Carcosa Bound

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. Published by Bloomsbury, 2020

In a line – Piranese is a charming fantasy, as light and satisfying as a dream in the mid-afternoon. It’s well-written, too, and easily digested in few hours, leaving a fresh, expansive aftertaste.

I’d put it alongside that particularly English style of occult-inflected fictional classics like Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni, Dion Fortune’s Sea Priestess and Moon Magic, and others.

Like the classics of the genre, this has a feeling of being true, or true enough; a roman-à-clef. Susanna Clarke spins this yarn extremely well, and the pacing is perfect; the tension is artfully seeded, built, released and expanded.

As with these, there is that particular but definite characterisation in the actors who populate this short novel. Clarke gently, deftly captures the ambivalent mores and overall posture of the practicing occultist actually working towards something compelling.

I know nothing of the author, her previous work, or her circumstances – though on these grounds, keen to read more. Piranese came to me as one of those great blind recommendations, following a wide-ranging conversation, that will no doubt lead to more.

It’s really nice to read something so fun and classy, and completely outside my own reading stacks.

Here be spoilers

As we descend further into this post, be warned – heavy spoilers below. If you’d rather not let the Sphinx out of the bag, go read it and come back later.

We’ll be here. We’re always here, until we’re not.

Keys lost and found, climbing nightside trees on hills of dreams

It certainly doesn’t feel like this is sewn from virgin cloth, though – making it more fascinating still. There are so many things that feel so achingly familiar here. I love that this feels like a riffing of so many classics, pulled together into something new.

The entire concept – a trapped explorer, in an ancient, adjacent world – brings to mind Kenneth Grant’s bewildering guidebook, Nightside of Eden. Specifically his chapter on accessing the Qlippothic tunnel of Amprodias, via Aleister Crowley’s (or someone’s) sigils of Liber 231.

On re-reading Grant's text, perhaps this is a long bow to draw; Clarke’s serene halls are not haunted by bewitching sylphs that paralyse then parasitise the unwary – though the sense of immensity and endlessness resonate in both.

Even the description of the character Laurence Arne-Sayles kind of matches biographical accounts of Crowley – the lascivious, queer, notorious magician of Piranesi sounds a lot like a non-fawning borrowing of character elements from the magnificent master Therion.

Grant’s 1997 novel Against the Light also featured highly specific candlesticks. Some say this references actual events. Some say all sorts of strange things, especially in these twilight pursuits.

The treatment of the protagonist is like the reverse of the journey of the aspiring writer in Arthur Machen’s 1907 novella, Hill of Dreams. Both are told in the first-person, by completely unreliable narrators.

For pretty deficient character, Piranese gets a moderately-wholesome redemption arc; it's questionable whether he actually deserved it, and certainly didn't save himself. Machen’s hapless naif-of-letters suffers the usual, gothic/romantic/pulp fate of those failing to integrate the expansive experiences of this nature.

As the narrative of Piranese twists, to feature a classy, nostalgia-lite throwback to a vanished world of “things we got up to at university”. These segues have a cozy The Secret History feel to it. Piranese feels a bit like stepping into a similar circle to that so artfully cast by Donna Tartt in her text, back in 1992. The dark academia vibe is immaculate.

Finally – the whole world seems so reminiscent of the masterful Library of Babel of Jorge Luis Borges. But – Clarke’s story is kinder, has more heart and hope. One does not read Borges for heart and hope, but perhaps for inoculation from their tides.

Flashing, yearning, finding

There are so many other flashes of connections present in this book, which makes it all the more charming.

It’s a light, gentle but firm touch in a genre beset with copycats, failed psychologists, bawdy shockjocks, and the ponderously boring.

Sure, literature can be like magic, but actually magic is magic, and unless you’re putting something down, you’re not really playing that game.

The doorways exist. Piranese reads like a love letter to this yearning, and its realisation.