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What I Just Finished Reading This Week
Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
Oh, I loved this book. It was transporting from start to finish and deeply satisfying. To me, Clarke’s House is of a piece with Lev Grossman’s Netherlands, Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea, or Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, but she makes it feel entirely fresh and vital. It's imagery is Tarot imagery (even if none of its images are found in any Tarot deck), and I reacted to it similarly, with an sense of immediate identification and in a way that lit up parts of my brain speech doesn’t activate.
I imagine most people with an interest in this novel are already familiar with the broad strokes of the story, so I won’t rehash them here. But I’m intrigued by how different my experience of the book was from many other readers’. Many reviews remarked on the aptness of reading Piranesi during pandemic quarantine. Which bemuses me, because I did not react to the House or Piranesi’s existence in it with any feelings of dread, claustrophobia, or sadness.
At the novel’s opening, Piranesi had his original face before his mother and father were born. He existed in a state of oneness with and in the House. The tragedy wasn’t Piranesi's existence in the House, but that his knowledge of his parents’ and sisters’ grief meant he couldn’t stay there. It’s an impossible choice. Because Clarke lets the implications speak for themselves, it hurts a lot.
Other assorted thoughts and reactions: I cottoned on to the ritual magic elements of the Other’s actions pretty early on, so there wasn’t much of a big reveal there, but I did enjoy them and the other sly references, such as to bog bodies. (These tied in very nicely with my recent read of Ghost Wall, which only slightly edged out Piranesi as the best novel I’ve read so far this year.)
I loved that a woman--with a man's name, that she shares with both an architect and the angel of healing--gets to rescue the damsel in distress, who is male.
I loved (loved, loved) the imagery. I know I said this above, but gah. It gets at something I can't put into words. (And Clarke accomplishes that through words.)
I love that Piranesi is a neat allegory for various states and evolutionary stages of human consciousness, and I’m in awe of Clarke’s ability to portray this instead of the very pat parable of science versus religion that it could easily have become. Both Piranesi and the Other have spiritual and scientific sides to their personalities; what differentiates them is not that one is more spiritual or rational than the other, but how both of those elements shape they way that they interact with others and how they view their role in existence.
I love that it was some time after I finished the book before it even occurred to me that it could "just" be the story of someone who went mad after falling in with a bunch of ceremonial magicians and slowly regained his sanity, and not an allegory of human consciousness at all. Like the House itself, there is just so much to this book, and I will be exploring its rooms and levels for a long time to come.
What I Am Currently Reading
The King In Yellow – Robert Chambers
I decided to read some classic horror in the run-up to Halloween.
The Broken Raven – Joseph Elliott
I loved The Good Hawk and am glad to embark on further adventures with its cast.
Angel Maze – Garth Nix
The first chapter was good, but a little grimmer reading than I was interested in pursuing this week.
Naomi Novik – A Deadly Education
I’ve read the first chapter and liked it enough that I put the book down until this weekend when I can do an uninterrupted read.
The Sisters Grimm – Menna van Praag
Alas, this started dragging at the halfway point.
The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld
I had not touched this book before cracking it open on Monday. Reading the first chapter created the most sustained experience of déjà vu I’ve experienced in my life, to the point where I had to put the thing down and read something else.
Run Me To Earth – Paul Yoon
So far, this is spare, well written, and uncomfortable reading.
What I'm Reading Next
Aside from the Wyld, I picked up SO MANY BOOKS this week - Laure Eve’s The Curses, P. Djeli Clark’s The Haunting of Tram Car 015, and All The Rosemary Sutcliff: Blood Feud, The Eagle of the Ninth, Frontier Wolf, Knight's Fee, Outcast, The Silver Branch, Sword at Sunset, and Warrior Scarlet.
これで以上です。
Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
Oh, I loved this book. It was transporting from start to finish and deeply satisfying. To me, Clarke’s House is of a piece with Lev Grossman’s Netherlands, Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea, or Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, but she makes it feel entirely fresh and vital. It's imagery is Tarot imagery (even if none of its images are found in any Tarot deck), and I reacted to it similarly, with an sense of immediate identification and in a way that lit up parts of my brain speech doesn’t activate.
I imagine most people with an interest in this novel are already familiar with the broad strokes of the story, so I won’t rehash them here. But I’m intrigued by how different my experience of the book was from many other readers’. Many reviews remarked on the aptness of reading Piranesi during pandemic quarantine. Which bemuses me, because I did not react to the House or Piranesi’s existence in it with any feelings of dread, claustrophobia, or sadness.
At the novel’s opening, Piranesi had his original face before his mother and father were born. He existed in a state of oneness with and in the House. The tragedy wasn’t Piranesi's existence in the House, but that his knowledge of his parents’ and sisters’ grief meant he couldn’t stay there. It’s an impossible choice. Because Clarke lets the implications speak for themselves, it hurts a lot.
Other assorted thoughts and reactions: I cottoned on to the ritual magic elements of the Other’s actions pretty early on, so there wasn’t much of a big reveal there, but I did enjoy them and the other sly references, such as to bog bodies. (These tied in very nicely with my recent read of Ghost Wall, which only slightly edged out Piranesi as the best novel I’ve read so far this year.)
I loved that a woman--with a man's name, that she shares with both an architect and the angel of healing--gets to rescue the damsel in distress, who is male.
I loved (loved, loved) the imagery. I know I said this above, but gah. It gets at something I can't put into words. (And Clarke accomplishes that through words.)
I love that Piranesi is a neat allegory for various states and evolutionary stages of human consciousness, and I’m in awe of Clarke’s ability to portray this instead of the very pat parable of science versus religion that it could easily have become. Both Piranesi and the Other have spiritual and scientific sides to their personalities; what differentiates them is not that one is more spiritual or rational than the other, but how both of those elements shape they way that they interact with others and how they view their role in existence.
I love that it was some time after I finished the book before it even occurred to me that it could "just" be the story of someone who went mad after falling in with a bunch of ceremonial magicians and slowly regained his sanity, and not an allegory of human consciousness at all. Like the House itself, there is just so much to this book, and I will be exploring its rooms and levels for a long time to come.
What I Am Currently Reading
The King In Yellow – Robert Chambers
I decided to read some classic horror in the run-up to Halloween.
The Broken Raven – Joseph Elliott
I loved The Good Hawk and am glad to embark on further adventures with its cast.
Angel Maze – Garth Nix
The first chapter was good, but a little grimmer reading than I was interested in pursuing this week.
Naomi Novik – A Deadly Education
I’ve read the first chapter and liked it enough that I put the book down until this weekend when I can do an uninterrupted read.
The Sisters Grimm – Menna van Praag
Alas, this started dragging at the halfway point.
The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld
I had not touched this book before cracking it open on Monday. Reading the first chapter created the most sustained experience of déjà vu I’ve experienced in my life, to the point where I had to put the thing down and read something else.
Run Me To Earth – Paul Yoon
So far, this is spare, well written, and uncomfortable reading.
What I'm Reading Next
Aside from the Wyld, I picked up SO MANY BOOKS this week - Laure Eve’s The Curses, P. Djeli Clark’s The Haunting of Tram Car 015, and All The Rosemary Sutcliff: Blood Feud, The Eagle of the Ninth, Frontier Wolf, Knight's Fee, Outcast, The Silver Branch, Sword at Sunset, and Warrior Scarlet.
これで以上です。
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