I wish I could say that I loved this novel as much as I loved Susanna Clarke's two previous publications, but I simply did not. I list both of her previous works in the top tier of my favorite books of my life, but I found this one to be less compelling than her earlier writing. I very much appreciated the labyrinthine unfolding of the story as it reflects the world-building within the novel, however, and it is a sensitive exploration of the psychological processes that occur after trauma, such as disorientation, and re-building one's identity. I can appreciate her impressive writing skill and artistry, even as I am not able to connect deeply to this particular novel.

An extraordinary work of fiction, narrated by the nameless person known for most of the book by the nickname Piranesi. It proposes a juncture between worlds in the form of an endless classical-architecture-style house full of a vast variety of marble statues, and with the climate of a northern ocean - clouds and fog at the top, birds flying through and nesting, and fish and shellfish coming in with the regular tides of ocean that sweep through the lower floors. Clarke describes this world in spare but compelling ways, and merely reading about the regularity of tides and Piranesi's daily life prompts a strange sort of calm for the reader. The book follows Piranesi's journey as he figures out how he came to be in the House, what he has forgotten or remembers from day to day, and what the only other person he ever sees wants of him. Just magical.

I’m guessing that most readers here already know of Susanna Clarke and her huge, extravagant, lush, wonderful, funny and tragic Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And by now everyone probably knows Piranesi is different. It is, but it’s the same fantastic (in a literal and exuberant sense) mind at work.
We are reading the journal of a Person, a 30-something-year-old man, who lives alone in a cavernous dwelling of Halls and Vestibules, Staircases and Passages, that seem to go on forever. This mighty structure is swept by oceanic Tides, of which the narrator – called Piranesi – keeps careful track. The Halls are peopled by Statues without number, which Piranesi is cataloging, one by one. He loves them, speaks to them, and they help him. He is creating maps, and has memorized the dimensions and locations of every room he has visited – but he will never visit them all in his lifetime. He offers a chapter describing “All the people who have ever existed in the world,” and you cock an eyebrow and think, “Wait, seriously?” But… there are only fifteen. Himself, The Other, and thirteen corpses from days gone by, which he respectfully tends and shelters. Piranesi is alone, except for encounters with fish and birds, and The Other, who visits him to discuss “scientific research” on Tuesdays and Fridays for 55 minutes. This composes the entire World.
Or does it?
Clarke messes with you. If you are a Googler, you will discover that Huntley Palmers Family Circle is a popular brand of cookies in the 20th century UK, and the so-labeled red metal box is where the bones of Biscuit-Box Man reside. Occasionally Piranesi finds crisp packets scattered in a passageway, which irritates him. There is a place where he catches a whiff of petrol sometimes – how does he know what that even is? Where did he get the “heavy-gauge plastic” he uses when fishing? (The Other gave it to him, among other necessities.) So where are we? And when? Why is Piranesi alone? He doesn’t mind, really. He is gentle, thoughtful, extremely literal (there’s a trick to pull off as a writer, when your character lives in a completely visionary world), naïve but clever – there’s more than a bit of the savant about him, or “on the spectrum,” as we say now, with definitely odd social skills (when The Other utters an explicitly violent threat, Piranesi’s thought is: “This was rather unexpected.”)
You have to pay attention. Pay attention to the crumbs Clarke drops deftly by the way. Suggestions, hints: doesn’t this make you think, what if this is what’s going on? Doesn’t that remind you of this other thing? Ohhh, maybe he means that! Maybe? And who is this new Person who has Piranesi so confused, and why does he always harp on exactly what The Other is wearing on Tuesdays and Fridays? There is a list of books referred to in the journals, including titles by R.D. Laing, and notes about a mid-70s occult philosopher. I don’t think I’m spoiling to mention that the real-life Piranesi, an 18th century artist, was famous for a series of haunting etchings of towering, bizarre vaulted rooms known as Le Carceri d'Invenzione.
You have to be patient. Walk along with Piranesi, marvel at his wonderful Statues (including minotaurs) and the meanings he ascribes to them. A gorgeous encounter with an albatross fuels an exquisite imagining of his soul fusing with the splendor of the bird to create an Angel.
If you are attentive, if you are patient, you will understand things that Piranesi cannot, but eventually must. There are separations – violent or voluntary, and other fusions and reunions, otherness and connection. There is even a roomful of ravens with clattering wings.
Piranesi is a different animal, to be sure. But Clarke’s wondrous imagination, elegant writing, and tenderness for “Otherness” glows within.

Susanna Clarke and I don't seem to quite work together. While I initially enjoyed Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell, it eventually got too long-winded and too styled for me and I didn't finish it. I did really enjoy the TV miniseries though!

This book, although it's not that long, was also too baroquely styled for me. I'm guessing this book has something to do with memory palaces or something similar, but the first chapters did not entice me. The main character seems to have amnesia (a pet peeve of mine as a cheat to keep the reader from knowing too much) and is trapped in a Palace. The Palace has Statues, and Water, and Moss, and other nouns that are also capitalized. It is seemingly infinite, and there's at least one other Person in the Maze/Palace that is likely going to be an Adversary, although our Amnesiac Main Character doesn't have a Clue yet.

Maybe it's the time that I'm trying to read in (COVID), but I don't want to mess around with an amnesiac main character in a symbolic maze and work through whatever intellectual puzzle and symbology that the author has decided is cool. Not right now, not for me.

Utterly unputdownable is the only way to describe this book. Susanna Clarke left me totally breathless with this gorgeous tale of modern day magic that echoes with the deeper, darker, older world of "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell." Piranesi, named I'm guessing for the Italian architect of fantastical prisons, lives in the House. The House provides food, shelter, and comfort in the form of endless rooms of beautiful and bizarre statues. Piranesi loves the house with a zealotry that borders on fanatical and if he remembers a life before he lived there it is only the barest hint of a memory, gone before it fully forms. There is only one other living person in this strange, silent world. The Other. The Other is a wise seeker of truth who longs to learn the secret power he knows is hidden in the House and he needs Piranesi's help to find it. Piranesi trusts him implicity, taking the Other's warnings about avoiding strangers at all costs and believing utterly in the value of the Other's quest for knowledge.

But if the House is the only world there is what is Piranesi to make of the scattered journal pages he finds in his own handwriting telling of world totally unlike the House? If strangers are dangerous and violent while does he feel such a longing to connect with the one who finds their way into the halls of the House? Where does the Other go when he is not in the House?

Told in Piranesi's sweet, innocent voice through the journals that he uses to chronicle his life the reader swiftly becomes comfortably lost in the halls of the House. It is effortless to simply relax into the dreamy, endless white halls with their beautiful, finely carved statues. The simplicity of Piranesi's life there is totally intoxicating. When that simplicity is ultimately disrupted it is nothing short of traumatic.

Clarke has woven a truly wonderful story here that left me shattered. Piranesi's journey to the truth about who he is and what has happened to him isn't just tragic because of some horrible crime done to him but because shattering his illusions about the house is like shattering the vestiges of a belief in god.

I LOVE Clarke's concept of magic. She writes with a fearless elegance that traipses along the wispy edges of ancient power long lost and at best deeply misunderstood by those who call themselves "experts" in wielding it. I love the bombastic blowhards she creates who think their scholarship and high IQ's somehow equip them to excavate the secrets of other worlds. Her bad guys aren't super spies with guns, they're thesis writing nerds who just want everyone to tell them how smart they are.

I love that her focus here isn't on the Strange's and Norell's (though this very much feels like their world albeit in modern times) but rather the men and women who get pulled into their orbit simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The collateral damage of a magic spell gone wrong if you will.

This is a beautiful, beautiful book about a world I would very much like to visit. There are vestiges of Narnia and Fionavar in the halls of the House and dashes of witty urban fantasy but Piranesi somehow feels like a vastly more ancient story. I urge you to walk the halls for yourself and lose yourself in the peace of Piranesi's world. This is the kind of story that reminds you why reading is to wonderful.

From the beginning of this surreal novel the reader feels as off-kilter as the first person narrator. Presented as journal entries, the narrative takes us inside the mind of Piranesi, an inhabitant of a house with infinite rooms, countless mythic statues, and tidal waters. He knows the only other person in this world as The Other, with whom he attempts to discover true knowledge in behalf of the house. With his sproud familiarity with the house and its statues, and an endless supply of fish to eat, Piranesi is content until he detects the possibility of another human in his world. Thanks to his journals and his meticulous indexing of his own writing, Piranesi gradually uncovers some truths about himself and his history.

This is an unusual novel set in an alternative universe about a young man who is a scientist keeping track of Piranesi's house. It's 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. This isn't my normal read and I'm sure I'll be in the minority with only 3 stars. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This was a lovely little surprise.

Piranesi is a young man who wanders the endless labyrinthine halls of his world, meticulously cataloguing the pattern of the tides and the statues he comes across. There are very few people in his world: 15 by his count, only two of which (himself and the Other, his fellow scientist and research companion) are still alive. The rest are bones, which Piranesi faithfully visits and offers tribute. As Piranesi ponders the existence of a sixteenth person, perhaps the person reading this book, the Other issues a warning to avoid them at all costs…

Clarke's writing is exquisite. While Piranesi's world would seem rather hellish to me under other circumstances, it's burnished with Piranesi's fondness for every last statue and albatross. Our protagonist's surprising combination of utter guilelessness and scientific precision is a breath of fresh air, and I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of similar books. It has some thematic commonalities with Donna Tartt's The Secret History but is otherwise entirely different. The end result is an utterly charming yet bizarre slice-of-life story that I will happily read again and again.

Highly recommended.

This book is similar to a spider's web. There are so many different portions to the web - if one piece is destroyed, the entire web is ruined. Clarke has spun a story that deserved contemplation. It's frustrating, confusing, glorious, and gorgeous. As much as I appreciate receiving a digital ARC, I can't wait to have this book in my hands in physical form. This is the type of book that deserves to have its pages flipped back and forth as the reader explores the story's mystery.

Not an easy book to review as I don’t want to ruin the slow unveiling of this surreal and magical journey.

Piranesi lives alone in a building with thousands of rooms, millions of unique statues and an ocean alive in the maze of halls. He is alone except for meeting with The Other twice a week.

I loved Piranesi’s innocence and kindness. It was interesting how he survives in this odd environment and spends his days. The story meanders a bit before you are given enough to figure things out but it is well worth the ride. Not sure how Susanna Clarke came up with this story but I am very thankful to have read it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced readers copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

"Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has."

I was instantly curious after seeing that tagline for this book, and I was not disappointed. It's just as dreamy and gently weird as the tagline suggests, and I loved it. What is the House? Who is Piranesi? HAS he always lived there?? I devoured the whole book in a matter of hours, I was constantly so curious to see what was going to come next.

I'm hesitant to describe anything about the book because I don't want to set any misleading expectations or accidentally spoil it.

The only thing I do want to note is that the experience of reading this book reminded me a lot of the experience of reading Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation" (the book from which I very lovingly stole the name GhostBird to use online). I got the same sort of sense of wonder and curiosity and desire to explore a slightly spooky world to figure out its mysteries in both the House and Area X, so if you read "Annihilation" and liked the experience, then definitely go for this one.

PS: I liked it so much I've preordered it in hardback, despite having received a free NetGalley copy to review! I want it to sit on my bookshelf :)

Excellent, immersive read. It reminded me of Morgernstern's "The Starless Sea." Definitely for those who like to suss out a mystery and love the fantastical.

Clarke always manages to capture the ephemeral and the impossible, and "Piranesi" is no exception. This novel is both deft and murky at once, providing readers with a charming but unreliable narrator as a guide to the labyrinth. We follow his lantern willingly, happily, because Clarke has enchanted us enough to do so -- and what we find as we walk is an aching story that seeps into our bones. "Piranesi" is for all magic-seekers and would-be magicians, for everyone who has asked what it means to walk unseen paths, and for those who suspect it may cost more than we understand.

Susanna Clarke is one of my go to authors to recommend to people looking for something different. Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is always at the top of my recommendation list and I was ecstatic when I heard about her new novel. Set in a mysterious house, seemingly only inhabited by Piranesi and a vast multitude of statues, and the occasional Other. Until one day, there are signs that there may be another in this infinite realm. Written with an almost dream like quality, Clarke has once again delivered a fantastic story and created a unique reading experience that I did not want to end. This will easily be one of my top reads of 2020.

Any attempt to describe this would lack that fundamental, synergistic component that makes it worth reading in the first place, so instead of typing myself into a corner I will bestow on Piranesi this highest of praises: I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long time.
Apropos of nothing: For me, this was better in sips than gulps.

A mystery wrapped in a labyrinth surrounded by seas and statues.
This book is beautiful and frightening to read. It unfolds slowly, but rewards the reader with a truly unique experience.
I feel as though I have just returned from a ethereal realm, one only caught in half awake glimpses.

Like the magnificent labyrinth Piranesi calls home, Clarke's story invites you in to gaze upon its beauty and plumb the depths of its mysteries. A truly stunning and poignant delivery.

Brilliant and unique story bound to please readers of author. Her story telling is masterfully crafted.

Piranesi is the sole inhabitant of a gigantic, mysterious 'house' with endless rooms full of statues and an ocean in the lower levels, which surges upstairs during high tides. Written in the form of his journal, Piranesi guides us through his beloved labyrinthine house and introduces us to 'The Other', a sporadic visitor to the house and the only other living human being in this world...or so he thought.
Susanna Clarke's lyrical and hypnotic writing pulls you into Piranesi's world, enveloping you in the mystery of the house and question of how he came to be there.
For fans of 'The Starless Sea' and 'The Bedlam Stacks'.

A delightfully weird interpretation of the myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth.

Piranesi lives in contented ignorance inside a crumbly, watery labyrinth, knowing not where he came from or how he came to be there.

Despite knowing only one other person and being largely amnesiac of his own history, Piranesi isn’t bothered by his strange domicile, at once infinite and a prison.

But when strange signs start showing up that there might be other living beings lurking in the labyrinth, things start to get really interesting.

If you’re familiar with the myth, it’s easy to identify the Theseus, the Daedalus, and even the Minotaur of the story. Still, to strictly label it a “retelling” doesn’t do Clarke’s work justice, given the creativity and atmosphere she employed in this odd and wonderful novel.

Piranesi isn’t quite as exceptional as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but it’s a great read in its own right. And while the two stories and settings don’t have much in common, fans of Strange and Norrell will undoubtedly recognize Clarke’s unique voice and wry humor.