Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

 

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first book from Susanna Clarke and I'm really sorry that it took me this long to start reading from this great author. After reading this masterpiece, I was kind of literary high, I could not sleep or think about something else, trying to analyze this beautiful and so mysterious story in my head, I also forgot my dinner and absolutely didn't care for my head was in a frenzied state.

I'm scared of this kind of books because they ruin my interest in any other books that do not have this kind of high literary quality. I'm usually in a reading slump after this kind of readings.

This is the kind of story that makes you need to write an analysis, books, essays and even theses about it. It will become a classic that the future generations of English literature will study and write papers on it. it's a book that makes you think about the deep sense of what you've read.

Piranesi forgot his modern personality to turn into a kind of a primitive human but he seems happy about it and enjoys all what is in this big house, he is content with the statues, the different halls, the fish that he can eat, the birds, he knows and understand the changes that occur with the tide, he respect and made offerings to the deads, he is not sad or has any bad feelings known to us, they do not exist for him. He likes The Other because with his presence he doesn't feel lonly which might be the only thing that can change his mind about leaving the house. Piranesi kept a kind of scientific curiosity, even if he had forgotten everything about his identity and past life, with his observations and exploration, he believes that he is acquiring a certain amount of knowledge in regard to the house.

Piranesi might be an experiment about human beings and their beliefs and spirituality, their needs for knowledge that might lead them to either their doom or to their happiness.

"One of the most important in humanity’s history. The knowledge we seek isn’t something new. It’s old. Really old. Once upon a time people possessed it and they used it to do great things, miraculous things. They should have held on to it. They should have respected
it. But they didn’t. They abandoned it for the sake of something they called progress."

Piranesi's big empathy even for his enemy when he remembers his other self that seeks revenge but he puts it to sleep because he is no more that person with all its instincts of destruction, no, he is now the Beloved Child of The House. We might pity Piranesi for what we consider it as his imprisonment, his lost identity, his acceptance for what was done to him but he sees it as an enriching and an everlasting exceptional experience. Everything is a revelation for him and an act of great kindness from the house. Piranesi unlike The Other, loves the house, understands it, accepts it, sees its beauty, it became his haven and no more his prison.

The Other laugh at Piranesi for what the house made of him, his naivety that made him so easy to manipulate, his kindness, his empathy, his love, his abhorrence to use violence but what did the other world made of The Other?

These are my first own thoughts about this book and I feel that there are a lot of things that can be said about it.

A book with pure and amazing intellectual content with a fantastic mystery plot, it's a unique experience that only great authors can make you live.




View all my reviews