Book Summary — Piranesi
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1 paragraph summary:
My first bookclub book! A book I would have usually not picked up by myself. Piranesi lives in “the House” which has hundreds of vestibules fitted out with statues and tides coming in and out. Gradually, you find out that he lost his memory and was trapped in the House which is a second world. At first against his will, but now that he lost his memory he’s happy in the House by himself and doesn’t want to leave.
The story ends with a bit of action, but doesn’t have a clear conclusion and there are many ways to interpret it.
My personal reflection on the book had two main parts:
1. The Innocence and Happiness of Piranesi
The first part that drew me in is the innocence of Piranesi how he is inherently good to the world and never things anything evil of the “Other” even though it becomes clear to the reader that the Other doesn’t care about Piranesi.
It also strucks a cord how fundamentally happy Piranesi is in the House. Even though for the reader it feels like a prison and that he “should” return to the real world.
But what is a few days of feeling cold compared to a new albatross in the World?
The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.
Piranesi chooses to see the beauty in his surroundings.
You can’t help but like Piranesi even though if you look at the bigger picture of him getting trapped in the house and losing his memories — he’s truly the victim of an awful crime.
This realisation — the realisation of the Insignificance of the Knowledge — came to me in the form of a Revelation.
I realised that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery.
The House is valuable because it is the House.
It is enough in and of Itself.
It is not the means to an end.
2. Parallels to Lockdown
‘Here you can only see a representation of a river or a mountain, but in our world — the other world — you can see the actual river and the actual mountain.’
I didn’t understand the book when I finished, so I did a bit of reading online. There are suggestions to parallels to our lockdown experience.
Even though they are not 100% aligned — it is kind of interesting to look at the book with that context in mind.
- The way we look at our pre-lockdown selves, during lockdown selves and are fundamentally different post-lockdown.
- How Piranesi found happiness in the “House” and saw the true beauty in it.
- How the small things make the big milestones for him now — like seeing an Albatross
- How even though he recognises things in the real world from the “House” they seem different and more distant — like statues / zoom calls to real world people.
It is definitely a book that made me think about the message it was trying to convey (if there was one) more deeply.
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