#the titular piranesi

[butchsaint]

i know that anti-heroes are the current craze, but i’ve recently become obsessed with main characters that are just really Good Guys. their stories are just as difficult, and by all accounts they should be angry and spiteful about their situations, but ultimately they stay kind and understanding.

[zeppelincore]

Piranesi good

the song Venus by Sleeping at Last reminds me really strongly of the titular character in Piranesi

[mind-or-matter]

Have you ever wanted to play a Thoughtborn IN DnD??? What about a subclass inspired by a few of the characters in MiOrMa?! Or some stuff adjacent to the comic like time dragonborn and wild magic kobolds? WELL I have the book for you!

my friend @parallel-2-anywhere has been HARD at work prepping for his newest DmsGuild release Piranesi and the Library of Sigil, and it has all those MiOrMa adjacent goodies AND SO much more! This babey is JAM PACKED with so much incredible dnd homebrew for both races and subclasses, and there's stuff from both Mind or Matter and so many other projects of my friends' and mine that you should ABSOLUTELY pick it up! It's only $4.99 and there's so much cool stuff even if you don't care about the stuff related to our projects at all, all of it is super workable into any other setting if you just want some cool stuff to play!!!

Plus, the titular character of Piranesi himself will be showing up in Mind Or Matter eventually (albeit in a minor role) so if you wanna learn more about him and his INSANELY cool lore, that's an added bonus!

Plus, here's some of my art which features in the book itself!!!

[valiantarcher]

3-7 and 15-19. The ask game about books. Thank you in advance.

Thank you!

3. A popular book that you love. I suppose The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien counts. ;))

4. A popular book you dislike. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

5. A book you love that it seems like no one else has read. There are a number of rarer books I love, but I think at least one friend or another (!) has read the majority of the list. That said, I really enjoyed Song of Thunder by Mary Ray when I read it and don't know of anyone else currently who has read it.

6. A book with one character who stood out from the rest. It feels a bit like cheating to say the titular character from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, but as narrator and protagonist, he does colour everything in the best possible way.

7. A book that left you feeling overwhelmed with happiness. I don't know about overwhelmed by happiness, but I do remember being pretty gleeful over the last sections of The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (though how much of that was self-satisfaction with figuring out how some threads were coming together, I don't recall now).

15. A book you love for its characters. Maybe Black as Night by Regina Doman? It's not that I dislike the plot, but I do think the cast of characters carry so much of what I enjoy about it.

16. A book you love for its themes. Love might be a bit strong, but The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham has some thematical elements that still stand out to me after several years' distance.

17. A book that’s well-written that you like. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger!

18. A book that’s well-written that you dislike. Looking through my notes, one would be The Sword and the Circle by Rosemary Sutcliff.

19. A book that’s not well-written that you love anyway. I don't know that it's poorly written persay, but Beauty by Robin McKinley seemed a little clunkier on the last read than the first time I read it - but I do love it still.

[tetherism]

completely forgot to say i finished reading piranesi this winter break when i was in india visiting family. it was one of those books i had a instinctive feeling i would grow attached to so id bought a physical copy !!

& to the surprise of no one at all i did tear up when i finished it… i cant remember the last time i was so terribly fond of a titular character :,) ily piranesi i think of you all the time. so many subtly revolutionary things abt it in terms of narrative - esp w how it ended, i think. daring in a way you dont even realize at first, & still so deliberate, so gentle.

[beholdingslut]

i just really like titular character piranesi and passages like this make my heart ache

[planet4546b]

list of fucked up places that are the same to me and are also my best friends:

the zone roadside picnic

area x annihilation

the black hole interstellar

the beach at the end of contact (book, ive never seen the movie)

piranesi’s imaginary prisons

the pale disco elysium

most of the cities in invisible cities italo calvino

the zero kentucky route zero

constant's new babylon

the forest at the end of outer wilds

the titular mar internum in mar internum

the cave in caver ted

[fateology]

1 + 15?

HI to the two of you c-:

1. book you’ve reread the most times?

Oh God I fear the answer to this im pretty sure i have to say Nora sakavic all for the game series. Because I ripped an epub of it to kill time in class back in sec school and I just had it on my laptop ready to look at when I got bored so I read it a lot I literally cannot say much to defend it at all because it’s like. Simply not good. But also you have to understand that it is even if it isn’t. like if you need practice suspending your belief and you love sports with dramatic interpersonal team situations like me it’s perfect. Also if you like the clock motif in Goncharov Neil Josten did the trapped in a life of violence with your pipe dream of safety and escape slowly ticking away thing too and served cunt

15. recommend and review a book

YAYYYY alright let’s go with Jonathan strange & Mr Norrell I’m gonna copy paste stuff I wrote on my Instagram and like edit it a little

JS&MN was the most entertaining book i read in a while despite its length (if you liked Piranesi you might not like it as much, they’re quite different although both distinctly by the same author). What Clarke is really good at is evoking scene/situation/detail in a way that’s almost cinematic, makes for really great tableaux in that you can picture any Clarke scene as a sexily composed charcoal illustration, which JS&MN has! seriously here’s a speedrun: tarot cards drawn with the same eerie card every time, the sound of dolorous bells from another world, a proper lady shooting someone in the middle of a perfectly white snow day, this guy steps out of a mirror and then several, great stuff

She also writes with this particular restraint that’s very british where the humour and the horror and the mystique are all measured exactly - in the book there’s a sort of slow descent from frivolous victorian society to the fucked up underworld necromantic shit strange gets up to during the napoleonic wars and her tone fits both. Not to mention how sexy the necromancy was. The Duke of wellington is there. Goya does a chalk drawing Strange surrounded by corpses

Though honestly i think the best part of the book were the footnotes i love the depth of the scholarship clarke creates and especially the small folk tales about john uskglass/the raven king because like for the whole book she builds this mythology around him and (spoiler of sorts) honestly i expected there to be a grand climax where he shows up and does some kind of showy plot relevant display but his actual appearance is like only quietly extraordinary and the one person who sees him doesn’t even remember the encounter because at this point uskglass has receded into his myth such that he’s become intangible and the plot (which is about its titular characters first and foremost) can’t extract him from his status as a folk hero because that would take away the power he has over english magic

Ultimately though JS&MN is about people who have been deprived of their autonomy and voice reclaiming hold on the narrative and it’s really satisfying as a whole story. As characters Strange and Norrell are less remarkable to me than Stephen Black/Childermass/Lady Pole etc and when the storylines converge and resolve the length of the book feels deserved; the ending isn’t fully closed though and the balance of bittersweet is really good. It’s 782 pages and I liked all of them

[lonelydipshit]

Oh boy

Last Read: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I really liked the prose in this one. The way it’s written really helps to put you into the head of the main character/narrator, the titular piranesi. I really liked the way it ended as well.

Current Read: not reading anything at the moment for fun between re watching fairy tail and college stuff :(

Next Read: Harrow the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir. I read Gideon a while back, but I just never got around to harrow or Nona for whatever reason.

oh jiminy i got tagged by @wingsyouburn. i'm going to try and go for only reads i've done for fun because lit major

Last Read: Borne by Jeff VanderMeer. I mean what can I say, I really like his work, but since this WAS for a class I just wish I had more time to sit with all of it especially Strange Bird. But I really liked this one and I loved the ending.

Current Read: American Brujeria by J Allen Cross. Technically research for Jackrabbit Brujo, technically ouch ouchies oh owchies my heritage ow ;-; but i had to return it to the library bc someone had it on hold, so i'll resume reading later

Next Read: Probably something by Shirley Jackson!

tagging @lhinelle, @chaotic-history, @aconstantode, and @persante!

[danamartist]

𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 𝘣𝘺 𝘚𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘺 12 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 Who's reading Clarke's new release, Piranesi? I'm about halfway through and still unsure where it's headed, but I trust Clarke, mainly due to the incredible feat that is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. While both of the titular characters are well done, it's the secondary characters that flesh out the world of the novel, particularly Mr. Norrell's untamed servant, Childermass, who (unlike the main characters) keeps an unwavering eye on the story's true stakes and doesn't trip over his own ego.

[mimicteruyo]

Mimic Media Power Hour [1/? possibly]

A.k.a. some books/games/what have you that I’ve experienced recently and have some thoughts about.

I hope to do something like this semi-frequently (and possibly talk about works from my childhood/whatever which have stuck to my mind.) Let me know if there’s a particular medium/theme/whatever you’d like me to focus on (if not, you’ll just get random stuff 👍)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I quite enjoyed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Clarke's previous novel: it's probably pretty telling that I read the entire 1000-page thing without complaints when I generally have little patience for brick-length fantasy novels that aren't called The Lord of the Rings.* Piranesi, however, felt like it was written specifically for me. The plot and setting bear some similarities to The House of Leaves, but other than that I can't think of anything else to readily compare it to, and it explores themes like memory and identity of course Mimic's going to be all over it. The titular character is both charming and unusual, and best of all the book's delightfully brief! I recommend it.

[*My taste in fantasy novels veers more towards pulp, YA, and whatever genre Discworld is.]

Hellsinker

YOU GOT INSANITY (I certainly did. *sigh*)

This game has been on my radar for a decade now as the legendary hardest, best, most incomprehensible shmup. However, I never made it past the initial ten-foot stone wall that's the barrier to entry and always told myself I'd get back to it "when I have the time." Well, I didn't really have the time, but with the aid of the tutorial in the Steam version (and switching to a different player character: Minogame ftw) I made it past the wall and discovered a couple of things. The game's reputation as the hardest shmup ever seems largely unfounded: though hard, none of the challenges I've encountered so far appear insurmountable. Its reputation as the best shmup is true.

I still haven't beaten it (or seen the final stage, oops), but I keep making progress, and till then the game's a joy to play. I've yet to play a shmup that rewards aggressive play like this one does (eXceed 2nd probably comes closest), and turns out that's something I really like. And the music is excellent. I'll get you next time, Rex Cavalier!!

Neon Genesis Evangelion

I've seen my sister exactly once this year, and while I hope it's not the case, it's possible I may not see her again until 2022. What did we decide to do with the time we had? Watch the entirety of her favourite anime, of course.

I already knew the basic plot and most of the big twists through osmosis, but several things surprised me. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Misato is the deuteragonist. I was impressed by the depth of characterisation overall: even the bridge crew, while nowhere nearly as fleshed out as the complex main characters, stood out as actual people (Maya is the best don't argue with me). I also liked the character designs and the animation a lot.

But the biggest surprise was honestly how enjoyable the show was to watch. For something that has a (sort of? it's complicated) justified reputation for being bleak, I was surprised how fun and even somewhat optimistic Evangelion could be. (Maybe this is because I've previously read a work that was a major inspiration to Evangelion and which has a 100% stone cold bummer of an ending.) Overall, I thought it was a very well-made show + movie and very much worth watching for the experience alone.

We also watched the first three Rebuild films. I found the third one the most interesting since it diverged the most from what we had seen before, but overall, I thought they were more like enjoyable additions to the original show + EoE than a series that could truly stand on its own, possibly because the limited runtime narrows the scope of the story down to mainly just Shinji. Still well worth watching, however.

Life Is Strange

Hella baguettes yo. I played the game some ways in several years ago, at which point I sussed out who the villain was and lost interest in the whole endeavour for some reason. Last week, I watched Northernlion's playthrough, and while LPs may not always be the optimal way to experience a game, it worked out very well here: NL's commentary was funny, obviously, but I appreciated that he was also willing to engage with the game's story. It didn't change my life or anything, but I'm glad I finally got to see how it ends.

(For the record, I was 100% right about the villain. My reasoning was pure meta, however)

[captainkarbah]

Where I found solace in various media during this year a.k.a. stuff I DO like to remember about 2020

Things I’ve read

Invader Zim comics. Just got volume 10 for Christmas and I’m already looking forward to the Invader Zim Quarterly Collection. Also got The Art of Invader Zim. It’s always interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes of any creative endeavor and this book is no exception.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Piranesi, both by Susanna Clarke. I was just going to jot down some things so I could remember what I thought, but it sort of turned into two short reviews. Read under the cut for that (no real spoilers).

I’ve been a huge fan of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell since it came out (I think I’ve read it 4 or 5 times at this point). I was cautiously excited when I read that Clarke was coming out with a new book. As I hadn’t yet read The Ladies of Grace Adieu, I figured that I would do that first while waiting for the release of Piranesi. Seeing how much I loved her debut novel, and knowing that for several years The Ladies of Grace Adieu was the only other book by her, I’ve been saving it for a rainy day. For obvious reasons, now seemed like a good time.

Luckily, I was not disappointed. The short story collection felt comfortingly familiar to JSAMN – no wonder as some of the stories are set in that world and all of them concern magic and fae. Maybe the comparison has been made before, but it’s like the stories in the numerous (and infamous?) footnotes of JSAMN got their own space, without having to compete with another main story. A perfect book for bedtime reading, where you can finish reading one or two stories per night (which is what I did).

Now Piranesi, oh boy. I had prepared myself by reading some reviews that said it was different from JSAMN but still good. Still, I was afraid that I end up disappointed. Happy to say I was not. It was mesmerizing; I had to pace myself to let things sink in and also to still have more reading to look forward to.

In some ways, it’s a mystery novel. It’s told by the titular Piranesi, and here I think the first person perspective really benefits the story. Looking back, there’s some semblance to We’ve always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson, in the sense that the narrator’s perspective makes for a cryptic description of the story and setting. As the story develops, there are more and more clues as to “what’s really going on” (or at least what you think is going on). I’m already looking forward to reading it again to see what I might have missed the first time.

[mylifeinfiction]

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

"The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite."

ENTRY FOR THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE WORLD BROKE DOWN

Piranesi is determined to explore as much of the World as he can in his lifetime. The World he explores is the House, a labyrinthine series of Halls adorned with thousands of unique Statues that stretches from the depths of the sea up through the clouds above. Piranesi catalogues these statues, charts the tides and maps the Halls and the Stars that shine down through their Windows. He is alone in this House, save for the Other, an older man with whom Piranesi meets twice a week. They meet because they are scientists, and Piranesi is aiding the Other in his search for a Great and Secret Knowledge.

Soon, their searching becomes jeopardized by another. Who are they? What do they want? Where did they come from? As Piranesi investigates these questions he begins to learn so much more than expected about not only the House, but also his friend, the Other, and himself.

Susanna Clarke's Piranesi tells our titular character's story with vivid world-building and an increasing sense of mystery. Blending fantasy and philosophy, science-fiction and psychology, Clarke constructs a fascinating story of madness, memory and meaning that's as labyrinthine as the House itself. Her prose is gorgeous and her mythology is engrossing, and together they lead us along on a journey full of lies, betrayal and an everlasting odyssey to make sense of the World.

"In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways."

8.5/10

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[rebeccaheyman]

reading + listening 11.16.20

So it’s been a minute since I’ve posted about my reading, and we have the Presidential Election to thank for my absence. I retreated into a cycle of comfort reading that included:

- All of ACOTAR (Maas)

- The Hating Game (Thorne)

- 99 Percent Mine (not because it’s a fav, but because I already had it open for the THG epilogue so why not)

- Crazy Stupid Bromance, the newest installment in Lyssa Kay Adams’ Bromance Book Club series (reliably adorable and funny, though not technically a comfort read?)

...plus a lot of doom-scrolling. Then came post-election bliss, when I had renewed energy for reading but also the attention span of a fruit fly. Though I’m a little slower than I like to be, I’ve gotten through quite a bit since the beginning of the month. I’m still relying on a bit of indulgent comfort-listening (Throne of Glass), I’m excited about a lot of what’s on my TBR.

The Roommate (Rosie Danan), aBook (narr. Brittany Pressley, Teddy Hamilton). If you love a pseudo-quirky slow burn that doesn’t skimp on smut, THE ROOMMATE is for you. Much of this novel’s charm comes down to circumstance; characterizations are thin and conflict is often based on misunderstanding/unwillingness to have honest conversations. While I won’t race to read the next-in-series (The Intimacy Experiment, April ‘21), I’ll probably catch it on library loan. Nothing extraordinary, but nothing offensive either. 

Oona Out of Order (Margarita Montimore), aBook (narr. Brittany Pressley). It seems I can’t get through an entire week without listening to something narrated by Brittany Pressley, so I feel particularly qualified to tell you that this is her best performance to date. OONA was recommended to me by one of our local librarians (who happens to be my reading twin), but I was slightly put off by anything with a Sliding Doors comp after reading THE TWO [very sad, depressing] LIVES OF LYDIA BIRD earlier this year. Good news, friends: OONA is a joyful, moving, poignant, and oftentimes fun exploration of a woman living in and out of time. It’s hard to resist comparisons to THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE, which is also deeply concerned with time... but can I share an unpopular opinion? OONA is hands-down a better book than ADDIE LARUE, and if I had to recommend only one of these books (to occupy some fictional pride-of-place for 2020 novels about time/memory/love), I choose the former. I’ll definitely be gifting and recommending this book frequently in years to come.

Piranesi (Susanna Clarke), hard cover. Let me start by saying that JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL is hands-down one of my favorite novels of all time, so I was predisposed to both like and loathe PIRANESI. It’s been 14 years since Clarke’s magical, monolithic debut, so while I purchased PIRANESI without so much as reading the description, I also dragged my heels to dive in. My expectations were so high, and I guess I was a little scared that this author I love so much would reveal herself as something of a one-hit wonder. Spoiler alert: Susanna Clarke once again proves she’s the real deal with what might very well be a perfect epistolary novel. I’ve barely unpacked the metaphorical implications of PIRANESI; the novel is composed of journal entries from the titular character, who believes he and the Other are the only inhabitants of the world--and that the world is a large, labyrinthine house filled with statues. The mystery at the heart of the novel is how Piranesi came to be in the House, and why he can’t see (as readers do) that the Other is not an inhabitant at all -- but merely a visitor. The writing is immersive and lyrical, the character-work is studied and subtle, and the world-building is *chef’s kiss*. Read this book.

Make Up Break Up (Lily Menon), eBook, ARC (pub. February 2021). DNF’d at 60%, though I started skimming at 20%. I loved Menon’s YA Dimple and Rishi series (published under the name Sandhya Menon), but have found her subsequent works dull and predictable. I forced myself to read the first St. Rosetta’s Academy novel despite wanting to throat-punch the protagonist every time she was on the page, but allowed myself to hope that MAKE UP BREAK UP, an adult romcom, might find Menon back on better footing. Not so. The narrative development here and in OF CURSES AND KISSES relies too heavily on formulaic tropes; protagonists in both books seem to share an inability (or unwillingness?) to see the very obvious affection/obsession/admiration their male counterparts have for them, and waiting for a light bulb moment is worse than watching paint dry. I think Menon is a fine writer who simply isn’t being pushed by her editorial team. I hope that changes soon, but if it doesn’t... I’m not going to be able to dole out any further second chances.

I’m currently reading an ARC of The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams), with The Once and Future Witches (Harrow) and The Lost Love Song (Minnie Darke) on tap. 

Next month I’ll have my Best Of list at some point -- and a full tally on the books I read in 2020.