Piranesi

I read this book as part of LucieBulle's bookclub monthly community read.

I liked certain aspects:

• already, that the journey to this world was not an "astral" or magical journey, as it seemed to be at the start. I was a little afraid of the end of the novel with the "manisfestation".

*The gradual discovery of the key points of each character's past, and the main one saved by a woman and it does not end in a transfer romance

*The question of identity that comes with experiences and memories, and acceptance from family/friends that he must have had a seizure, and everyone accepts that he needs to go to therapy

Neutral:

• Its scientific methodology is interesting, although repetitive (the statements in each entry are long)

However :

• a lot of repetition of words and above all, long sentences.

*Narrative style not rich enough for my personal tastes.

• Lack of answers concerning the sizes of statues and of this universe that Piranesi lived in... did he measure correctly as it would seem from his writings? or are all sizes exaggerated by the same effect of forgetfulness / on the verge of losing ones bearings?

• By what were these caused? I would have liked, for example, that his executioner had given him drugs or something, which would explain the notions of altered space and time because, at the end, we learn that he must have been a prisoner somewhere near a isolated beach or island; however, to my knowledge, no real place would correspond with Piranesi's measurements...

Almost four and a half stars. I first read this several years ago, and remember being vaguely confused and perhaps a little disappointed by it. But on a second read, it really is very good. I particularly enjoy the tie to magical parts of her other books; in particular the consequences for acolytes of great magicians.

I really enjoyed this. I was captured by the reliable hook of an initially confounding fantastic or symbolic setting, gradually made comprehensible as information is revealed and the reader acclimatizes to the concepts in play. The infinite architectures of The House reminds me of the similarly spectacular House of Leaves, or the YouTube Backrooms phenomenon. It makes me want to revisit the symbolic locations of Banks "The Bridge". It reminds me of deeply evocative late nights, lost in endless videogame worlds.

About 2/3 of the way through, I caught a reference as a character is using childhood memories as part of a ritual to reopen a doorway to a lost world, from the rose garden of his childhood home. As potential doorways begin appearing, he notes "The color of the roses was supernaturally bright."

This is no doubt a deliberate reference to Aldus Huxley's "Doors of Perception" (https://bookwyrm.social/book/168195/s/the-doors-of-perception-and-heaven-and-hell-perennial-classics), a trip report on the opening of said doors during the psychedelic experience of mescaline, in which repeated reference is made to a supernaturally bright and vivid vase of flowers, "shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged".