His diction, presentation and emotion are all perfect. Serendipitously, this exquisite poetic fable is here further enhanced by Chiwetel Ejiofor’s narration. The fact that she managed to create Piranesi while suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome makes the achievement all the more amazing. And ultimately it is a bittersweet celebration of the poignant beauty and mystery of simply being. Susanna Clarke is a master wordsmith at the peak of her craft, leaving out all unnecessary descriptions and explanations, allowing the visions to stand for themselves and the questions to arise of their own accord and seek their own answers within your awareness. Reading it creates a dream world within that continues to unfold and resonate with your own dreams and questions long after you have put the book down. Piranesi is a mysterious, touching wonderment, a poetic and visionary masterpiece. Like the Eleanor Rigby, Alice in Wonderland, The Little Prince, Guernica or Gymnopédie, you are immediately aware from the first moment of contact that you are in the presence of something profound and lasting that is going to remain part of our collective awareness for many, many years to come. It has become increasingly rare to be able to experience a new classic just as it has been produced. He made me feel acutely just how much I have lost by becoming modern, adult, and sophisticated. Maybe you did not feel what I felt, a love for his childlike goodness and sense of wonder. But maybe you like your main characters to be powerful, in control, hardboiled. I would have followed him on any adventure. His optimism, skepticism, precision, and earnestness totally won me over. Finally, I loved the book because I loved the main character. It’s not a small thing for this author to add something fresh and exciting to a 3,000 year old conversation. You might be thinking about the Plot when she is thinking about the Meaning. Also, if you are not familiar with Plato and Lewis and Borges, you might not realize the ideas Clarke is playing with. I can imagine that people who have not had to go through this experience will not be as amazed by how Clarke has conveyed it.

Piranesi enthralled me because it brought up so many of my feelings around losing my worldview in my twenties. I’d like to take a stab at an explanation. But something special must be happening here for the reviews to be so polarized.

It makes me wonder, Are we all reading the same book? No of course we aren’t. One reviewer characterizes the book as a string of random scenes. The other half think it’s boring, predictable, nonsensical. Half the audible readers think the book is genius. And the reaction to it is a fascinating social study. I completely agree with the rave reviews. The book is a wonderful mashup of Plato, CS Lewis, and Borges. The beauty of the House is immeasurable its kindness infinite. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous. Lost texts must be found, secrets must be uncovered. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims? Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other.

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. The spectacular new audiobook from the best-selling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, ‘one of our greatest living authors,’ New York Magazine. Shortlisted for The Costa Novel of The Year Award.Ī Sunday Times and New York Times best seller.Ĭhosen as A Book of The Year by the Times, Guardian, Observer, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, I Paper, New Statesman, Spectator, Time Magazine, Times Literary Supplement, BBC Culture, Netgalley and the Church Times. Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction. Winner of the 2021 Audie Awards Audiobook of the Year. Bloomsbury presents Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, read by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Susanna clarke piranesi audiobook