Book Review — Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I have never come across a book so hard to classify before. Firstly, this book is beautifully written; a triumph for a first person point of view. Piranesi (the character) is kooky enough that effulgent and flowery prose is not incongruous. Framed as their journals, we open in media res with our narrator explaining something fantastical as though it is mundane. Secondly, the restrained pacing. The drops of exposition happen at exactly the right time and build towards a feeling of being genuinely unsettled. The capitalisation of many words is a choice. It's quite Germanic and feels alien but persevere because it becomes second nature quickly enough. It seems to inflate the importance of Objects — at least to this English reader — whether they are important or not. But, then again, to our narrator they are important and that's all that matters. My feelings towards Piranesi change through the book; they are ultimately sympathetic. I went from "awww, we'd be friends" to "I will kill for…