Susanna Clarke

I loved the dry humour of Clarke's tales, as sharp on one side as her dark, grotesque menace is on the other. It was pleasing to see her reference to Sylvia Townsend Warner's Kingdoms of Elfin, as that book is a definite predecessor of Clarke's conception of fairy.

One story which seemed very familiar as I was reading it was revealed as a retelling of the folktale "Tom Tit Tot", which sent me to Katherine Briggs's wonderful A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies and Other show more Supernatural Creatures to re-read the original.

The final story had hints of The Mabinogion tales crossed with J.R.R. Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham, and was a nicely humorous sign-off.

While the Austenesque flavour of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is much in evidence, especially in the title story in which Strange appears (and I'd happily read a novel about the Three Ladies), there is a well-judged diversity in tone and style between the stories.

If I've emphasised the similarities with other authors' works, that's not to suggest Clarke is derivative, rather that, as in Piranesi, she is skilful at unpicking the threads those others have woven and of reworking them into her own tapestry. show less

Definitely as good as they say. Wonderful, psychedelic, fever dream of a novel. Takes a concept whiffed in House Of Leaves and adds an unexpected murder mystery, sinister academics that are perhaps a pastiche of Timothy Morton and postmodernists, and so much beautiful language that I felt my innser self joining the House!

I do like books where the world itself is a mystery, and Piranesi is a great one. I also like books where both characters and reader have to piece together events from documents, and Piranesi does a lot of that, too. This was right up my alley, and I hugely enjoyed it, from Clarke's strange otherworld to her guileless narrator trying to see his way out of a trap to the glimpses of a strange, off-putting film project. I did want a little more out of it—the origin of the otherworld doesn't show more really matter in the end—but on the whole, this was a great little tale, well told.

(I did spend a lot of the book wondering if Clarke was a Doctor Who fan because I feel like the novel's villain was "played" by Roger Delgado... and then it turned out a character had published an academic paper on Steven Moffat!) show less

"I am not home. I am here."

Such a lovely novel. One that I'm sure I will think of again and again. It's a rare read that can mean so many things--a multi-faceted gem that could reflect back what you are thinking at any given time. Part of its beauty is that even once the mystery is solved, it remains mysterious.

I am not a world-building fantasy reader. Or, at least I wasn't until I read this. In the beginning, I pushed through my resistance. I stayed with it because every where I turned on show more BookTube (YouTubers that talk about books call themselves that), they sung its high praises. But they didn't tell much at all about the particulars. Something in their faces while talking about it, though, convinced me I wanted to know that experience too.

So I won't say much. Except this is an experience you should have, and you should have that experience like a fellow Innocent. show less