This is a weird one- which is a good thing IMHO
Piranesi lives in a big house with cavernous rooms and hundreds maybe thousands of them. The house is so big it has at least 4 tidal flows that fill the lower caverns completely at high tide. when they coincide, even the upper rooms are flooded.
He is one of only 15 people ever to live -as far as he knows. Certainly he's one of only two people alive. Himself and the Other are the only inhabitants of this House. So who is it that's started leaving messages?
This and other questions form the central mystery of the House. Piranesi finds his sense of reality fracturing. The House that provides so much and is so good to him becomes a strange and troubling place.
I struggled a little with this book to start with. the prose is quite dry, and nothing much happens in the first fifty something pages except for Clarke building up the strange world of the House through Piranesi's diaries.
However, the story reaches a point where things start happening, Piranesi starts to question what the Other is telling him, and suddenly the tension starts to build. From that point on, I was pretty much hooked. There was no way I was going to not finish.
This book is an object lesson on how to tell the reader more than the narrator knows simply through what's left out of the narrative. The answers to the mystery are probably quite obvious to the savvy reader. I guessed most of the plot turns well in advance but I think that's probably intentional on Clarke's part. The cast list is too small to give any real surprises or plot twists. The pleasure lies in the gradual lifting of the veils from Piranesi's eyes. When will he work out for himself what the motivation of the Other and the mysterious figure are?
Once the tension began the book shifts to a new gear and became quite compulsive for me.
It's not a perfect book, but I thought it was very good indeed. I kind of want to find my own way to the House. it sounds like a nice break from reality.
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