I could go out sometimes, but much of the time I was confined to my house. When I became ill my life became severely curtailed. Because of this, I’d be hesitant to talk in terms of lessons that’s for the reader to work out (or not). They’re like dreams they mean different things to different readers (or dreamers). Piranesi was thought about and written long before lockdown. What lessons do you think we can learn from Piranesi?įictions rise up from God-knows-where. Piranesi is content in his confinement. He fishes, he has his journals, he is happy to help the Other with his scientific project. Purchase Piranesi through my affiliate page and support this blog! What really matters to him is that he is the Beloved Child of the House. One of the early readers told me he was struck by the fact that Piranesi is fairly sure that his name isn’t really “Piranesi,” but he doesn’t make any effort to find out what it is - it’s a question that doesn’t really interest him. And for Piranesi knowing the House itself is more important than knowing facts about the House. There is knowing facts about the House and then there is something different: knowing the House itself, by which I mean feeling yourself to be part of the House, feeling yourself to be loved by the House, seeing the beauty of the House, communing with the House. ![]() But in the end he knows that the House is more than the sum of facts about it. If he could he would catalogue every statue, map every hall, take every measurement. He is a scientist and he loves being a scientist. He wants to know everything he can about the House/World. It is constantly unfolding, showing him new things and filling his eyes with beauty. To Piranesi the House (which is the World) is full of meaning he responds to it, and it responds to him. If it were to give him what he wants, it would immediately become meaningless again, because he would have got what he needed and what remained would be like an empty skin. The world is meaningless to him until it gives him what he wants. So, to him, the House is a dreary place a great labyrinth full of desolate rooms and statues with bird shit on them. Because he wants something from the House (power) and because he can’t find it, he is endlessly frustrated. He sees it as something he can use and exploit: an object. The Other is only interested in the House for what it can give him. What I’m interested in here is the contrasting attitudes of the Other and Piranesi towards the House. The Other desires knowledge from the House because he wants power, while the narrator finds fulfillment in the process of learning and exploration. He has religious obligations (caring for and talking to the Dead) and obligations of friendship (helping the Other with his scientific research, making maps for him, taking photographs for him, etc.), but as far as Piranesi is concerned, he has accepted these obligations freely. He is free to get food for himself, free to go anywhere he likes, free to write his journals, free to think his thoughts. It cannot be a trap since there is never a moment when he does not consider himself to be perfectly free. Is he right? What is the role of the House? Isn’t the House a trap that he can’t escape?įor Piranesi, the House is never a trap. ![]() It is enough in and of Itself” (page 60). ![]() Piranesi writes, “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable its Kindness infinite” (page 5) and sees the House as “valuable because it is the House. It is the name given to him by the only other occupant of the House, whom he calls The Other. Piranesi is not his real name, which he does not know. He has no recollection of ever living anywhere else or knowing anything but the House, although he keeps notebooks about his explorations, the first of which begins in December 2011. Piranesi knows the House intimately after exploring it for as long as he can remember. The ocean surges into the lower floors at regular intervals. The halls are filled with statues, making it feel like a museum. Piranesi lives in a House of seemingly endless wings and several levels. Contrasting with that 600-page tome, Piranesi is a compact 250 pages. Norrell, an epic fantasy about two magicians in an alternate Victorian era. Susanna Clarke’s second novel, Piranesi, was published last month, 15 years after the phenomenal success of her debut, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Bloomsbury novelist Susanna Clarke at her home in the Peak district.
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