As I may have mentioned twenty-two thousand times, I gave up magical thinking in 2019, and this was very smart of me because 2020 turned out to be a magical thinking minefield. Luckily I have a — actually, I have lost control of this metaphor and do not know what sort of a thing you’d use to protect against a minefield. I’m coming up all mine-sniffing animals, and I don’t want my very successful self-administered cognitive behavioral therapy to feel in any way connected with exploding rats or whatever. What I’m saying is, I am safe from the minefield of magical thinking that is 2020.
However, had I not given up magical thinking in 2019, I would have had to admit that it is not real when it was announced that Susanna Clarke had a new book coming out, because I admit that I have not kept the faith. In the last few years, I had said out loud to more than one person, “Susanna Clarke will only ever write one novel.” I had said, “But that’s okay! She has already given us perfection. I could not ask for more.” And that’s not the kind of attitude which (if magical thinking were real) gets you Piranesi in September 2020. What gets you Piranesi in September 2020 (if magical thinking were real) would be keeping the faith in spite of all the odds. Which I did not do. Which proves magical thinking doesn’t work.
Anyway, as you remember, Susanna Clarke wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell way back in 2004, dayenu. And this year she wrote Piranesi, a pithy novel of a mere 272 pages about a man who lives alone (?) in an endless House comprising statues and floods and rotting things, and I really loved it.
The writing style of Piranesi isn’t tremendously similar to the writing style of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, because Susanna Clarke is a beautiful genius and I’ll fight you. What is similar is the fact that if you’re not enjoying the writing by about 10% of the way through the book, the book is probably not for you and you can move on to other pursuits. Piranesi (his name isn’t Piranesi) is extremely intelligent yet very innocent, and all you can think from very early on is “ack I want to protect this sweet marshmallow from his machinations, whatever they may be.”
This is fortunate, because Piranesi is a little slow to start, with a lot of descriptions of the House and the various floods, statuary, and bird life inside the House. I do not have a strong visual imagination, so this was very challenging for me — though not as challenging as it is for Piranesi, who is constantly mapping out the many rooms of the House and harvesting seaweed for food and taking tender care of the House’s dead. Also, I am frightened of floods. Also, his name isn’t Piranesi.
In all of this moody scene setting — which is by turns charming, sad, and funny — Clarke includes just enough discordant notes to make it clear that Piranesi, though recording with earnest accuracy his memories and impressions, is an unreliable narrator. For instance:
The Other believes that there is a Great and Secret Knowledge hidden somewhere in the World that will grant us enormous powers once we have discovered it. What this Knowledge consists of he is not entirely sure, but at various times he has suggested that it might include the following:
1. vanquishing Death and becoming immortal
2. learning by a process of telepathy what other people are thinking
3. transforming ourselves into eagles and flying through the Air
4. transforming ourselves into fish and swimming through the Tides
5. moving objects using only our thoughts
6. snuffing out and reigniting the Sun and Stars
7. dominating lesser intellects and bending them to our will
The Other and I are searching diligently for this Knowledge. We meet twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays)to discuss our work. The Other organises his time meticulously and never permits our meetings to last longer than one hour.
Piranesi is a sweet, good cinnamon roll who trusts his friend (slash, the only person in the House besides Piranesi who is currently alive), but I do not require his input to know that I don’t trust this The Other character. I am touching my collarbone thinking about a later scene where Piranesi acquires some doubts about the value of this Secret Knowledge and tries to very sweetly bow out of acquiring it because he doesn’t want to dominate lesser intellects, actually.
As the book wears on, it gets creepier. (You will remember this technique from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and all those stories the gentleman with the thistledown hair tells to Stephen re: his own history. Really, anything relating to the gentleman with thistledown hair.) It’s partly creepy because Piranesi is so good and sweet and you don’t want this poor guy to have to keep eating seaweed; and it’s partly creepy because the House is full of water so everything’s wet all the time and wet things are creepier, as we all know; and it’s partly creepy because whilst there are fifteen people in the history of the world that Piranesi knows of, evidence begins to mount that the House might contain a sixteenth person too. You, an enemy to the Other because he’s an obvious butthead, will not be able to stop thinking about the question IS THE SIXTEENTH PERSON GOING TO SAVE PIRANESI OR WHAT?
So yeah! I loved it! Predictably, I loved it! More than anything, it reminded me of Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall, in which everything is damp and there are a lot of dead birds. While it wasn’t exactly the haunted house story I was envisioning (so much wetter! so much more otherworldly!), it was nevertheless fucking creepy, yet tremendously sweet and charming. I cannot believe that we received this gift from Susanna Clarke after so many years.
Also, Piranesi discovers documentary evidence of things, and y’all know how I feel about documentary evidence.
Note: I received an e-ARC of Piranesi from the publisher, for review consideration. This has not impacted the contents of my review.