Works so well because, like the House itself, it works on so many levels ...
It reminded me of "Waiting for Godot" and "The Magus," by John Fowles -- deceptively simple stories, cunningly made something special by their private mythology ...
Our guide to the House is Piranesi. That's what the only other living human being in the House, the Other, calls him. "Which is strange because as far I remember it is not my name ..."
In addition to "Piranesi" and the Other, there are the skeletal remains of 13 other people, our first substantial clue that, however much Piranesi insists on seeing the House, and his strange existence in it, as benign, and part of some natural order of things, there is something pretty dark going on here.
The House is a 3-D Memory Palace, a maze of hundreds of Rooms, Halls, Stairways and Vestibules, each one filled with statues and wonders and clues. The ripped up pages of a diary, woven into seagulls' nests. Crisp packets and other trash, scattered around a cubbyhole containing a dirty sleeping bag, which Piranesi tut-tuttingly tidies, without wondering why he know what "crisp packets" are, but is baffled by words like "university" and "Battersea." There are other clues that Piranesi once had another life. Such as his favourite statue,
"⦠the statue of a Faun ⦠He smiles slightly and presses his forefinger to his lips. I have always felt that he meant to tell me something or perhaps to warn me of something: I dreamt of him once; he was standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child."
You can't -- SHOULD NOT -- say too much, because this is a book that deserves to be read cold. Almost anything you can say would be saying too much. I've probably said too much already. My ultimate compliment: as soon as I finished it, I wanted to start it again, so I could see how she's done it.
"The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite."
It reminded me of "Waiting for Godot" and "The Magus," by John Fowles -- deceptively simple stories, cunningly made something special by their private mythology ...
Our guide to the House is Piranesi. That's what the only other living human being in the House, the Other, calls him. "Which is strange because as far I remember it is not my name ..."
In addition to "Piranesi" and the Other, there are the skeletal remains of 13 other people, our first substantial clue that, however much Piranesi insists on seeing the House, and his strange existence in it, as benign, and part of some natural order of things, there is something pretty dark going on here.
The House is a 3-D Memory Palace, a maze of hundreds of Rooms, Halls, Stairways and Vestibules, each one filled with statues and wonders and clues. The ripped up pages of a diary, woven into seagulls' nests. Crisp packets and other trash, scattered around a cubbyhole containing a dirty sleeping bag, which Piranesi tut-tuttingly tidies, without wondering why he know what "crisp packets" are, but is baffled by words like "university" and "Battersea." There are other clues that Piranesi once had another life. Such as his favourite statue,
"⦠the statue of a Faun ⦠He smiles slightly and presses his forefinger to his lips. I have always felt that he meant to tell me something or perhaps to warn me of something: I dreamt of him once; he was standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child."
You can't -- SHOULD NOT -- say too much, because this is a book that deserves to be read cold. Almost anything you can say would be saying too much. I've probably said too much already. My ultimate compliment: as soon as I finished it, I wanted to start it again, so I could see how she's done it.
"The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite."
