PIRANESI BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS SERIES

His life in it has a dreamlike quality when youвЂ™re dreaming, you donвЂ™t notice the things that donвЂ™t make sense or ask how you got there. The House may not be all that there is, but it is a rich world by itself, a place it would be wonderful to visit and explore for a month or a year. The story is the unfolding of the secrets behind the House and Piranesi. The reader will figure many things out before he does. He is naive and often has trouble putting two and two together, which is understandable for someone with so large a gap in his memory. His carefully maintained journals are often a puzzle to him he has written about events and people that he no longer remembers. However, he remembers very little about himself. He has identified a dozen or so past inhabitants and tends to their remains. Like a good adventure gamer, he has mapped many halls. Yet itвЂ™s clear from various hints that the House isnвЂ™t all that exists.

The Other uses words, place names, that have no referent for Piranesi, who dismisses them as fiction. The House is certainly a prison, even if itвЂ™s a pleasant one.

PIRANESI BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS SERIES

The narrator doesnвЂ™t think thatвЂ™s his real name, but IвЂ™ll call him that so I donвЂ™t have to keep saying вЂњthe narrator.вЂќ The name must come from the architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who created a series of drawings of imaginary prisons. He calls the other inhabitant вЂњthe Other.вЂќ The Other calls him Piranesi. The narrator is as much of a mystery as the house is, even to himself. Yet as far as the narrator knows, it has only two inhabitants. The House is so large that it has tides, seasonal snowfall, and a wildlife ecosystem. It has hundreds of halls and thousands of statues. The narrator lives in a huge house which is his entire world. As in an adventure game, the world-building comes to the foreground.

ItвЂ™s hard to say anything about Piranesi without saying too much. The earlier book was realistic historical fantasy. Unfortunately, health issues put a dent in a promising career, and her second novel, Piranesi, didnвЂ™t come out until 2020. It was an inspiration for my The Magic Battery. In 2005 it got a Hugo Award, a World Fantasy Award, and a Locus Award. Susanna ClarkeвЂ™s first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Then thereвЂ™s another character in the maze, and slowly you discover thereвЂ™s a story and a mystery to solve. At first itвЂ™s just the strangeness and magnitude of the place that grabs your interest. This entry was posted in Book discussion and tagged books fantasy fiction on Octoby Gary McGathДid you ever play those old adventure games, like Zork, where you wander through a maze, mapping it out while discovering strange and wonderful things? Piranesi feels like being in that kind of game.

Piranesi book club questions