La casa de Piranesi no es un edificio cualquiera: sus habitaciones son monumentales, con paredes llenas de miles de estatuas, y sus pasillos, interminables. Dentro del dédalo de corredores hay un océano aprisionado en el que las olas retumban y las mareas inundan los aposentos. Pero Piranesi no tiene miedo: comprende las embestidas del mar igual que el patrón del laberinto, mientras explora los límites de su mundo y avanza, con la ayuda de un hombre llamado El Otro, en una investigación científica para alcanzar El Gran Conocimiento Secreto.
En primer lugar, debo decir que leer a cualquiera de las ganadoras del Women's Prize for Fiction siempre es una excelente idea.
Piranesi es una novela breve, pero que alberga muchas historias en sí misma: desde la encantadora vida del protagonista en su Casa-Mundo hasta los secretos del Mundo más allá de ella. Quizá la historia pierde un poco de impacto con todas las pistas que la autora incluye en la misma, empezando por el título, pero se presta a tantas reflexiones que igual me merece 5 estrellas.
"La Hermosura de la Casa es inconmesurable; su Bondad, infinita."
Todavía estoy procesando lo que he leído, y creo que va a permanecer dando vueltas por mi cabeza durante mucho tiempo.
Es increíble todo lo que albergan las pocas páginas de esta novela. Leer Piranesi es muy parecido a caminar por un sueño. Cuando te quieres dar cuenta, sus descripciones de la Casa y sus extraños personajes te han absorbido y todo lo que quieres es desentrañar sus secretos y desvelar qué hay detrás de esta narrativa tan intrigante.
I've been excited by Susanna Clarke's writing since I first picked up Jonathan Strange, and when I first heard this book was coming out, I was suddenly aware that I hadn't heard about her in a long while! Some Googling revealed that she'd been suffering from severe health issues for years now, and this book was the result of more years of hardship than I could fathom. I preordered it immediately, and read it the moment it arrived.
Wow. So different, so quiet, and so, so good.
I've read plenty of reviews that disparage the book (usually because they felt the plot was thin or easily deduced, or because the narration was too simple or unrelatable), but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was surprised when reveals came, I was drawn into the narration and worldbuilding, and I found the narrator endearing, if a bit alien in perspective. …
I've been excited by Susanna Clarke's writing since I first picked up Jonathan Strange, and when I first heard this book was coming out, I was suddenly aware that I hadn't heard about her in a long while! Some Googling revealed that she'd been suffering from severe health issues for years now, and this book was the result of more years of hardship than I could fathom. I preordered it immediately, and read it the moment it arrived.
Wow. So different, so quiet, and so, so good.
I've read plenty of reviews that disparage the book (usually because they felt the plot was thin or easily deduced, or because the narration was too simple or unrelatable), but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was surprised when reveals came, I was drawn into the narration and worldbuilding, and I found the narrator endearing, if a bit alien in perspective. It even holds up to rereads!
All told, I found it delightful, and hopefully you will/have too!
I didn't know what to expect coming into this and I firmly recommend trying to go in with as little knowledge as you possibly can. The unfolding that occurs throughout the narrative was the payoff, the end just another event along a wave of experience.
A library book that has inevitably made it to my own collection, amongst the shelf of favorites that are destined to be reread over and over again.
This is one of those books that's unlike any other. It's surreal and dreamy and the sheer "what the heck's going on?" factor compelled me to read it all in one day.
A novel like this - light on plot, with an extremely limited cast of characters, told in an epistolary style - really sinks or swims on the narrative voice. Luckily the titular Piranesi is fun to read, and comes across as practical and clever, curious and sweet. His ignorance is charming rather than frustrating, and of course his naivete is all part of the mystery.
Highly recommended to anyone who loves an atmospheric and/or experimental story.
Al principio no sabía muy bien dónde me había metido y estaba un poco perdida, pero enseguida me ha enganchado. En cuanto estás apunto de aburrirte, pasan cosas y te enganchas más. La segunda mitad no podía dejarlo.
I really enjoyed the book, the smaller world that the protagonist lives in is very simple and is intriguing, but not somewhere I feel I need to return to. The larger universe though is interesting, with its reality plus a little magic vibe.
I enjoyed the unravelling mystery and it compelled me to read it much faster than I've read books of similar size.
The first few chapters describing the House reminded me of the descriptions of The Sleeper Service in Iain M Banks' book Excession. To the point where I thought the book was going to go in a sci-fi direction.
I found this book a bit slow for the first 50–60 pages, which are spent mostly describing the World without much of any sort of Plot happening. It only really begins to pick up around Part 3, when the mystery inherent to the setting starts to unravel, all through the eyes of a narrator not so much unreliable as naïve and lacking in knowledge, which makes him unable to understand things which are clear to the reader. It's the sort of book where it's worth reading (or at least skimming) the first few parts again to see what you missed the first read through.
If we were born in another world what form would the shadows cast upon the walls of our cave take? What mythologies and art would inform our identity? What are the limits that malicious people have to do harm through warping and confining our realities? How does the society around me shape the person I am at any given time?
Piranesi explores these questions in a labyrinth of an endless house full of statues that is flooded by the sea. The answers are in the faces of our neighbors and in the hushing pose of the faun.
I've waited so long for a sequel to Strange & Norrell, but was thrilled to see the publication of this second, much different novel, which may (or may well not) be in the same "universe", as it were, as S & N.
The upshot: this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful books I have ever read, I can't recommend it enough.
(PS, it's a finalist in both the 2020 Nebula and Hugo awards.)
