"Piranesi" review

Overview

Title: Piranesi

Author: Susanna Clarke

Subgenre: Literary fantasy

2021 Bingo squares: First person, Readalong, Mystery, Published in 2021, Chapter titles (arguably HM)

Recommend: Yes yes yes

Stars: 5/5

Review

You are the Beloved Child of the House. Be comforted.

Piranesi is just a wonderful piece of literary fantasy that I cannot recommend enough. Wait to read it until you’re in the mood for a patient read; it’s short, but it’s not fast. If you’re not enjoying it within the first few pages, put it down and pick it up again later. I’d encourage you to pick it up without reading anything else about it; the less you know going in, I think, the more you’ll enjoy it. If you’re convinced, then stop reading now.

If you want to know a bit more about it, then my elevator pitch is: Piranesi is a cross between the movie Memento and novella The Slow Regard of Silent Things. There’s a mystery plot that you get to tease apart at the same time as the narrator. The prose is a very stylized first person; we’re reading the narrator’s journal entries, but for the most part they’re written as if it were a normal first-person narration. There are questions of identity and self, and of the nature of one’s reality.

The mystery is fun to piece together, the descriptions are beautiful, and Piranesi is an amazing work of fiction.