I read Piranesi before picking this book up as an audiobook. There's always this strange feeling where the voice you imagined in your head doesn't fully match what you're hearing, but Chiwetel Ejiofor was such a wonderful narrator I quickly fell back into it. Listening to this book has a magical feeling to it I can't quite describe in words: it's evocative, slow-paced, and a brilliantly unravelling of a mystery. The way Chiwetel narrated brought the characters to life with such excellence. I would recommend this audiobook to everyone who enjoys them.

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Today I’m talking about Piranesi, and, like the book’s release, the timing is very relevant. At this moment in time, the inside of my house is my entire world. It’s a feeling I’m sure a lot of us in places impacted by COVID-19 can understand. There are a lot of reasons someone’s world may be their house, and it’s not all linked to what’s going on right now. Piranesi was written by an author who, after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue, knows the inside of her house very well. Piranesi is a character who loves the house he lives in, he has a sense of belonging, and instead of longing for something else, he thanks the house for everything it brings. That feeling was very poignant and unlike anything I’d read before; Piranesi touched my soul in a way I can’t truly explain.

I have avoided talking about anything you don’t learn in the first section of the book. I discuss some of the themes of the novel, but I’m avoiding the plot completely as I can’t think of a way to discuss it without spoiling everything.

Piranesi’s house is not ordinary. With infinite rooms filled with thousands of statues, endless corridors, and even an ocean imprisoned within its walls, it’s a house of mystery. Piranesi is not afraid. He loves the house, and all it brings. There is someone else in the house, The Other. Piranesi visits him twice a week to help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. When the existence of another person is revealed the truth of the house begins to unravel.

Honestly, it’s difficult to describe what this book is about. I went in knowing it was about a person known as Piranesi who lives in a big house full of weird things. I had no idea where it was going or what was happening. The process of slowly unravelling the truth, and at a different speed than Piranesi himself, was one of the best experiences of the book. For that reason alone, I’m not going to touch on the plot at all; you should experience it for yourself.

Instead, I want to focus on Piranesi as a character, before everything happens. He spends his days exploring the house, cataloguing the statues, saying hello to the birds, keeping the dead company. Although he is mostly alone, he feels a sense of complete belonging, he is happy.

Piranesi wants to understand the house better, to explore its mysteries. The house is amazing, and it gives him many wonderful experiences.

What I loved most about Piranesi as a character is how well he belongs in the world. The idea of an enclosed labyrinth of a house, completely isolated and unable to leave, is one that terrifies a lot of people. Most books would focus on the feeling of being trapped, on the heavy loneliness, but not this one. Instead, Piranesi is filled with love.

I’d say a lot of people feel somewhat trapped at the moment. Even without having to stay in our houses, the world doesn’t feel like a pleasant place. It was refreshing to read about someone who is similarly trapped, which doesn’t focus on the negative. I want to be more like Piranesi. Someone who gets joy from the little things, someone who constantly seeks out the new in similar places, someone who loves the world for what it is and not what they think it should be.

It’s as if Piranesi was released at the perfect moment for me. I haven’t read Susanna Clarke’s other work, Jonathon Strange and Mr Norell, but I had heard great things about it which inspired me to pick this up when I saw it at the bookshop. I’m so glad I did.

There’s a strangeness to the book. Piranesi isn’t of this world, and he doesn’t speak as if he’s of this world. He lives by his own system, the name of the years based on his own experiences. We’re reading his journal, and his voice is so incredibly, oddly, unique. When I started reading, I was drawn into this eccentricity, but I wasn’t expecting it to be a book I loved so dearly. If you like books that are more straightforward this might not be the one for you, but I’d consider myself in that category and I still loved this, so who knows?

Piranesi contrasts against The Other heavily. The Other is the only other person in the house, and he’s using the house as a way to research A Great and Secret Knowledge, which he hopes will bring him great power. Piranesi helps, despite not believing in this goal, because he’s helpful, kind, and enjoys the company. The Other uses the house for what he can gain, Piranesi loves the house for what it is.

There’s a lot to think about even within this small comparison. We could talk about how humans so often only think something is important if we can use it. That can be even be applied to people; so much of our self worth is related to what we can and can’t do. Perhaps then, we, like The Other, are failing to find the intrinsic value in things. Perhaps Piranesi’s positive experience of his isolation might be because he doesn’t have those preconceptions, he can be who he is without it impacting his self-worth, the house can be what it is without impacting it’s worth. There’s a lot to say here about how we consider our world, how the way we have used it has affected it in terrible ways; Piranesi would definitely be an environmentalist.

This is an especially poignant perspective when considering that Susanna Clarke is a disabled writer. After completing her first book, she struggled to continue writing due to chronic fatigue. She’s spoken about how difficult that was, as her worth was tied to being able to write. It’s something we all feel to varying degrees, but in a world where you are what you do, what if you can’t do anything?

There’s a lot to say about disabled people who have always spent a lot of time in their houses, for a lot of people COVID-19 lockdowns are their entire life. Even Piranesi in his love for the house still wants and enjoys company. He’s still a person who desires friendship and connection. When things go back to ‘normal’ we can’t forget the people who are still inside, we need to continue to make the effort, we need to continue to have accessible alternatives. Even when you take joy in your everyday life, no one likes to be alone.

When I think about this book, I am actually thinking of layers and I'll address each in turn.

Firstly: I've listened to the audiobook. It is one of the most gorgeous audiobooks I've ever listen to. Chiwetel Ejiofor has a superb voice and very fitting for Piranesi. His rendition truly brings the story to life. I felt as if I was inside the house myself, marveling at its grandeur, seeing it full of life and mystery, almost expecting to encounter Piranesi as one strolls from chamber to chamber. I cannot recommend the audiobook over other formats enough!

Secondly: the story. I ADORED the story. It was just perfect for me: fantasy anchored in reality; a puzzle/mystery to be solved/understood; clues scattered throughout that made me re-listen to bits just to make sure I am not missing something, take notes etc; a story that put my brain gears into motion! Needless to say I would have happily listen to another 6 hours of it :p

Thirdly: the substance! Well, well, well, here lies all my issues with this book. To me it was like opening a very nice Chocolate Easter Egg to discover it's hollow inside. Don't get me wrong, this book certainly touches on quite a few interesting subjects/themes like Greek mythology, return to nature, the cult of personality, mental health just to name a few. But that's exactly it: it just dips in all this subjects without revealing anything major, anything new. Just reiteration of things that authors like to bang about: if people will just be happy with less, we would all have a better life; scaling down, having an alternative world to take refuge into as a solution to the bustle of modern world and/or to mental health problems etc. I guess this is down to the tension being so powerful, tension that kept on building and building and building to reveal an anticlimactic end. I was convinced I will find out what the meaning of humanity is by the end of the story, but nah... This certainly is proof of Clarke's skill as a writer, but it's definitely a double-edged sword and I am part of the minority that was left disappointed by it rather than enchanted.

Many thanks for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.

This may be a novella....but it is SLOW to start. The first couple of sections throw a lot of information at you but if you can make it through that, it does start to make sense. I enjoyed the clever and subtle ways Clarke reveals information but unfortunately, Piranesi felt like a book with a lot of potential that could have been executed in a much better way.

Really cannot finish listening to this - it is so boring. I've tried several times as I really enjoyed The Ladies of Grace Adieu, but it has nothing at all to grab my attention. I'm disappointed, as I listen to an average of 10 audiobooks per month (I can 'read' when running then!) and I don't usually abandon books.

Piranesi lives in the House and has always lived in the House. The House is his benevolent deity. But soon things begin to change and hint at a world outside of the House, its tides and endless succession of halls and statues. The novel looks at how we interpret our reality and how we explain the things we don't understand.

The audiobook of this very imaginative tale is read by Chiwetel Ejiofor and his reading is perfect. Such a wonderful voice and he engaged with the text really well. A hugely engaging audiobook.

I was delighted when I saw this book was available - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was an amazing book, I said at the time that it was quite possibly the best book I'd ever read. Now, with the benefit of time and a clearer view of the book, I think maybe that was overstating it a bit, but nevertheless it was an exceptional book. Spoiled by the TV series for me, though.

As Clarke had published very little since then, I anticipated another tour-de-force of fantastical alternative history. However, either my tastes have changed or the author put so much into the previous book that this doesn't quite match up. It's still an extremely good story, beautifully written, puzzling, entertaining, engaging, gothic and mysterious - but that final spark is just not quite there. It's not as long either.

So although it didn't meet my expectations, I would still thoroughly recommend this book - if you haven't read Jonathan Strange yet, read this first and save the best til last!

What an incredible story. Not something I would ever normally be attracted to but my account manager kept telling me it was fabulous and it really was. I am so pleased I read it as it was so well done, so beautifully written, I felt I was there, in this extraordinary world but at the same time I could see the darkness of this world and needed to uncover what was going on. Really terrific.

Unable to review book as I cannot listen to the recording as the Netgalley Audio Book system doesn't work on PCs.
Sorry

This is a strange book which, by the end, left me unsatisfied despite the many excellent reviews from other people. I should say that I listened to it as an audio-book and that may have made some of the more repetitious aspects harder work. I had the feeling that if I was reading the book I might have skipped a bit here and there.

The book is a mystery which is gradually resolved. Piranesi, if that is his name, lives in an extraordinary palace made up of chambers, halls and vestibules peopled by statues. It’s a labyrinth so it’s no surprise that some of the statues are of minotaurs. His life is innocent and untainted by the world or its memories while his needs, limited as they are, are met by the only other person he believes to exist, ‘The Other’. Piranesi documents this strange world in lengthy cross-referenced journals which gradually come to have significance of their own.

Piranesi is of course wrong, and naïve as well as innocent. Even when it is clear that ‘The Other’ is probably not his friend, Piranesi retains his sense of loyalty but when another presence arrives he begins to see things differently. It is the sense of mystery conveyed by this gradual unfolding of the story and the back story which gives the book its appeal.

However, there are weaknesses. The worst is that the plot is unravelled in a series of found scraps of writing so there is a lengthy diversion to tell the reader what is happening. Because of this the sense of surprise and the emergence of the truth is engineered and the ending is even slightly anticlimactic. Also, some of the loose ends in the book are brought together in predictable ways so that the sense of mystery at the start leads into some pedestrian outcomes.

Having said all that, Susanna Clarke writes very well and evokes this alternative universe of palaces as well as the innocence of the occupant to good effect. Funnily enough, I didn’t get a sense that this was like the drawings of Piranesi but rather more like a child would create given a long afternoon in the school holiday and access to Minecraft! The first half of the book, where there are hints of what lies at the heart of the mystery works better than the second and this made the book as a whole seem less substantial and meaningful. It promised more than it delivered!

It’s still an entertaining read and there are enough sufficiently interesting ideas in the story to keep any reading group engaged!

I would best describe this book as a psychological tale where a man confronts memories posed in his subconscious within a huge “house” full of statues and skeletons. The book has a lot of symbolism and completion to the fantasy elements of the consciousness. I listened to the audio book for this one, which was done very well and put together well. (I’d read the first chapter extract but I think the audio makes this come to life more).

I think this book appeals to a certain type of reader, and I just didn't fit that catagory. I got the audiobook version and I appreciated the narrator, but I'm still not sure if I enjoyed the book or just throught it was a bit strange!

It wasn't badly written or anything like that, it was just... .different.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury UK audtio for sending me a copy of the audiobook of this for honest review.

Piranesi is the latest book by Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell. I really didnt get into that book, I found it over written but I thought the author had promise. That' why I was so excited for this, as it has a much smaller page count.

Piranesi lives in a labrynth of rooms, he only sees one other person. He explores and categorises his experiences but everything is not as it seems.

I struggled to get into this at the start. I don't know if it was the soothing narration of Chiwetel Ejofar but I found myself drifting off a lot. I had to restart it a few times.

But my goodness, this story was fascinating. It wound together in a confusing fog that by the end made perfect sense to me.

I feel like I would gain more appreciation of this in a second reading. Highly recommend.

What an incredible book. I struggled to get into the audiobook at first and had to skip back quite a few times to understand what was happening - this is definitely an audiobook that needs your full attention at all times - but I soon fell into the story. The narrator is fantastic, and I'd definitely be happy to listen to this one again to pick up on all the little details that I missed the first time around.

Not going to lie, I did find this hard going - but ultimately rewarding and very pleased I stuck with it.

Initially hard to get into and understand what's going on, but equally a very poetic, ethereal story. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a masterful narrator, with a beautiful, peaceful and mellifluous voice whose tone complements the poetic nature of the book.

The story is set in a labyrinth with the narrator its inhabitant. He keeps track of his daily life in a journal and index, and the only other live person is The Other, who he interacts with on occasion. He creates his own version of time, and a lot of the journal is along the lines of "the first day of the eighth month in the year the albatross came to the south western halls" - it's poetic and beautiful. The book ticks on like this for a long time, and then suddenly there are moments of change.

I know I am in the minority but sorry I could not get on with this audiobook. First time I have given up on a book in a very long time but it was just too weird for me and I just could not see where it was going at all. I understand that this is part of the attraction of this book for many people but not for me. I was bored and didn’t care where he was going to get his next fish from, in which vestibule, in which hall. Not for me.

When Susanna Clarke's great big immersive novel “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell” came out way back in 2004, I was completely enraptured by this fantastical alternate history. Since then she's only published a book of short stories so I was thrilled to pick up her second novel “Piranesi”. Though it also heavily incorporates seemingly other-worldly elements, it's much more confined and solitary in its scope. This novel is certainly much shorter than her debut. Its narrator resides in a series of impressively grand maze-like halls filled with an infinite amount of beautiful sculptures. There's only one other person found here, but he seems mysteriously aloof and only meets with the narrator for regularly scheduled appointments. The narrator refers to him as “the Other” and “the Other” refers to the narrator as Piranesi (although he's aware that this is not his real name.) Here the tides flow in and out washing over the giant sculptures forcing the narrator and “the Other” to move carefully between the halls so as not to be trapped by the sea. Piranesi spends his days cataloguing in his notebooks the sculptures and mapping the rooms in between scavenging for something to eat amongst the fish and seafood from the sea. Is this place the remains of some fallen civilization or a mythical landscape? And the way Piranesi notes how there are the bones of several unknown people here makes it also feel like a sinister mausoleum. As far as Piranesi is concerned, he has always resided here and these halls are the entire world. It's a tantalizing setting whose darker meaning gradually becomes apparent over the course of the story. This novel completely swept me into its intriguing mysteries and the methodical mind of its protagonist who communes with the sculptures and birds found in the halls.

What's so moving about this novel is the way Piranesi's life and endeavours seems to subtly mimic our own – especially now that many of us have been largely confined to our homes for the past year of this pandemic. Similarly, the halls in this books are like the museums which have been closed for months with their wonders poised and ready for someone to discover them. Like Piranesi, I spend my days moving between the same rooms, diligently working and reading book after book. There's a peaceful and melancholy grace to Piranesi's life, but it also feels so fragile. And, though this circumscribed world feels stable, there's an awareness that chaos and destruction might come rolling in any day. So I felt a strong connection to this narrator whose pursuit for knowledge won't allow him to remain oblivious to the broader meaning of his environment or his reason for being there. Clarke also makes this a suspenseful read in providing hints and signs about what's really going on in this strange place. Though the truth is fully revealed at the end and it's a satisfyingly complex conclusion, what I mainly got from this book was its mood of scholarly dedication in a state of utmost solitude. It's the same kind of feeling I get from reading Donna Tartt's fiction. Part of me wanted to remain in the halls of this novel discovering sculpture after sculpture. Clarke's way of describing these wonders as Piranesi patiently catalogues and considers his environment strangely mirrors our own world in all its deteriorating beauty.

Susanna Clarke’s ‘Piranesi’ was wonderfully weird, and I cannot recommend it enough. It’s such a unique book that I have enjoyed tremendously. Relatively short, especially in comparison to Susanna Clarke’s previous book, it still took me longer to read it than expected – predominantly because it’s such a vivid and complex narrative that draws you inside this weirdly peaceful and yet somehow dangerous world, and you don’t necessarily want it to end. I certainly didn’t.

I’m really happy I ended up listening to the audiobook version of ‘Piranesi’. Even though I know I would have enjoyed this book regardless of its format, there was something captivating, almost bewitching, in the audio. Chiwetel Ejiofor certainly suited the role of Piranesi so perfectly, bringing the main character’s diary entries’ to live.

The first part of ‘Piranesi’ makes the reader get to know the weird and unique world Piranesi inhabits, but still leaving far too many questions unanswered, and at the same time allowing our imagination to run wildly. The world, or rather the House, Piranesi inhabits, somehow feels like a reminiscent of the past – with its huge columns and still places, but at the same time, this peace, almost stillness of the House, allows you to breathe, and allows the reader – through Piranesi’s narration – to appreciate simple things and find a joy every day, which is something I think we all need this year. And yet, there is a danger coming, something darker is lurking the corners, and we get a sense that Piranesi, as does the reader, doesn’t know everything – and what he knows, he might be wrong about. In a sense, the second part of Susanna Clarke’s book brings this air of mystery to a greater force, and the action speeds up. But while I have enjoyed this, it is the first part of the book I loved the most.

This was such an intricate and wildly original story! I loved the narrator and the intrigue of the setting. The writing was beautiful and mysterious. This might not be a book for everyone but anyone into weird and wonderful is sure to appreciate it.

The audiobook was beautifully read by Chiwetel Ejiofor and I get why so many people were swept up my the wandering magic of the story, but I felt weirdly disconnected from it. And a lot baffled for most of the novel too. Maybe I needed to read it physically instead.

Piranesi by Susanna Clark

Piranesi is the kind of book that going into it you think you know what to expect, but when you actually start reading it, it's completely different. I thought it would be a story with Roman influences, but it really was much more than that. It is by the far the most unique book that I have read all year.

I had also read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in the year and found that Piranesi was just as descriptive and complex but far more attractive to read, given the differing lengths.

The book itself is narrated by Piranesi who lives in a labyrinth of halls and vestibules, which he calls The House. A never-ending world of places to discover and explore. He doesn't remember his life before living in The House. The book follows Piranesi's personal journal entries, as time goes on, the mystery of The House starts to become clearer to the reader, and the story becomes as I said earlier SO much more.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thought-provoking, mysterious reads with a hidden complexity that runs throughout the story.