Susanna Clarke’s “Piranesi” Is A Stunning Novel Unlike Any Other

The second novel from the author of “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” is strange and beautiful

I realised that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unraveled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery.

Piranesi lives a quiet life. He fishes, writes in his Journals, and cares for thirteen people (who happen to be skeletons) who are, at least as far as Piranesi knows, the only people who have ever lived, apart from himself and the Other. On Tuesdays and Fridays, Piranesi meets with the Other, a scholarly and pompous man, when they attempt to uncover a Great and Secret Knowledge.

His home is the House, a structure so large it encompasses Piranesi’s entire world. It has oceans with strong, dangerous tides that Piranesi keeps careful track of in his journals. It is home to a pair of albatrosses, the only other animals, besides the fish, that live there. Instead of living creatures, the House is full of statues: a statue of a gorilla, a statue of a young boy playing the cymbals, a statue of two men with strained faces as they emerge from the wall. These statues are his companions, and he…