The narrator of this novel answers to the name "Piranesi" even though he suspects that it's not his name. The much-anticipated second novel from the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. We keenly feel Piranesi's growing anxiety as he faces the possibility that the world is not what he thought it was. Her economical prose and measured pacing enables Ejiofor's narration to take flight. Clarke conjures an elaborate world that is both beautiful and frightening, and feels compellingly real. Just as unsettling is his lack of curiosity about his own past - the name Piranesi was given to him since he couldn't recall his own or where he spent his childhood. Chiwetel Ejiofor reads this intense and enigmatic tale, which is presented in diary form, although time is an abstract concept - the opening entry is labelled: "The first day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls." Ejiofor expertly conveys Piranesi's wonder at his environs, as well as the innocence and gratitude with which he accepts gifts - a pair of shoes, a sleeping bag, a packet of multivitamins - from his only companion, never stopping to wonder why he is wearing rags while the Other is dressed in an expensive suit. It is here that our eponymous narrator lives seemingly contentedly, subsisting on fish, warming himself by small pyres of dried seaweed and embarking on expeditions around the vast labyrinth of stairs, vestibules and hallways, often at the behest of a short-tempered visitor known as the Other. The Women's prize-winning novel from the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell author deposits listeners into "the House", a mysterious building where the sea laps through the lower floors, clouds gather in the upper halls and birds swoop along corridors lined with statues. This superbly told tale is sure to be recognized as one of the year's most inventive novels. With great subtlety, Clarke gradually elaborates an explanatory backstory to her tale's events and reveals sinister occult machinations that build to a crescendo of genuine horror. In their discussions about 16, it becomes increasingly clear the Other is gaslighting Piranesi about his memory, their relationship, and the reality they share. After the Other worriedly asks Piranesi if he's seen in the house a person they refer to as 16, Piranesi's curiosity is piqued, and all the more so after the Other instructs him to hide. Meanwhile, the Other is pursuing the "Great and Secret Knowledge" of the ancients. So immense is the House that its many parts support their own internal climates, all of which Piranesi vividly describes ("I squeezed myself into the Woman's Niche and waited until I heard the Tides roaring in the Lower Halls and felt the Walls vibrating with the force of what was about to happen"). The story unfolds as journal entries written by the eponymous narrator, who, along with an enigmatic master known as the Other (and 13 skeletons whom Piranesi regards as persons) inhabits the House, a vast, labyrinthine structure of statue-adorned halls and vestibules. Clarke wraps a twisty mystery inside a metaphysical fantasy in her extraordinary new novel, her first since 2004's Jonathan Strange & Mr.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |