Piranesi's Themes
November 18, 2024
I recently had the absolute pleasure of reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It's really a fantastic book. I'm not (yet) much of an avid reader, but I picked it up one afternoon and read the whole thing in just one day. Granted, it is a short book, but that's still rare for me. Anyway, I wanted to talk about some of the themes I found particularly interesting.
Piranesi
The titular character, Piranesi, is a reference to Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an Italian architect and artist. He's most famous for his works of fictitious buildings, usually impossibly large and complex. His artwork often depicts ancient, often deteriorating, large complexes with interwoven stairs, statues, and other supporting structures. I don't know which of his works in particular inspired the book (the dude has literally thousands), but if I had to guess, I would say "Ancient intersection of the Via Appia and Via Ardeatina" (pictured below).
Piranesi heavily embellished his artworks. This supposed intersection of a bygone roman era is pretty much completely fictional. We can see two roads that seem to endlessly stretch into the distance, adorned with countless statues and decorative structures. Such grandeur would surely be impossible, but Piranesi's visions are not concerned with what is real, but rather what is grand and beautiful.
Piranesi's world shares some similarities with these roads. Though layered underground, there exist 4 separate directions of seemingly endless corridors, two intersecting "roads". These roads are adorned with innumerable statues, just like the architect Piranesi's embellished intersection. For Piranesi of the book, these corridors are his world, and they are, for all intents and purposes, infinite.
Mental Health and Memory
Throughout his time in the labyrinth, Piranesi finds himself coming back to the same statues over and over again. One of those is the statue of the beekeeper. The statue depicts a beekeeper surrounded by bees. The bees climb all over the beekeeper, even on their eye.
The labyrinth itself clings onto Piranesi, both literally by keeping him there and through his mind. As Piranesi spends more time in the labyrinth and explores ever further, he finds himself forgetting. The memories of his past life in the real world are all but gone. He forgets who he is, and even his own name. What he does remember, however, is everything to do with the labyrinth. He never forgets the paths to a specific room. He even remembers exactly which statues are in which room, and where they are within that room.
The ties to memory loss and dementia here are fairly clear. We can see the labyrinth as the mind, as the past. Piranesi knows the past well. It's where he lives. What he has trouble with is the real world and the present. He has forgotten it all. In essence, while not lost in the labyrinth directly, he cannot escape from it, since it is all he knows.
We can see this forgetting of who he was and living in the past in his favorite statue: the faun. Piranesi has an infatuation with the faun. He identifies with it. The faun represents who Piranesi used to be. Not in the "Matthew Rose Sorensen" (his real life name) sense, but rather his past self; the person he remembers instead of his present self.
We also only ever interact with or hear from Piranesi in the past. The story is not Piranesi's direct experiences as he moves through life. Instead, it is a series of journal entries which recount his experiences. Piranesi is always living in the past, and, through his journal entries, the reader also lives through his past.
Academia
In Piranesi, we see multiple instances of the negatives of academia. In his world, Piranesi knows only one other being. Since there is only one, he names him "The Other". The Other, however, is really Ketterley, a professor in the real world. Ketterley's goal is to uncover a great truth and power in the world that had been lost to time. The labyrinth, however, cannot be traversed without losing one's mind. So, he uses Piranesi to help uncover this power for him. In essence, Piranesi is doing all the work, whereas Ketterley will ultimately reap all the rewards and take all the credit. This is a common occurrence in academia. Professors may serve as advisors to PhD candidates and stick their names on research papers they had little to no part in. Sometimes, professors will claim to have discovered or invented things that their students have.
Another major character, whom Piranesi names The Prophet, is similarly explotative. This is really Laurence Arne-Sayles, another professor. Laurence is the one who discovered the labyrinth, claiming it was another world where all things that are lost and forgotten go. He claimed to have discovered that the secret power exists, and claimed it must be in the labyrinth of lost things, as it had been lost to time. Laurence had many students, some of whom he either forced to go into the labyrinth, or used their obsession for him to convince them to. Many of those who entered the labyrinth could not leave and died there.
We can view this from an academic perspective. Laurence pushes his students to work extreme hours, to enter the labyrinth. Some may do it because he threatens them with denying their PhD through his influence, while others do it out of loyalty and worship of him. Some of these students work themselves to death or are permanently scarred or broken (like the tormented James Ritter).
We also find out that Ketterley was one of Laurence's students. Of course, not all the students die or give up their research. Some go on to pursue their own careers in academia. Then, we can see, those who were once exploited become the exploiters. Ketterley pushes his students and takes advantage of them in the same ways Laurence once did. The rotten parts of academia are generational, and end up repeating themselves with new professors and new students.
Religion
Piranesi is deeply connected to his world. He lives off the seaweed and fish he gathers from the sea, not just for sustenance, but even for warmth. He always remembers his way in the labyrinth, even the statues. He does not necessarily search for meaning apart from the world. Rather, he sees the world as meaning itself. Its corridors and statues essentially becoming rivers, seas, mountains, forests. His world, then becomes more than just the place in which he lives, but also what he worships. In that sense, the world becomes "The House", in the same way the real world has "God".
So, then, we can see Ketterley and even Laurence as the ones who oppose this religion. Ketterley, a professor, seeks knowledge and the ultimate truth. He uses scientific thinking in order to derive a new meaning and truth of his own, separate from The House. He sees no purpose in The House other than to discover what he truly desires. Piranesi goes along with this, thinking it is good because Ketterley is good. However, he eventually realizes, time and time again, that The House is purpose itself. There is no need to discover some incredible truth, as The House fulfills that need entirely.
Interestingly, in contrast to Ketterley, dubbed as an outsider with his "The Other" moniker, Piranesi refers to Laurence as "The Prophet". Although he was a man of science, Laurence abandoned his professor-hood to explore the labyrinth. He originally pursued the true knowledge Ketterley does, but eventually gave up. Perhaps once a man of science, he no longer seems as convinced. He may be more of a false prophet, but to Piranesi he provided a sort of divine knowledge.
So, we can see an argument of there being two diametrically opposed things: religion and science. Piranesi is a man of faith who must contend with a man (or men) of science. We know that science is not all bad, however. Ketterley brings several objects from the real world: a sleeping bag, lights, matches. These are the fruits of science. These objects certainly help Piranesi, and he recognizes their help. While valuing the results of science, Piranesi still ultimately sees religion as the true purpose of his life-- the only thing which he will fundamentally pursue.
We even see a direct reference to religion in the book: the church. The church can be seen as something forgotten, given that it exists in the halls of The House. It's somewhat ironic how Piranesi suggests going to the church to discover Ketterley's lost truth. Perhaps this signifies how some scientific researchers or professors may turn to religion in times of need, or even pray to make a big discovery. Certainly, Ketterley was willing to try anything to get his hands on the lost knowledge. It's made clear, however, that Ketterley essentially has no interest in the church itself. He doesn't much care for religion, but will use it if he thinks it might get him what he wants. Piranesi, on the other hand, felt the church's reverence immediately upon encountering it.
There's also the matter of the flooding. The flooding might be seen as something natural, since they are akin to tides, according to Piranesi. However, Piranesi has complete, almost divine knowledge of those tides. Then, we can pretty easily connect the great flood in the climax of the book to the great flood in the Book of Genesis. Noah, like Piranesi, was given divine knowledge of the flood before it happened. He used that knowledge to save those he knew, and many pairs of animals in his ark. Similarly, Piranesi uses his knowledge of the flooding to save 16, or Raphael as she is known in the real world. Ketterley, on the other hand drowns due to his wickedness, like the rest of the sinful humanity in the Book of Genesis.
Mother Earth
We might also interpret the religion-adjacent themes in Piranesi to the idea of a Mother Earth. Maybe Piranesi's connection to The House is more literal. Rather than The House representing religion, it instead references the Earth. The floods, then, become not an act of God, but rather an act of nature. The tides are natural and cyclical, so of course the great flood would occur during a coalescence of the tides. The House doesn't provide seaweed and fish, they're just a natural resource Piranesi uses to survive. This also better serves to explain the birds in the story. Birds are somehow able to move in and out of the real world and Piranesi's World. This may just be because they are natural beings with extraordinary freedom. Why just birds? Perhaps it isn't just birds. While there are no trees or mammals, there are fish and seaweed. These sea creatures may be there because they, too, can slip into Piranesi's World.
Then, it's possible to view Ketterley and Laurence as exploiters of The House. Indeed, Ketterley brings man-made objects that make Piranesi's life easier. But Piranesi still views the natural world as good enough, and doesn't explicitly need these objects. Ketterley seeks to exploit The House however he can in order to gain the truth he desires, but he is also unwilling to spend much time in it. He hides in his man-made world, and shuns nature.
This also provides an alternative explanation for the faun statue. Piranesi identifies so much with the faun because the faun represents a connection between man and nature. The faun is half human, half animal. Piranesi is connected with The House, but he is from the real world, too. He, in essence, bridges the gap between man and nature, just like the faun.
We know that Piranesi still worships his world-- The House. Then, we might still see this worship as a kind of religion, but instead of God he worships Mother Earth. The House "provides" for him. He knows The House much in the way many animals do, almost akin to an instinct. When The House provides, Piranesi thanks it, always maintaining his gratitude toward it. He's even convinced it has protected him, and always seems to provide him with food and water when he most needs it. He worships The House much in the way one might worship God, reverence and all. When he enters the church, he instinctively knows it is a sacred place. But is it sacred for some God, or is it sacred as an extension of The House and Mother Earth?
Honestly, that was more themes than I thought I'd end up writing when I started this article. The more I thought about the book and its contents, the more themes just popped into my head. The book is so carefully written and densely packed. I'm confident there's so many more themes I missed here. Really a big fan of this novel and I find what it has to say and how it says it very interesting.
One thing I don't necessarily understand about allegories, themes, or allusions in general is whether they necessarily must be connected, or if they can be disjoint. For instance, if the themes of religion are true, can the themes of mental health and memory loss also be true? They draw different conclusions from the same words. Are both interpretations legitimate, or is there a "correct" interpretation? I choose to believe a story can have multiple interpretations, and that all can be "correct". Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks! And go read Piranesi if you haven't yet.