Summary

Piranesi is a 2020 novel by English author Susanna Clarke. A fantasy driven by a mystery, it is set in a parallel universe. The eponymous narrator lives in a boundless world comprised of interconnected halls and vestibules adorned with countless statues, known simply as the House. He meticulously records his observations of the House's enigmatic tides, clouds, and even the skeletal remains of long-deceased inhabitants. Piranesi believes he has always dwelled in the House—he can't remember being anywhere else. Also living in the House is a man identified only as the Other, with whom Piranesi meets twice each week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Piranesi considers the Other as a friend, as well as his guide in seeking a Great and Secret Knowledge concealed within the House's labyrinthine chambers.

Suddenly, messages materialize indicating the arrival of another person in the House, whom the Other warns may pose a threat to Piranesi. As the House grows increasingly strange, Piranesi uncovers fragments of his forgotten past—and a terrible truth begins to unravel.

Themes

• Memory and identity

• Parallel worlds and alternate realities

• The power of imagination and ideas

• The conflict between knowledge and ignorance

• Imprisonment, freedom, and escape

• The fragility of the human mind

• The search for truth and meaning

Setting

Piranesi is set in an alternate universe known as the House, a vast labyrinth of infinite halls and vestibules lined with countless statues. The House comprises an upper level filled with clouds, a middle level where the main story takes place, and a lower level submerged in an ocean that surges in following tidal patterns. This strange, self-contained world appears to be the only reality known to the novel's narrator, Piranesi.

While the broader geographical setting of the House is left ambiguous and dreamlike, Piranesi occasionally alludes to our own world through references to modern cities, occult theories, and the disappearance of the narrator's former identity.

Characters

• Piranesi: The narrator and protagonist, originally named Matthew Rose Sorensen before losing his memories

• The Other/Ketterley: A well-dressed man who enlists Piranesi's help to search for the "Great and Secret Knowledge"

• Raphael: A police detective investigating disappearances related to the Arne-Sayles cult, referred to as "16"

• The Prophet: An elderly stranger who claims the House is a "distributary world"

• Laurence Arne-Sayles: An occultist from the modern world who posited that other worlds existed

• James Ritter: A man who was previously held captive in the House by Ketterley

Quick facts

• Piranesi was Susanna Clarke's second novel, published 16 years after her acclaimed debut, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

• Clarke has stated that Piranesi was a long-gestating project that predates her first novel.

• The novel is inspired by the Imaginary Prisons etchings by the 18th-century Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

• Clarke has also cited Jorge Luis Borges's short stories "The Library of Babel" and "The House of Asterion" as influences on the novel.

• Piranesi contains references and allusions to C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series.

• Piranesi's world has been compared to Plato's allegory of the cave, where the characters perceive only shadows of a greater reality.

• Narrated by acclaimed actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, the audiobook version of Piranesi won the Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year in 2021.

• Piranesi also received the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021.

• A radio adaptation of Piranesi, read by Samuel Anderson, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2022.

About the author

Susanna Clarke (1959-) is an English author best known for her debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. She spent a decade working on the novel in her spare time in between her duties as an editor at Simon and Schuster's Cambridge office. Her writing style is often described as a pastiche of 19th-century British authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Her works, including the short story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories (2006), often explore themes of magic and female empowerment. After struggling with chronic fatigue syndrome, Clarke eventually published her second novel, Piranesi, in 2020. The novel won the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for several other prestigious honors, including the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Born in Nottingham, Clarke had a nomadic childhood due to her father's career as a Methodist minister. She studied at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and worked in various publishing roles before turning to writing full-time. She currently resides in Derbyshire with her partner, the science fiction novelist and reviewer Colin Greenland.