In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?
Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.
When the moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule. ENTRY FOR THE FIRST DAY OF THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE ALBATROSS CAME TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HALLS. PART 1, PIRANESI
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(@BloomsburyBooks, 15 September 2020, 243 pages, ebook, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I've wanted to read this book for ages since I read so many good things about it. It was worth the wait. This is one of the most extraordinary and remarkable books I've ever read. It will stay with me for a long time. For a good chunk of the book I didn't really understand what was going on. This didn't put me off but had the opposite effect; I couldn't stop reading because I wanted to understand who / what Piranesi was and what his / its story was. Things didn't start to make any sense until more than halfway through the book. Piranesi's story is not what I expected at all. I really loved this book. It's not like anything I've read before.
