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Loading... Piranesi (edition 2020)by Susanna Clarke (Author)
Work InformationPiranesi by Susanna Clarke
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 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! ( ) Piranesi begins with a logical and scientific catalogue of a world that is both foreign and familiar, but the experience of reading it is anything but orderly. In fact, I felt a bit untethered throughout most of the mythos—if it can even be considered myth. I began reading it as an allegory but without a firm fix on the foundation. Is it religious (think creation and flood stories) or mythological (think Daedalus’s labyrinth) or philosophical (think Plato’s Cave). Like Piranesi experiences in his research, I definitely felt adrift in this world, tossing amongst the waves, questioning everything and having no idea in which Hall I might wash ashore. I bought this on a whim in Italy because I wanted to read something short and had heard a lot about it, yet no one could ever explain what it was about. I get why they couldn’t now, it is genuinely an amazing book but it’s also an experience. If you say too much, you kind of ruin the experience of going through this literal masterpiece. I devoured this book in two days and could literally start it again right now.
Here it is worth reflecting on the subject of Clarke's overt homage. The historical Piranesi, an 18th-century engraver, is celebrated for his intricate and oppressive visions of imaginary prisons and his veduta ideate, precise renderings of classical edifices set amid fantastic vistas. Goethe, it is said, was so taken with these that he found the real Rome greatly disappointing. Clarke fuses these themes, seducing us with imaginative grandeur only to sweep that vision away, revealing the monstrosities to which we can not only succumb but wholly surrender ourselves. The result is a remarkable feat, not just of craft but of reinvention. Far from seeming burdened by her legacy, the Clarke we encounter here might be an unusually gifted newcomer unacquainted with her namesake's work. If there is a strand of continuity in this elegant and singular novel, it is in its central pre-occupation with the nature of fantasy itself. It remains a potent force, but one that can leave us - like Goethe among the ruins - forever disappointed by what is real. How fantastic to have a bestselling novel with an index right at its heart. AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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