Piranesi

Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi was published on September 15, 2020. Set in a portal universe that is accessed from 2010s London, Clarke’s fantasy novel is written in an epistolary form via journal entries by a single narrator. Piranesi won the 2021 Audiobook of the Year Audie Award (read by Chiwetel Ejiofor), was named a Must-Read Book of 2020 by Time Magazine, was a Goodreads Choice Nominee, made it onto the Costa Book Awards shortlist, and was on the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist. Clarke is also the author of the 2004 novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Plot Summary

Piranesi is written in a series of first-person, dated journal entries. The narrator has three names and identities: The Beloved Child of the House, Piranesi, and Matthew Rose Sorensen. This splintering of identity occurred because of his imprisonment in a labyrinth which caused memory loss. At the beginning of the novel, he only remembers existing in the House, a sea-soaked collection of grand halls where he calculates the tides, fishes, talks to birds, catalogues the statues, and helps the only other living person he has knowledge of, the Other.

The Other is a name that the narrator gives his abductor after forgetting the name Valentine Ketterley. Ketterley renames the amnesiac narrator Piranesi, referencing the Italian artist who created prints of an imaginary prison that resemble the labyrinth. In the early sections of the novel, Ketterley is trying to obtain arcane knowledge from the labyrinth through ceremonial magic and using the narrator to help him with his rituals. Eventually, the narrator and the reader learn that Ketterley does not live in the labyrinth but uses magic to travel between London and the House.

Ketterley’s former teacher, Laurence Arnes-Sayles, who discovered the portal between worlds, visits the narrator. The narrator calls Arne-Sayles the Prophet, and they discuss how the statues are ideas that traveled from the real world into the Distributary World of the labyrinth. After this conversation, Arne-Sayles leaves the labyrinth and London, never to be seen again in person for the rest of the novel. Through journal entries, the narrator and reader later learn about how Arne-Sayles sent people to the labyrinth, resulting in death or madness (and a stint in prison for him). The narrator cares for the bones of the people Arne-Sayles murdered before learning who they were or how they died. 

Arne-Sayles visited the labyrinth because a police officer named Sarah Raphael visited him regarding Matthew Rose Sorensen’s disappearance from London. She eventually finds her way to the labyrinth. At first, Ketterley convinces the narrator that Raphael, who the narrator calls 16 (the 16th living or dead person he has knowledge of), is the enemy and talking to 16 will cause him to go insane. Eventually, the narrator’s loneliness overcomes Ketterley’s lies and he tries to talk with Raphael, specifically to warn her that a flood is coming.

Ketterley, fearing arrest and imprisonment, buys a boat and gun, planning to kill Raphael during the flood. However, it is Ketterley who is killed by shooting at Raphael and the narrator instead of boarding his boat as the tides rise. While the waters smash his body against the architecture of the labyrinth, the narrator and Raphael remain safe in the arms of statues on a higher floor. When they are able to speak, Raphael explains the situation to the amnesiac narrator and asks him to return to London.

The narrator stays separated from his former identity as Matthew Rose Sorensen and prioritizes caring for the bones of Arne-Sayles’ victims, as well as the body of Ketterley, over comforting his own family and friends. Eventually, his loneliness overcomes this sense of duty and he returns to England. Even in London, he never regains Sorensen’s previous memories, relying heavily on his possessions and journals to understand who he used to be. He finds a man, James Ritter, who survived being imprisoned by Arne-Sayles and takes him back to visit the labyrinth. Raphael also visits the labyrinth occasionally, being somewhat of an outcast in the police department.

At the end of the novel, the narrator manages to remember how to function in modern society, but still frequently dwells on the tides and especially the statues of the Distributary World. Even when seeing the beauty of London life, he expresses love and nostalgia for the House and its inhabitants.