When Susanna Clarke's great big immersive novel “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell” came out way back in 2004, I was completely enraptured by this fantastical alternate history. Since then she's only published a book of short stories so I was thrilled to pick up her second novel “Piranesi”. Though it also heavily incorporates seemingly other-worldly elements, it's much more confined and solitary in its scope. This novel is certainly much shorter than her debut. Its narrator resides in a series of impressively grand maze-like halls filled with an infinite amount of beautiful sculptures. There's only one other person found here, but he seems mysteriously aloof and only meets with the narrator for regularly scheduled appointments. The narrator refers to him as “the Other” and “the Other” refers to the narrator as Piranesi (although he's aware that this is not his real name.) Here the tides flow in and out washing over the giant sculptures forcing the narrator and “the Other” to move carefully between the halls so as not to be trapped by the sea. Piranesi spends his days cataloguing in his notebooks the sculptures and mapping the rooms in between scavenging for something to eat amongst the fish and seafood from the sea. Is this place the remains of some fallen civilization or a mythical landscape? And the way Piranesi notes how there are the bones of several unknown people here makes it also feel like a sinister mausoleum. As far as Piranesi is concerned, he has always resided here and these halls are the entire world. It's a tantalizing setting whose darker meaning gradually becomes apparent over the course of the story. This novel completely swept me into its intriguing mysteries and the methodical mind of its protagonist who communes with the sculptures and birds found in the halls.
What's so moving about this novel is the way Piranesi's life and endeavours seems to subtly mimic our own – especially now that many of us have been largely confined to our homes for the past year of this pandemic. Similarly, the halls in this book are like the museums which have been closed for months with their wonders poised and ready for someone to discover them. Like Piranesi, I spend my days moving between the same rooms, diligently working and reading book after book. There's a peaceful and melancholy grace to Piranesi's life, but it also feels so fragile. And, though this circumscribed world feels stable, there's an awareness that chaos and destruction might come rolling in any day. So I felt a strong connection to this narrator whose pursuit for knowledge won't allow him to remain oblivious to the broader meaning of his environment or his reason for being there. Clarke also makes this a suspenseful read in providing hints and signs about what's really going on in this strange place. Though the truth is fully revealed at the end and it's a satisfyingly complex conclusion, what I mainly got from this book was its mood of scholarly dedication in a state of utmost solitude. It's the same kind of feeling I get from reading Donna Tartt's fiction. Part of me wanted to remain in the halls of this novel discovering sculpture after sculpture. Clarke's way of describing these wonders as Piranesi patiently catalogues and considers his environment strangely mirrors our own world in all its deteriorating beauty.
