Piranesi

En primer lugar, debo decir que leer a cualquiera de las ganadoras del Women's Prize for Fiction siempre es una excelente idea.

Piranesi es una novela breve, pero que alberga muchas historias en sí misma: desde la encantadora vida del protagonista en su Casa-Mundo hasta los secretos del Mundo más allá de ella. Quizá la historia pierde un poco de impacto con todas las pistas que la autora incluye en la misma, empezando por el título, pero se presta a tantas reflexiones que igual me merece 5 estrellas.

"La Hermosura de la Casa es inconmesurable; su Bondad, infinita."

It's hard to overstate how much this book feels written specifically for me - I love books with any sort of physically improbable gigantic building, fantasy books where people enter other worlds, academic thrillers, etc - and Piranesi nails the blend perfectly. A sheer delight with an extremely thoughtful denouement.

This is one of those books that's unlike any other. It's surreal and dreamy and the sheer "what the heck's going on?" factor compelled me to read it all in one day.

A novel like this - light on plot, with an extremely limited cast of characters, told in an epistolary style - really sinks or swims on the narrative voice. Luckily the titular Piranesi is fun to read, and comes across as practical and clever, curious and sweet. His ignorance is charming rather than frustrating, and of course his naivete is all part of the mystery.

Highly recommended to anyone who loves an atmospheric and/or experimental story.

Al principio no sabía muy bien dónde me había metido y estaba un poco perdida, pero enseguida me ha enganchado. En cuanto estás apunto de aburrirte, pasan cosas y te enganchas más. La segunda mitad no podía dejarlo.

I really liked this story! Glad it got put on my radar from Jacob Geller's video on infinity.

Nice little book. Had to read it in one sitting.

I really enjoyed the book, the smaller world that the protagonist lives in is very simple and is intriguing, but not somewhere I feel I need to return to. The larger universe though is interesting, with its reality plus a little magic vibe. I enjoyed the unravelling mystery and it compelled me to read it much faster than I've read books of similar size. The first few chapters describing the House reminded me of the descriptions of The Sleeper Service in Iain M Banks' book Excession. To the point where I thought the book was going to go in a sci-fi direction.

I found this book a bit slow for the first 50–60 pages, which are spent mostly describing the World without much of any sort of Plot happening. It only really begins to pick up around Part 3, when the mystery inherent to the setting starts to unravel, all through the eyes of a narrator not so much unreliable as naïve and lacking in knowledge, which makes him unable to understand things which are clear to the reader. It's the sort of book where it's worth reading (or at least skimming) the first few parts again to see what you missed the first read through.

If we were born in another world what form would the shadows cast upon the walls of our cave take? What mythologies and art would inform our identity? What are the limits that malicious people have to do harm through warping and confining our realities? How does the society around me shape the person I am at any given time?

Piranesi explores these questions in a labyrinth of an endless house full of statues that is flooded by the sea. The answers are in the faces of our neighbors and in the hushing pose of the faun.

I'm a big sucker for mysterious spaces and Piranesi delivers in spades. Characters are very interesting too, the story's theme resonates as well.