Piranesi is an overrated book

by Linden Peters

                             One of Giovanni Piranesi’s artworks, looks a lot like the house

**Contains spoilers (in case you still want to read this book)**

    I started reading Piranesi by Susanne Clarke thinking it would be an amazing novel. It won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 Award and had countless 5 star reviews. However, upon reading this book, I had a "That's it?" reaction. (Note before the review: I did not get all the way through this book. Most of my information about the ending stretch is from my family who have completely read the book as well as wikipedia.)

    The story is set in a place called "The House," an infinite labyrinth full of infinite halls and vestibules, containing a large number of statues. The main character has lived here for longer than he can remember, and he can’t remember anything about his old life. He keeps journals in a lot of detail, trying to figure as much as he can about the house. This fills up a lot of pages and gets pretty boring as he is mostly describing mundane things (For example, he names an entire year in his calendar “The Year the Albatross Came to the Southwestern Halls.”) 

        There is one other person in the house, who the main character names: “The Other.” He also studies the house, but less to observe its features and details and more to learn the “Great and Secret Knowledge” which is supposedly hidden somewhere within the house. 

        Although the main character does not remember his own name, The Other calls him “Piranesi,” (Probably a reference to the famous Italian architect, artist, and archaeologist). They meet twice a week to share their findings about the “Great and Secret Knowledge.” During their conversations, The Other manipulates Piranesi a great deal. He reminds Piranesi that “The House Erodes one’s memories and personality” whenever Piranesi brings up possibly abandoning the search for the GASK. This made me think that the house was some kind of metaphor for a something like a mental institution, as Piranesi is treated like a patient in a very condescending way. Also, unlike Piranesi, The Other can freely come and go from the house to the real world, bringing multivitamins and shoes. However, this metaphor moment (spoiler alert) never happens. The house is completely real. 

        The story continues, and The Other warns Piranesi that a new “16th person” might be coming to the house (There are 13 dead and the 2 alive so far). Once again manipulating Piranesi, he explains that if he were to talk to 16, he would lose his sanity. Piranesi comes across an old man who explains that the house is a world full of the passed on ideas from the real world, and that one can travel to the house by thinking of a pure memory (Kind of an explanation, but still underwhelming). He explains that he is a rival of The Other, whose name is actually Ketterly, and that Ketterly stole his ideas about the GASK. Upon reading some journals he didn’t remember writing, he discovers that the old man is Laurence Arne Sales, a cult leader who believed in the transport to other worlds, and that Ketterly was one of the members. It also said that Arne Sales went to jail for imprisoning someone in what they described as the house. When 16 enters the house, she reminds Piranesi of his real name: Matthew Rose Sorensen. This name brings back memories of his past: he was a journalist writing about the cult and got imprisoned in the house by Ketterly (Why Ketterly didn’t want piranesi to talk to him). He has been gone for 6 years. This reminds me of The Chronicles of Narnia, but it doesn’t have quite the same enjoyability; there are no talking lions or evil witches or underlying religious symbolism, instead a setting where the main character is bored out of his mind. I won’t spoil any more :)

        Overall, although the story is nice, the setting is mediocre and the writing is tough to get through with its excessive detail. It could be argued that this is by design, and represents how mundane and pointless life is, but that still doesn’t make a very fun read. Also, I was really expecting some kind of metaphor that turned the story around and made all those tough pages worth it, but that never happened. It’s not terrible, but the story set up for a much bigger revelation than the one that occurred, which the reader can predict several chapters in advance. Definitely one of the less good books I’ve read. Overall 6.5/10.