Piranesi is published by Bloomsbury (£14.99). The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell is published by W&N. It remains a potent force, but one that can leave us – like Goethe among the ruins – forever disappointed by what is real. If there is a strand of continuity in this elegant and singular novel, it is in its central preoccupation with the nature of fantasy itself. Far from seeming burdened by her legacy, the Susanna Clarke we encounter here might be an unusually gifted newcomer unacquainted with her namesake’s work. The result is a remarkable feat, not just of craft but of reinvention.
Clarke fuses these themes, seducing us with imaginative grandeur only to sweep that vision away, revealing the monstrosities to which we can not only succumb but wholly surrender ourselves. Goethe, it is said, was so taken with these that he found the real Rome to be greatly disappointing. The historical Piranesi, an 18th-century engraver, is celebrated for his intricate and oppressive visions of imaginary prisons and for his veduta ideate, precise renderings of classical edifices set amid fantastic vistas. Here it is worth reflecting on the subject of Clarke’s overt homage. What can be said, though, is that at least the contours of the truth are encoded in this novel’s architecture. It would be a disservice even to hint at the revelations that follow, revelations that not only upend Piranesi’s world but confront the reader with some truly onerous moral uncertainties. Enthralled, he relates the news to the Other, whose habitual cold indifference gives way to stern warnings: Piranesi must keep away from this other person at all costs his very sanity could be in danger. These begin when he finds signs of another visitor to the House. The various items – multivitamins, a sleeping bag, plastic bowls – are as incongruous in this setting as the “shining device” that the Other carries, but it takes more momentous events to disturb Piranesi’s obliviousness. So too does his abject gratitude for the Other’s occasional gifts. These moments are touching, though related with affectless decorum, but Piranesi’s peculiar equanimity comes to seem unsettling. He wonders, too, about the identities of the dead, but subsumes even these pressing questions into acts of tranquil devotion, bringing offerings of water lilies to the forlorn remains of “the Folded-Up Child”. Piranesi does evince at least some curiosity, not least about who he really is he was given that name by the Other and cannot remember his own. He documents with satisfaction – and with no trace of despair – how he has sustained himself with meagre catches of fish and staved off the cold by burning dried seaweed. He wanders empty halls and courtyards, cataloguing in his meticulous journal entries their bewildering array of statuary. Its narrator, though deprived of both company and reliable memories, seems curiously content with his lot. And where Jonathan Strange was populous and richly polyphonic, Piranesi is a tenebrous study in solitude. All that has been cast aside here, in favour of a prose that is economical almost to the point of austerity. This is, for a start, a much shorter novel than its predecessor, whose doorstopper proportions were a byproduct of its garrulous and vastly digressive style. Some distinguishing features are immediately apparent.
Does it announce an author boldly reclaiming her territory, or one emerging from her own shadow? Well, it’s complicated. And, given the long silence that followed, even non-devotees might wonder what to expect of this new novel. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a collection of stories published in 2006, was politely received by critics but didn’t quite rekindle the fervour of devotees. Yet even as her imitators proliferated, she herself returned only briefly to her antic and ornate parallel Regency. Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke made the very notion of genre seem quaint. Infusing “great tradition” verisimilitude with the imaginative radicalism of Ursula Le Guin, it gave rise to what might be called magical archaism, a fictional strain that has since become widespread. But its lingering influence – perhaps all the more notable for her long quiescence – has not been fully appreciated.
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She is hardly obscure, of course her first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, became a worldwide bestseller and was given a plush TV adaptation by the BBC. Susanna Clarke is a writer who has never quite been given her due.