Piranesi

Book review for Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I rated it 4 stars This book kicks off rather abstractly. A man wanders the halls of a huge house with hundreds of rooms. Amongst its many rooms, there are 13 dead bodies - all skeletons - plus one other (alive) man who has given the main character his name, Piranesi. Tides rush in out of the rooms. There's big seabirds, and also seaweed. All Piranesi does (it seems) is wander the halls of this huge, seemingly endless house. I'll admit when I first tried to read this book (maybe a year ago?) the abstract nature of the house really confused me and I didn't get hooked enough to actually read beyond an initial small set of pages. It reminds me a little of House of Leaves, which similarly features a house which is much larger than expected on the inside. The other character Piranesi interacts with (known as the Other) wears suits and is seen typing into "a shining device", so you continue to read you can start to guess that maybe there will be…