Piranesi by Susanna Clark

Piranesi was a comfort read for me. It was a fall weekend night, and I’d been really busy, so I wanted a good book without feeling mentally drained by a huge world-builder. Piranesi seemed on the shorter side and has good reviews (plus a cool cover), so I jumped in.

Piranesi lives in an endless, statue-filled House, with clouds on the floors above and a vast ocean on the floors below. He carefully records the tides and his daily life in journals, believing that only fifteen people have ever existed in this world, most long dead. Twice a week, he meets the Other, a refined man who brings supplies from outside and urges him to search for a mysterious “Great and Secret Knowledge.”

At first, Piranesi seems genuinely content, marveling at the unique statues and exploring the different Halls. But his world begins to shift when he notices that his journals have been tampered with and they may not be alone…

Piranesi’s story is often compared to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, since he inhabits a world of statues without realizing they reflect a greater reality beyond his perception. In Plato’s tale, a prisoner sees only shadows on the cave wall, unaware of the real world outside. The novel also echoes themes from Jorge Luis Borges, especially works like The Library of Babel and The House of Asterion, which Clarke has mentioned as influences.

The world is fascinating. For a novel just over 200 pages, it struck a perfect balance of complexity — you can’t build a Dune-level universe, but it also isn’t overly simplistic. The House itself is intriguing, and the fact that every statue is unique adds another layer. For instance, one statue he records is a faun “standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child,” likely nodding to when Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus at the start of The Chronicles of Narnia.

I really appreciate Clark’s approach with this book. It’s the result of decades of ideas, but she didn’t try to do too much or stretch it into a longer novel than it needed to be. It has the feel of a skilled author experimenting with an imaginative world. Even though it’s a short read, you can tell it’s carefully crafted and not just a quick novel released for a paycheck.

Piranesi isn’t the book to pick up if you’re looking for answers to all the world’s problems and I will say the ending wraps up faster than the pacing of the rest of the book, but Clark handles it well. As I mentioned earlier, I’d much rather have a story end cleanly than drag out something that doesn’t need to be.

At the end of the day, I chose to feature it on the homepage of this blog, so take that as you will. Nothing life changing but genuinely enjoyable.