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Piranesi

Susanna Clarke

Start date: September 1, 2021

Finish date: November 30, 2021

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Mar 17, 2025 Joanna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi, 2025-read, rws-2025-spring

A very strange very lovely book. I had a hard time thinking of Piranesi as a man; somehow the character felt female to me. But that's neither here nor there. I loved the world-building here with a labyrinth full of statues and a house partly underwater.

The plot required a fair bit of suspension of disbelief and relied a bit too much on convenient discovery of information just when it was needed. Still, because the whole book felt sort of fable-like, it didn't end up bothering me.

I read this in t ...more

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Jun 19, 2022 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rws-2022-summer

An academic has a theory that pre-modern man experienced the world differently and more fully than we do in the present. He sets out to prove that that world still exists. It takes the reader awhile to devine this world through the writings of its living occupant, Piranesi. To become immersed in this book, one has to slowly let go of their reasoning, logical brain and converse with Piranesi and the House. It is quite the experience.

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Oct 24, 2020 Deedee marked it as to-read

Shelves: nebula-award-nominee, cover-black, np-what-weve-read-2022, published-in-09september, scifi-and-fantasy-book-club, 0000scifi-and-fantasy-club-unread, close-reads-with-david-kern, beyond-reality-fantasy, np-what-weve-read-2023, indie-next-2020

I started this and it was convoluted and abstract. Right now I'm not in the mood for puzzler dreamlike stories -- so I laid this book aside, with plans to come back to it when I'm looking for a 'challenging' novel. ...more

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