Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

For the second straight fiction book in a row, I'm unable to discuss a plot. In this case, this is mostly because I don't want to give ANYTHING away, and partly because I don't think I'm capable of summarizing what's happening here. I'll say the following:

• You can kind of see where this story is going, but where it ends up is probably lower on your consideration set than you would have figured. It is still something that you probably considered, though - the strong writing and shortness of the book keep it steady.

• As I'm sure I've mentioned before, whenever I read a story I try to picture the movie (Note: Clarke's first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, produced a very clear-cut head-movie, which is one of the reasons I was so disappointed with the BBC mini-series). I'm convinced that Piranesi could not work as a movie. I would love it if it could - the setting would be awesome to see come to life, and it does have one great action sequence for a climax. However, most of this book is journal entries and internal dialogue - you would either need constant narration, or hire an actor so astounding that people would want to watch him read for three quarters of a movie. And unlike The Man In the High Castle, you couldn't replace the journal entries with filmstrips - it wouldn't work aesthetically or in-world. (Now watch Michael Bay snatch up the rights)

• My only complaint is that the professor talks about the ancient world's relationship with the setting, but you never really see it in action. There are hints of it in the climactic action scene, as well as in the very end, but I truly think we needed at least one scene where it was hammered home how the setting works.

• I have insomnia. I've been taking Lunesta to sleep for over a decade. Right around the time I really started noticing my insomnia was when I was reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The reason I remember it was because I couldn't tell if my lack of sleep was due to health conditions or because I was reading one of the most gripping stories I'd ever read (turns out it was the former, BUT STILL). Clarke's first book gets ten out of ten hot dogs. Piranesi fails to reach those heights, but is still a great effort and a worthy read. Nine out of ten hot dogs.

So with all that out of the way, I wanted to tackle one part of the book that was not so obvious to me - why the main character is called Piranesi. I had no idea who or what that was, so I Googled it (I originally wrote "looked it up", but that sounds like something someone would do in a library turning pages in a book. I just put it in the Search bar. GOOGLE IT BITCHES.)

Giovanni Piranesi was an 18th century painter from Venice who spent most of his life in Rome. As Rome was starting to pick up as an appreciated cultural center once again, Piranesi painted many ancient Roman ruins - only he brought them to life by trying to fill in the gaps and image what they would have looked like when they were standing. While his paintings were in no way accurate or based on any study, they gave people a sense of how vibrant Roman life was in its heyday. He also wrote notes in the margins of his works to report on the state of the ruins, their measurements, locations, etc. - it was enough to be recognized as a premier archaeologist by the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Separately, Piranesi also drew 16 prints in a series called "The Prisons" that showed enormous underground vaults with lots of stairs and machines. While in the first published set the "prisons" depicted were somewhat realistic, in the second publishing some of the prints were revised to feature optical illusions and impossible geometries.

But perhaps I've said too much.