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.

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Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is all about magic coming back to England.  In the Napoleonic War times, it is widely known that there are no practical magicians in England at all, only theoretical ones who read about magic in books and don’t do any themselves.  Except that a practical magician turns up hoarding books in Yorkshire, a selfish, querulous old man called Mr. Norrell who is determined to bring magic back to England.  Good magic, which in Mr. Norrell’s opinions means nothing to do with the fairy realms and absolutely nothing to do with England’s magical, legendary king, John Uskglass.  Then a wealthy, idle young man called Jonathan Strange, in an attempt to impress the girl he wishes to marry, decides to be a magician too (and is good at it – calling him wealthy and idle gives the wrong idea about his magical abilities).  Things go on from there.  They help to defeat the French by using magic.  A slave called Stephen is helped (or persecuted) by a mysterious fairy gentleman with thistle-down hair.

The nice thing about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is it’s long?   But you don’t have to feel daunted by it, because you can probably tell in about five chapters whether it’s your sort of book or not; if not, you can stop reading; if it is, then hooray, there’s tons of it ahead!  The first five chapters – the first chapter by itself, really – gives you an excellent idea of how the book is going to go.  Some drastic things happen, but not without a lot of explanation; there are a lot of footnotes; the writing is amusing but probably won’t make you laugh out loud.  I knew straight away I was going to love it.  The footnotes don’t tend to be germane to the story, but they’re full of backstory and – I don’t know, sidestory? – and tidbits from the history of this alternate England.

I read this in early 2006, and since then I managed to forget nearly every significant plot point.  I remembered Jonathan Strange going off and becoming Wellington’s useful magician; I remembered the business with Lady Pole’s finger; I remembered whole sentences verbatim that the gentleman with the thistle-down hair says to Stephen Black.  But I had it in my mind that Childermass was the Raven King all along, and that Mr. Norrell ended up going to live with the King of England, and I’d completely forgotten whole plotlines (like the Greysteels – they showed up and I was all, who are these fools?).  Reading it again was like reading it for the first time.  A perfect book for the holidays.

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