In 2007, Clarke revisited the edgelands between reason and magic in the stories of The Ladies of Grace Adieu. That novel made the formal barriers between fantasy, historical and “literary” fiction vanish as if crumbled by a spell, as did (in her virtuoso pastiche) the stylistic fences between Jane Austen and early Dickens. In 2004, Susanna Clarke published Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, her epic, learned, playful tale of rival Regency magicians in a beautifully confected parallel England. We have waited a long time to meet Piranesi. This dapper, irascible, middle-aged fusspot in neatly tailored outfits scolds and bullies Piranesi when they meet (“Can we not do this now? I’m trying to get this ritual sorted.”) He, who subsists on fish caught from the swelling seas on its lower levels, still lives and breathes. Piranesi believes that fifteen humans have existed in the House, and thus the World. Partial skeletons, which he curates and cherishes, endure among the statues as tokens of prior human habitation. Birds of various species fly through and nest in the House Piranesi dates this journal to “the Year the Albatross came to the South-Western Halls”. Clouds in the upper galleries breed rain and mist seas – and sometimes tidal floods – wash through its nether regions the Middle Halls between are “the Domain of birds and of men”. The House, which is “for all practical purposes identical” with “the World”, has its own climate. Piranesi’s favourites include “the Gorilla, the Young Boy playing the Cymbals, the Woman carrying a Beehive, the Elephant carrying a Castle, the Faun, the Two Kings playing Chess”.

Susanna clarke piranesi review