From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

Piranesi

Susanna Clarke

Start date: June 1, 2022

Finish date: June 30, 2022

Discussion: 2022 Fantasy Tournament

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 24 topics — 619 comments total

2022 Fantasy Tournament

* 2022 Fantasy Tournament Schedule
By Christopher · 55 posts · 27 views

last updated Jun 09, 2022 01:10PM

FINAL ROUND: The Fifth Season vs. Circe vs. The Curse of Chalion
By Christopher · 18 posts · 20 views

last updated Aug 18, 2022 03:50PM

showing 9 of 9 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Jan 07, 2020 Henk rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021!
Mesmerizing, with an impossible house stretching everywhere and only two persons present. However in the end rather a rather conventional tale
He always thinks in terms of utility. He cannot imagine why anything should exist if he cannot make use of it.

At the start of the book we see a quote from The Magician's Nephew from C.S. Lewis and some concepts from that book come neatly back in Piranesi. The titular character and narrator (despite that he has a Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021!
Mesmerizing, with an impossible house stretching everywhere and only two persons present. However in the end rather a rather conventional tale
He always thinks in terms of utility. He cannot imagine why anything should exist if he cannot make use of it.

At the start of the book we see a quote from The Magician's Nephew from C.S. Lewis and some concepts from that book come neatly back in Piranesi. The titular character and narrator (despite that he has an awareness it is not truly his name) roams immense and seemingly unending halls in a house. Twice a week The Other visits him and gives him some utensils that can't be made from bird feathers, fish, shells and seaweed (there is namely a sea in the lower halls, and various tides bundle together to a plot device in the end). Slowly but surely we learn more about the world and the history of Piranesi. I felt that Susanna Clarke skillfully employed the information drizzler and read this book in only two days.

The narrator seems to have an uncanny understanding of the world we would call the normal world outside of the halls he walks in (around 7.000 visited by him). I recently started a bit in House of Leaves and the strangeness and threat of never ending halls slightly reminded me of that book. In the end however I feel the book had most in common with the The Raw Shark Texts from Steven Hall, a book revolving around a person waking up with memory loss and slowly piecing together his identity and the strange world he finds himself in. And I was strangely reminded of the enormous walls in The Maze Runner series as well, also a tale (albeit in a very different genre) about memory loss and a seemingly impossible environment slowly giving up its secrets.
Conceptually Clarke takes Plato’s thoughts about ideas and the nature of the world as one of the foundations for the worldbuilding in this book.
In terms of other media it reminds me both of the plot of Memento and the deepest layer of Inception of Christopher Nolan. In general I feel this book would work very well as a movie.

In the later parts of the book the novelty and strangeness of the world become less pronounced and the books goes into a quite a conventional almost modern fairytale direction (with some inversions). This is a very quick read, quite compelling in execution, but in the end it left me longing for more daring and maybe some less neatly tied up ends at the conclusion of the book. ...more

234 likes · Like · see review

Jan 01, 2021 Lark Benobi marked it as inexplicabilis

Shelves: 2020

I'm thrilled that this novel has won the Woman's Prize. I love that a woman can disappear for 15+ years and then come back with a new novel and charm the world with it. How wonderful, to live in a world where people love this book. It makes me want to burst into song that readers like you exist. That song by Louis Armstrong says it all.

All I could think for the first twelve pages was: ‘I can’t read this.'

After I pressed on intrepidly for a few more pages, I skipped to page 74, because I wanted ...more

91 likes · Like · see review

Sep 28, 2020 Nadine in California rated it really liked it

3 1/2 stars, rounded up - Fun, fast but not fluffy. A warm, empathetic main character, enjoyably evil villains, and lovely, imaginative worldbuilding. Because I was enjoying myself so much I had no problem ignoring little holes in the story. Although, if I'm going to be nitpicky, the character of Piranese is devoted to the empirical process, so maybe these little empirical holes shouldn't be excused so easily.

I belatedly learned that this book is filled with Narnia references, and since I didn't ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Feb 04, 2021 Camelia Rose rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, location-uk

4.5 star round up

Apparently Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is a love-or-hate book. I belong to the love camp. The world Piranesi inhabited is incredibly beautiful and full of wonders. Piranesi is innocent as well as intelligent. The revelation comes gradually and yet, Piranesi's soul remains pure. Susanne Clarke's writing is dream like. It suites the character very well.

I only realized the Narnia references after having finished the book. The name Piranesi is taken from Giovanni Battista Piranesi, ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Dec 21, 2024 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, bookclub

3.75★
(view spoiler) ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Apr 28, 2021 Rachel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I sloooooogggeeed through the first 24% of this book, then held my nose for the next 15, and then it got more interesting, only to be a pretty basic story with fantasy added in. Meh.

3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 13, 2022 Christopher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 21st-century, british, fiction, fantasy, epistolary

If you're going to read this, it would be best if you knew nothing about it when you turn to the first page, so all I'll say is that it's well worth reading! ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Nov 17, 2020 Erika rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-science-fiction, fiction-lyrical

Needs six stars.

1 like · Like · see review

May 05, 2021 Rosana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio-books, 2021, challenge-2021

Piranesi was a complete surprise. I believe I was expecting more of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a magical fantasy, which Piranesi is, but yet subverts the genre.

This is a very difficult book to describe without creating spoilers, as the plot is very simple. The story does rely on a plot of sorts to resolve itself, but the strength of this book is on the poetic and dreamy imaginary that it creates. The language is also quite poetic and philosophical without being preachy.

Other reviewers ment ...more

Like · see review

Jun 06, 2022 Lori rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: zy-calibre, fiction, zy-text, zy-own, fantasy, literature, roundtable, rt-book-read, z-read-2022

A short, fun read, although the topic seems to be depressing. It plays with the idea of a person remaking themselves, in this case after total amnesia/breakdown. Quite enjoyable.

3 stars - A solid, enjoyable book even for people who normally don't read this type of book. ...more

Like · see review

Sep 15, 2022 Heather(Gibby) rated it liked it

This is one of those books that everyone raves about and then I read it and think, "Am I just not intelligent enough to understand this book?" ...more

Like · see review