I love to read what my daughter is reading, so when Sidra recommended Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke, I was eager. I read it while visiting Germany and Spain in September, which seemed an apt setting. The story has a European feel, in its evocative world of labyrinthine halls filled with great staircases and marble statues. Very transportive. The tale is told from an intriguing point of view - by someone who had lost grasp of what is happening, who he is, and how he'd come to be there. Yet he strives to be rational and scientific. He keeps journals and lists. It was a trip to watch him evolve.
What a cool story. Here are two quotes:
Page 27: It was the very depths of Winter. Snow was piled on the Steps of the Staircases. Every Statue in the Vestibules wore a cloak or shroud or hat of snow. Every Statue with an outstretched Arm (of which there are many) held an icicle like a dangling sword or else a line of icicles hung from the Arm as if it were sprouting feathers.
Page 174: He led me to a sitting room. The Berlioz was playing. He turned down the volume but it still played in the background of our conversation, the soundtrack of catastrophe.
