Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

hardcover, 272 pages

English language

Published Sept. 13, 2020 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

ISBN:: 978-1-63557-563-7

(44 reviews)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality.

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 …

From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality.

For 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 of surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.

This description comes from the publisher.

12 editions

Liam Bean reviewed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Review of 'Piranesi' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Practical stuff out of the way first: This book is written as a series of journal entries. It's reasonably short (not a heavy tome like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell). I read it in bits and pieces over the course of a couple of days.

The book is like a dream that slowly becomes more lucid over time. It's weird, but in a dream-like way. Or, you could say that it starts out like a dream and then slowly turns into a mystery. The author manages to build a very vivid (if somewhat empty) world over the short number of pages. It's one of those books (or movies) that changes your thinking a bit during the time you're reading it and makes everything feel a bit surreal.

I am struggling to come up with a fair comparison to another book. It's like a cross between a surreal dream-like movie (think David Lynch), a man alone on a deserted island narrative, and an urban fantasy novel.

It does get a bit violent toward the end but not in a particularly gruesome way.

The main reason I'm giving it 4 stars rather than 5 is because it started to feel a bit rushed toward the end, like some stuff was skipped over for the sake of not going on too long or feeling too repetitive. The other reason is that the secondary villain in the book is gay and that feels stereotypical and old fashioned, like a random element inserted from a book written 40+ years ago.