48 pages • 1 hour read
Susanna ClarkePiranesi
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Hypnotic Power of Architecture
Architecture is central to the novel, starting with the title (and one of the names of the narrator). Giovanni Battista Piranesi created the Carceri d’invenzione, or Imaginary Prisons, etchings in the early 1700s. These prints have many features that are seen in Clarke’s novel: arches, staircases, and, of course, statues. Piranesi’s prints are inspired by Roman buildings and Clarke’s labyrinth is an “infinite series of classical buildings knitted together” (178).
While the Italian artist’s prints include one titled “Arch with a Shell Ornament,” Clarke generally introduces a sea that isn’t originally present in the Carceri: her labyrinth is submerged in varying degrees throughout the novel. The watery halls of Piranesi’s House lead to unique architectural blending between natural and statuesque elements, such as “a Woman crowned with coral, her Hands transformed into stars or flowers. There are Figures horned with coral, or crucified on coral branches, or stuck through with coral arrows” (227) and a “Staircase that had become one vast bed of mussels” (55).
The tension between carefully crafted architectural structures and wild nature is the crux of this theme. The narrator believes that “The House is valuable because it is the House” (60) and “the Statue is superior to the thing itself, the Statue being perfect, eternal and not subject to decay” (222). For Piranesi, the labyrinth does not need to provide occult knowledge, as it does for Arne-Sayles and Ketterley. The enduring qualities of the statues make them superior to the world that the other men seek to control.
Furthermore, statues are anthropomorphic, caring beings. They are “silent presences that brought [Piranesi] comfort and enlightenment” (240). When warning Raphael about the flood, he writes: “THE STATUES ARE GRACIOUS AND WILL PROTECT YOU” (159), extending this care to another person. When Ketterley attacks, they are “shielded from the Other’s gun by the Giant’s Body” and “the Horned Giant held us fast” (206-207). Climbing these statues keeps them from being shot or drowned.
However, there are costs to the architectural power that protects its dwellers. Aside from minor physical injury, such as the narrator being grazed by a “shard of splintered marble” (209) in the shooting, the main concern is the psychological toll of the labyrinth. It “plays tricks on the mind. It makes people forget things” (67) about their past. One can retain information about the structure itself—Piranesi “never forget[s] anything about the labyrinth” (68)—but will lose a sense of self and relation to other human beings.
The Importance of Writing
The written word is highly valued by the narrator; he says his “Journals and Index are almost as dear to me as my Life” (196). Writing demystifies the world for readers. It is a “a medium by which Reason can pass from one Person to another” (169) and “evidence of [...] People who have lived” (80). The knowledge contained in writing can inform different splintered personalities of each other (such as Piranesi and Sorensen), as well as transmit knowledge to and about other humans. At the end of the novel, Sorensen remains mostly on the page; “Without the journals I would be all at sea” (238) the narrator says about Sorensen’s past.
Additionally, writing is a physical act for the narrator. Even before entering the labyrinth where he didn’t have access to technology, Ketterley notes that Sorensen uses “physical pen and paper” (175). In fact, it is the recognition of his own handwriting that convinces the narrator that he has experienced memory loss. He says, “It was my handwriting—no doubt about that—but it was subtly different from the writing I currently employ. It was slightly rounder and fatter—in a word, younger” (105).
The written word, for the narrator, contrasts with the words that exist in his mind and ears. When he reads journal entries composed before his memory loss, those “words on the page—(in my own writing!)—looked like words, but at the same time I knew they were meaningless” (108). This is an example of the structuralist theory of language (how meaning is formed between words and ideas) breaking down (an idea that is explored in the theory of poststructuralism). When Arne-Sayles speaks a name to Piranesi, there is no auditory recall, but the name was written “in the Index” (103).
In addition to the bound journals and index, there are other forms of writing that help the narrator escape his prison, such as “pieces of torn paper” (62), chalk letters on pavement (72), and words formed out of pebbles (188). The written word takes precedence over and is indeed what describes the other forms of media in the novel, but the labyrinth’s existence is also substantiated by film and photographs, such as the film made by poet Sylvia D’Agostino called “Castle” that featured a “house with a flooded basements and statues” (118).
Memory Loss as an Isolating Force
The labyrinth functions on two levels: one, as a portal universe that contains knowledge of the ancients, and two, a metaphor for a mental breakdown. The narrator initially believes that there are only two living people, but eventually learns that he has forgotten the people he used to know before entering the labyrinth. There are initial hints that humanity may have been destroyed, such as statues of “Octopuses tearing People apart [...] Faces were distorted in screams of rage or anguish” (37). However, it turns out that the narrator’s “perception of time has got out of sync [...] With everyone else” (68); he is simply disconnected from humanity.
Memory loss is indicative not only of the labyrinth’s mystical powers, but also of the trauma of abduction and incarceration. In a moment of Stockholm Syndrome, the narrator doesn’t want to leave the labyrinth after Raphael comes to rescue him. Being incarcerated and magically altered made him temporarily prioritize caring for his “own Dead” (82) over consoling Sorensen’s worried family and friends. However, he realizes that “if I remain in these Halls I will be alone” (228) and chooses to return to society with Raphael. He had longed for another person before she arrived, and seeing her from a distance “fascinates and excites” him because “she is another human being” (144). In this way, the novel not only speaks to how people would function in a fantastical other world, but also investigates the psychological impacts of incarceration in our world.
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By Susanna Clarke
