitalizations seen in the opening quote. The main character, Piranesi, which is not really his name but you don't learn what his real name is until late in the book, writes in a journal every day. Perhaps the frequent use of capitalizations is meant to show us that the journal is for personal writing. Who follows all the rules of grammar in their own personal journals? Someone on the Internet said it is meant to represent another world. Well, Piranesi lives in a different world, that is for sure. His world is a house made up of an infinite number of rooms, halls, floors, and vestibules. It also has an ocean inside the house and when the tides are just right (or wrong) they can cause terrible flooding. The house is also filled with millions of unique statues, like the one on the cover of a faun playing an instrument. Piranesi loves the house and feels responsible for taking care of it, as best he can.

Now I must admit based on my summary the book sounds boring. Piranesi walking around in different rooms endlessly. A book about nothing. But this book is full of drama and a mystery. It is also about misconceptions, love, acceptance, and friendship. But as another blogging friend, Jinger, said in her comment on Goodreads, I'm not going to tell you anything about the good stuff because I want to read it for yourself and experience it without preconceived expectations. My husband and I had no idea what we should expect. It took us a while to adjust to fantasy -- you know, get a picture in our heads of what the house was like -- and we had to stop the audiobook several times to discuss aspects of the story. But we both ended up really liking the book and felt the story ended on just the right note.

Rating: 4 stars from both of us.