Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and The Ladies of Grace Adieu, has just released a new novel, named after the Italian artist of architecture and imagination Piranesi. An example of his work is the feature image in this post.
Piranesi lives almost alone in a labyrinthian house with flooded basements, countless statues, and skeletons lying about. He moves about observing everything and occasionally talking to the one other man in the house, who isn’t as interested in the things he is.
The Idle Woman finds it thrilling. “Susanna Clarke’s long-awaited new novel transports us to an extraordinary world and poses a question: How can we understand and rationalise our world when we can’t escape it? Dream, reality and perception tremble on the brink in one of the most original novels I’ve ever read.”
. A marvelous, original conception carried off with what looks like effortless grace, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a sprawling, lengthy epic in the heroic fantasy vein, but set in early 19th Century England and narrated in a style reminiscent of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen (and probably other Victorian authors of whom I’m ignorant. I was always a little weak on my 19th Century English fiction). If you’re looking for headlong, fast-paced adventure, this is not the book for you. This is a leisurely book, whose pleasures are subtle ones. I found it totally delightful.