I'm with you. I was hooked from page one!

Same! I was low key kinda expecting that to be the main focus for far longer than it was.

Absolutely. There are also so many different interpretations of the books I feel like...a lot of different ways you could view the characters. I'm so glad you loved it!

It's a really special book and I think it has wide appeal to even non-fantasy readers. Like you said, Piranesi is such a pure character and it also is something I could think deeply about and get a lot from.

I DIDN'T! Educate me! What were the references? I haven't read that series in a supppper long time.

@@Bookborn Well, in the first book of the Narnia series (the Magician's Nephew) the premise is that there are mysterious other worlds that one can reach through magic. So she clearly pulled some inspiration from that (she even quoted Lewis in the beginning of the book). And then the magician in The Magician's Nephew is named Andrew Ketterley, and Ketterley happens to be the name of the Other. Also, there is emphasis placed on the statue of the faun, and at one point there's the quote, "I dreamt of him once; he was standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child." So that's clearly referencing when Mr. Tumnus (the faun) and Lucy first meet in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I'm sure there are some more easter eggs, but that's just what I remember off the top of my head. It's a pretty cool element of the book :)

@@aplatypusguy27 At first I was going to say that reaching other worlds through magic is a pretty common trope, BUT those other references are dead on and I didn't even realize! I remember most about the Magician's Nephew and I The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, so I can't believe I didn't at least catch that Mr. Tumnus reference.

The Other's full name here is Valentine Andrew Ketterley. On page 167 of the novel (3rd entry for the 21st day of the 9th month....), the entry for page 187 of Journal no. 2, it states that the Ketterley's are an old Dorsetshire family. "Uncle Andrew" Ketterley in CS Lewis says almost the exact same words!

MUST BE PROTECTED! I'm glad you liked it!

I'm really curious. What should the book be protected from? Is it in danger? At all costs? I'd really like to know what cost you have in mind.

@@MrGoldbeere the character Piranesi needs to be protected, not the book. All costs is self explanatory

@Jake Bishop Thank you for your answer. Can you please help me a bit more? Is it that the character is precious to you, here in our world, or do you mean that Piranesi needs to be protected in the context of the story? About the cost: Of cource 'all' means 'all', I just wondered what a potential cost could look like. I've heard a lot of good things about the book and I've read the first few pages, but somehow I can't relate to it. But anyway thank you, that you've answered my questions.

YES! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

I'm so glad to find someone else who loves it! I'm always impressed when an author can lead me along like that!

I think we are supposed to figure out that the real world exists before Piranesi does and live with the dramatic irony for a while as he struggles with it

@@StrawberryCrush2000 yep for sure

I'm so glad to find someone else who didn't think the first part was slow. It was a ride from start to finish!

lol it's so funny how reading his series have legitimately changed the way I read permanently.

Glad to help your TBR get even longer 😂😅

Yes I’m so glad that happened to someone else. It’s hard to describe why - something about Piranesi as a character is so gripping

It was so strange but it was hard not to love.

I really agree with Clarke giving us lots of clues even within the very first pages (lol @ your comment on how you thought she didn’t pay attention to details hahaha). To me the simplest clue was the fact that Piranesi was able to describe every single statue even though they represented something he’d never seen before. Eg. I believe the first statue described is the woman with the beehive - it was incoherent as technically he could have never known what a beehive was. That’s how I knew that he was either not native to the House and/or had memory loss

I don’t think I’ve ever had the feeling that the Other was good. I found he seemed sketchy from the beginning

I also like that the soft magic system was not overly explained. A lot was left to the imagination and that added to my reading experience!

I also ADORED Raphael’s way of making Piranesi feeling comfortable and letting him know that he could come on his own terms and when he was ready

I'm so impressed you thought The Other was sketchy from the beginning! I did not pick up on that AT ALL. For whatever reason him knowing about the beehive didn't phase me (there were birds there right?) but chess is the one that really bothered me. I'm so excited for your live show this Friday to see this discussed in detail! Did you find anyone who didn't like it?

I'm so intrigued by the house representing reading! I somehow haven't heard that theory yet!

I'm envious of people who are so good at imagining places! I only ever get a vague sense of what things feel/look like - I don't have a very good minds eye haha

Yesss I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! JS&MN is super different than Piranesi. Very much a slow burn … but it pays off in the end, imo

I really enjoyed how you can tell the Other manipulates Piranesi just by their conversations and the Other's attitude towards Piranesi.

Isn't it just AMAZING?? I think it is in my top ten favorite books of all time, too. I need to reread it!

I thought the same regarding its rereadabilty

It was SUCH a strange book, but then again I like weird stuff so I think that's why I got so endeared to it!

The

I KNOW. It's so good. I think I need to reread it early next year.

I don't think it's that weird - a ton of people I know like to read with the audiobook! I want this book to win all the prizes...it's so amazing

It mean it is fantasy LitFic, so it could be possible! I don't know much about her so I don't know if that's something she'd be interested in or not. I did love that world so much and could use a novella on some other of the characters. That being said, this book is VERY different from Norell!

I'm so glad you loved it as much as I did. What a ride.

YAY!! I'm so glad you loved it as much as me. I totally agree, this is the kind of book I wish I could write. I've never read anything from Borges!

Borges is an argentinian author of mainly short stories. He writes magic realism. He often writes philosophical mysteries. Piranesi reminded me of those. His most famous story is the Library of Babel about an endless library.

I changed my username to Florfilm. Now that I’m more active here I didn’t want to use my full name. Plus it’s now the same as on instagram. I just wanted to mention it so you still recognize me. 🙂

I hope you like it! I'm still worried it'll be a little polarizing lol

@@Bookborn 6 months later I finally read it . And I loved it. Contender for my favorite book of the year.

@@afantasybabble6222 YESSSS! I'm so glad you loved it! It's for sure in my top five books of the year.

I’ve heard the audio is amazing! I may have to try it for the reread.

What was the Dr Who reference??

@@Bookborn There was a list of references when he was looking up Ketterley in his journals and one of the first entries was Timey Wimey by Steven Moffat who is probably the best known writer of Doctor Who. When I saw it it brought a whole new level of nerdy love for this book I didn’t think was possible!

I hope you do too!

"So much for march buddy read" lol SO TRUE. I finished it the last Friday in Feb 😂 Ohhh I hope you like Mistborn!

@@Bookborn I loved the final empire. Read it in 4 days which is very quick for me. When I wasn't reading about it, I was thinking about it. There is a cosmere readalong, which I want to follow along with (#cosmereunbounded) but I'm not sure I can wait that long between books.

@@SteveCadman ahhhh man. The third book in the trilogy has an AMAZING ending.

@@Bookborn in that case, that's another 'readalong' changed to a 'readinadvance'

Nope, I haven't. I've only read two Stephen Kings; I'm not a huge thriller/horror reader!

I love the Dark Tower. It’s what got me into fantasy. It’s a mix between western, science fiction and fantasy. It’s kind of dystopian and it has absolutely amazing characters. The ending is a little devisive but I loved it. Let’s just say if you like a neat ending that explains everything it’s probably not for you. If you’re more of a character and atmosphere guy like me you will probably love it.

I know! I wanted to protect him so badly!

Oh I really really like him.

I personally thought it was intentional - Piranesi is extremely naive in a way the reader isn't, so I think we were supposed to pick up on those clues really easily.

I know, when I read those reviews I laughed. I was like, okay, finally, high fantasy has PREPARED ME FOR THIS. I hope you like it!!

YESSS another stan! It's so so good.

I haven't reread it since I was 15, so I'm hesitant to make a comment on it until I do lol!

Oh, it absolutely slipped right past me! So I bet that clue was so fun for people familiar with the place

Both were so good in totally different ways

I hope you like it!

What a cool way of putting it! I agree - if you're confused in the *right* way it's awesome. I understood enough of what was happening that it wasn't disorienting. ahhhh man I already miss this book. I've never heard of Anathem. I'll have to look into it!

@@Bookborn if you read Anathem just be aware that there is a glossary that helps with the made-up terms. It isn’t necessary to enjoy the book but it helped me a lot at the beginning.

Oh man you need to keep reading. Those are the right questions to be asking ;)

lol I mean...it def got boring in a lot of places but I thought it was ultimatey worth it in the end. Piranesi is VERY different though. Much faster paced (imo, although some people said they felt the beginning was a bit slow), much shorter (like a third of the length) and a very different feel.

Great! Definitely will add it to the TBR. Thanks!

It's always so funny how different people interpret different things! For whatever reason, the beginning of this novel was as un-put-downable as the end.

@@Bookborn that’s true. That’s why I’ll always give a book another chance after DNFing it when people keep talking about it and saying it’s really good. I wish I could do that with people and maybe one day I will.

@@championcitypeople7921 lol people are a lot harder to give more chances to than books, sometimes, because they change while a book never does haha.

@@championcitypeople7921 True. This is actually my first time reading a novel. I was intimidated in the first 17 pages because of those unfamiliar words like vestibules, plinths, apse (I'm not a native English speaker). After a few googling, I've managed to catch up to what Clarke is trying to tell me lol. 18 onwards, I can no longer stop myself from reading until I finished it 3 days ago.

@@vincemess Same here. Not a native englisch speaker and I really struggled the first 30 pages. I think it was because of the numbers. After page 55 it really picked up. Haha and I was so confused in the beginning. How does he know what a Ham Sandwich is? And how comes that there are so many real world elements that don‘t seem to fit into this word. That why I loved how it slowly revealed the truth and made me question everything. So great.

JUST DO IT. Your TBR pile will forgive you. Maybe.

@@Bookborn it may have taken a couple weeks but I have NO regrets. Dear god I loved this book

@@connoroleary725 YESSSS!!! I'M SO GLAD

I always assumed that it was a way to travel to other worlds - but...obviously that's just my interpretation.

@@Bookborn Hmm, that does not go with the bullet points that Piranesi lists at the beginning of the book about the Knowledge. But maybe this was not something that was meant to be revealed. I kept thinking that the mystery of what is the purpose of this house and what the other is looking for will be given a satisfactory explanation. But I suppose this is more of a 'Journey before destination' kind of book

I just finished a re-read and loved the book more the second time. As to the Knowledge, I understood it to be humankind's original understanding of nature and our ability to commune with it, giving us wisdom. Eventually we "advanced" beyond this harmony with nature and had forgotten it. When the Prophet meets Piranesi, he explains that when humans forgot about this knowledge, the knowledge wouldn't have simply evaporated, it would have gone somewhere. He describes the House as having been created by the flow of that knowledge, similar to how caves are created by water flowing through cracks in the stone. To me, the irony is, while the Other traveled to the House seeking the Knowledge, he was clueless to the fact that Piranesi himself had already rediscovered the Knowledge himself. Piranesi had forgotten our modern life and reestablished that connection with nature, talking to the birds and to the wind, etc. And he retains that knowledge when he returns to the real world, seeing the echoes of the statues in real people, and finally proclaiming "The beauty of the House is immeasurable" at the end. That was my take, anyway :) (though I'm not sure I explained it very well lol)

Oh no, why didn't you like the ending? I loved it!

@@Bookborn Sorry, but I wish the story was resolved within its own reality, without entering our normal reality. Particularly when 16 admits that she's a police officer, the dream is over and you have to wake up.

Nope! Not that I noticed. It’s a very short book and there isn’t even any romance.

@@Bookborn Bu more than one review answered me that (yes it does have) :( that’s weird

Yes, it does. You might get the reference in the second half.

I personally disagree! I felt at first that the Other was rude, yes, but not necessarily as evil as he was in the end. I went on the journey with Piranesi and discovering...I would also say, though, I wasn't necessarily *trying* to predict anything, more enjoying the ride.

@@Bookborn I wasn’t ‘trying’ to predict! The prediction just happened because of how obvious the novel’s conclusion was from the moment the Other withheld information from Piranesi. The dramatic irony was set to 11 so I don’t see how it was possible to miss it. But even if you did miss it, how is it possible to read a book without thinking about what is going on with the characters, their development and future, as well as a whole host of other things like structure, narrative, technique, context etc. I’m not saying every reader has to analytically dissect everything they read, but if you are reading for plot alone then it seems strange not to think ahead. Otherwise what’s the point of reading if it simply just washes over you?

Hard agree! I LOVED Piranesi but it was hella predictable. I dont care tho.

The plot might even be predictable, but not really. The real motives and insights you might take, only are revealed by the end. I might have understood her clues more than the usual, and there are at least two opposite ways of interpret the book. Would you say that he suffered from schizofrenia? PTSD? Alternative worlds? Was it a cult? Was it a fantasy?