Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

The enormity of this task sometimes makes me feel a little dizzy, but as a scientist and an explorer I have a duty to bear witness to the Splendours of the World.

We meet twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays) to discuss our work. The Other organises his time meticulously and never permits our meetings to last longer than one hour.

lol. Why does this feel like Piranesi is meeting with his advisor to talk about his research progress?

The Sixteenth Person And You. Who are You? Who is it that I am writing for? Are You a traveller who has cheated Tides and crossed Broken Floors and Derelict Stairs to reach these Halls? Or are You perhaps someone who inhabits my own Halls long after I am dead?

I write down what I observe in my notebooks. I do this for two reasons. The first is that Writing inculcates habits of precision and carefulness. The second is to preserve whatever knowledge I possess for you, the Sixteenth Person.

So far my Journal has filled nine notebooks; this is the tenth. All are numbered and most are labelled with the dates to which they refer.

Where did he ge the notebooks?

No. 3 was originally labelled November 2012, but this has been crossed out at some point and relabelled Thirtieth Day in the Twelfth Month in the Year of Weeping and Wailing, to the Fourth Day of the Seventh Month in the Year I discovered the Coral Halls

hmmm...

I dreamt of him once; he was standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child.

Narnia???

Is it disrespectful to the House to love some Statues more than others? I sometimes ask Myself this question. It is my belief that the House itself loves and blesses equally everything that it has created. Should I try to do the same? Yet, at the same time, I can see that it is in the nature of men to prefer one thing to another, to find one thing more meaningful than another.

I think throughout Piranesi, there is this quiet reminder that meaning isnt found in control but in attention, in truly seeing, appreciating, and finding beauty even in imperfection. I feel that this moment captures that truth perfectly. The House may love all things equally, but humans love particularly, and that’s what makes our love real. It’s how we connect to the world and to each other.

(I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!)

Birds are not difficult to understand. Their behaviour tells me what they are thinking. Generally it runs along the lines of: Is this food? Is this? What about this? This might be food. I am almost certain that this is. Or occasionally: It is raining. I do not like it.

This experience led me to form a hypothesis: perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation.

I realised that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery. The sight of the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall in the Moonlight made me see how ridiculous that is. The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.

Ouf... This moment is his realization that not everything needs to be solved/explained to have value. He sees that treating the House as a means to some higher knowledge strips it of its wonder. The House doesn't exist to give meaning, it is meaning. I feel like it's a reminder to stop chasing understanding long enough to simply *see*. To appreciate beauty for what it is, not for what it can teach or prove... The world, in all its mystery, is already enough.

The World feels Complete and Whole, and I, its Child, fit into it seamlessly.

They were all enamoured with the idea of progress and believed that whatever was new must be superior to what was old. As if merit was a function of chronology!

This is what I call a Distributary World – it was created by ideas flowing out of another world.

In June Arne-Sayles persuaded fifty or so students to demonstrate outside the museum against this blinkered and outdated thinking. The students carried placards that said ‘Free the Head’. Ten days later there was a second demonstration, during which a window was broken and there was a scuffle with the police.

There may have been a slight edge of superciliousness in my voice, which I suppose I would have done better to suppress but I have always liked winning arguments.

surmised, from the similarities to Welsh and Cornish, that it was Brittonic.

Anger makes me resourceful! On Tuesday the Other will come to meet me – it is our regular meeting day. I will snatch him and bind him with fishing nets. With these hands I will do it! I have two fishing nets. They are made of a synthetic polymer and very strong. I shall bind him to the Statues in the Second South-Western Hall. For two days he will be bound. He will be in torment, knowing the Flood is coming. Perhaps I will give him water to drink. Perhaps I will not. Perhaps I will say to him: ‘Soon you will have plenty of Water!’ And on Thursday he will watch the Tides pouring in through the Doors and he will scream and scream.

This is sad, but also I chuckled when he said "soon you'll have plenty of Water", because, you know, the Flood...

My last thought before I fell asleep was: He is dead. My only friend. My only enemy.

Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not. Perhaps that is what Raphael means.

Whenever the Other left me he went back to his own World, but I did not know that at the time; I thought that he was simply in another Part of the House. Believing that there was someone else here made me less lonely. Now, when Raphael returns to the Other World, I will know that I am alone. And so for this reason I have decided to go with Raphael.

There’s something quietly heartbreaking here, the idea that even the most beautiful world feels smaller when there is no one else to see it. Like when you find a book, movie, or song that moves you so much you want to gush about it to someone else, but no one is there to listen. The joy turns into a kind of loneliness. Piranesi’s House might stretch endlessly, filled with statues and tides and light, but without another person to share that wonder, it becomes a hollow echo of itself.

Of all the billions of people in this world Raphael is the one I know best and love most. I understand much better now – better than Piranesi ever could – the magnificent thing she did in coming to find me, the magnitude of her courage. I know that she returns to the labyrinth often. Sometimes we go together; sometimes she goes alone. The quiet and the solitude attract her strongly. In them she hopes to find what she needs.

Today they were snow-strewn and forlorn. A lattice of wire was strung across the courtyard. Paper lanterns were hanging from the wires, spheres of vivid orange that blew and trembled in the snow and the thin wind; the sea-grey clouds raced across the sky and the orange lanterns shivered against them.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

I love when the end of a book echoes a line from its beginning. It feels like the story has come full circle, yet leaves you changed