An Enchantment

Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is a meditation on personal history, loyalty, trust and truth

- Manjula Padmanabhan

The narrator of Susanna Clarke’s book, a young man whose name might be Piranesi, speaks to us with endearing directness. He lives alone, he says, in soaring marble halls, surrounded by clouds, tides and beautiful statues.

His closest companions are the skeletal remains of 13 people. But wait, he’s not entirely alone. There’s an “Other”. Indeed, that man is the one who bestowed the name Piranesi upon the narrator. The Other is similar in age and appearance, but he is not always present and he is not very nice. There are birds too, and seaweed and fishes. The seaweed must be dried to be used as fuel, the fish must be caught for food.

None of it makes any sense! We follow Piranesi around in a fog of uncertainty, alternately afraid for and charmed by him. He is genuinely kind, with a child-like openness. It’s impossible not to love him. It’s equally impossible to believe that he’s telling us the truth. These infinite halls, for instance, cannot possibly exist in reality. Yet his daily life follows the usual laws of physics: in order to set the seaweed alight, he needs matches. In order to reach the upper level of the mansion, he can’t just float, he needs to climb up. Then those journals he keeps—how did he get them? When did he learn to write? The questions pile up, restless as the tides that thunder through these halls.

PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke BLOOMSBURY ₹699; 272 pages