“The cure for loneliness is solitude” -Marianne Moore
Title: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Plot: Piranesi can’t remember his real name or what he was doing a few years ago, but that doesn’t bother him too much.
He’s too busy exploring ‘the house’, a vast, sea-swept palace filled with strange tides, birds and statues, and recording its wonders.
Good For: Loneliness, Reinventing Yourself, Connecting with Wonder, Beauty, Joy.
One of the most insidious qualities of loneliness is the way it separates us from the world. In her novel Piranesi, Susanna Clarke offers a counter to the notion that to be alone is to be lonely.
Piranesi, the novel’s protagonist, loves the half-drowned world of statues, fish and birds he lives in. He knows the tides, understands the birds, and brings offerings to the skeletons in the alcove. He passes most days in solitude, fishing in deep pools, recording his observations. On occasion he crosses paths with ‘The Other’, the world’s only other human inhabitant, a self- absorbed academic with a secret.
“The beauty of the house is immeasurable; its kindness is infinite,” Piranesi writes.
Over time, Piranesi discovers things that unsettle him: strange smells, unsettling memories and cryptic messages. He begins to piece together a large picture of who he is, where he came from and if he wants to go back. In Piranesi, solitude is not an escape from the world, it’s a path into it. Those who notice, develop the ability to see more deeply. This comes with challenges of its own.
In an interview with NPR, Suzanna Clarke shared that she wrote Piranesi while housebound for 10 years with chronic fatigue syndrome. Her experience of solitude was the inspiration for this book and its protagonist, who she says she learned from as she wrote the novel. Her novel is deeply kind, expressive and interested in the world. I am so grateful for it.
