Navigating Enchantment, Part III: Finding New Doors in the House of Piranesi
Vol. 3, No. 4
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Part I | Part II
The text of a book often appears as a cipher: translated and interpreted differently depending on which key the reader wields. As I mentioned in Part 1, I started reading Piranesi last year and found myself utterly bewildered, so much so that I just set it aside. I had no key to the House, and no clue how to go about looking for one. Whether by serendipity or divine plan, I don’t know, but the juxtaposition of Clarke, Boersma, and Lewis by way of Ward, unlocked the gates and set me free to explore the House in a way I couldn’t before, when I picked it up again in January. Parts one and two of this series explored the pre-modern experience of living in a multi-layered, enchanted reality, and how that shaped people’s movement through, and posture toward, their immediate world. Hopefully part three will link all these heady concepts together, so let’s get started. Or finished.
Piranesi, Finally
And so we come, at last, to Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi. What a strange and wondrous book.
(If you haven’t yet read it, light spoilers do follow; I’m terribly sorry.)
We meet the speaker — who answers to the name Piranesi, though he doubts it’s really his — who introduces us, with great innocence and child-like charm, to the House, immeasurable in its beauty and infinite in its gifts. Hall after hall expands around us, the lower halls for the water and fish, the upper halls for the clouds and stars, the middle halls for Piranesi, the Statues, and the albatross. The House feels to us like a place out of true, unanchored in any recognizable time or space, floating without reference to somewhere, anywhere. We wonder at Piranesi’s resourcefulness, his ability to endure a bare subsistence way of life, his gratitude and joy at the smallest gift or technology.
He introduces us to the Other, who we quickly gather has some ulterior motive for his visits to the House, and his interactions with Piranesi. We surmise, from Piranesi’s observations, that the Other has access to technology we recognize, tapping as he does on a device with a glowing screen. We realize before Piranesi that the Other does not live in the House, but only makes brief visits that demand Piranesi’s deep experience of the House to aid the Other’s search for some unusual Knowledge. And we come to feel pity for Piranesi, as we slowly understand that something is terribly wrong about his presence in the House, that the Other’s intermittent benevolence masks long-standing manipulation, that Piranesi’s innocence and joy are based on a lie.
Over time, events penetrate the tranquil rhythm of Piranesi’s life in the House; relationships change and begin. Much of the action happens “off-stage,” as it were, yet everything happens for Piranesi. The truth of things comes to light, the relationship of the House to familiar worlds becomes clear, and, like Piranesi, we find ourselves blinking in confusion, feeling not a little bit dislocated, even lost.
How do we make sense of Piranesi, the book and the character? What is Clarke trying to say in this spare, mysterious, generous story? While I could pull at any number of threads, explore multiple paths, it’s the relationship of the House to our world, and how the character of Piranesi triangulates between them that made an invisible gong sound in my head. I offer five vignettes from across the story that (I think) gradually illuminate our understanding.
Vignette the First
As the story begins, Piranesi serves as a guide or translator of the House for the Other in his pursuit of an undefined, yet quasi-magical, Knowledge. The Other solicits from Piranesi directions within the House, ideas for experimenting with rituals, mining every interaction and activity for its impact on his anticipated acquisition of the Knowledge. Though Piranesi has faithfully supported the Other’s work, he comes to question that search, realizing that
the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery.1
Piranesi accepts that no amount of knowledge, capitalized or otherwise, will ever suffice to chase away the mystery of the House, nor will unlocking the Knowledge add any more value to the experience and meaning already evident. Indeed, it’s the very mystery, the infinite unknowability of the House that gives it richness, that elevates it beyond “mere scenery.”
Vignette the Second
Later, Piranesi, meets a man he begins calling the Prophet, who we learn is a (rather unlikeable) scholar and writer named Lawrence Arne-Sayles. During their exchange, the Prophet tells Piranesi,
Nothing simply vanishes. It’s not actually possible. I pictured it as a sort of energy flowing out of the world and I thought that this energy must be going somewhere. That was when I realized that there must be other places, other worlds. And so I set myself to find them.
And did you find any, sir? [Piranesi] replied.
I did. I found this one. This is what I call a Distributary World — it was created by ideas flowing out of another world. This world could not have existed unless that other world had existed first.2
Here we learn what Piranesi cannot yet conceive: the House is somehow connected to our world, and is also, in fact, connected to other worlds as yet un-accessed.
Later, Piranesi finds an entry in one of his journals that summarizes Arne-Sayles’ life and work, specifically the theories and writings that lead his being seen as either a fraud or a madman in our world. We read that Arne-Sayles
began with the idea that the Ancients had a different way of relating to the world, that they experienced it as something that interacted with them. When they observed the world, the world observed them back. [...] When they looked up to the stars, the constellations were not simply patterns enabling them to organise what they saw, they were vehicles of meaning, a never-ending flow of information. The world was constantly speaking to Ancient Man.3
Vignette the Third
As Piranesi continues to question the information given to him by the Other, the Prophet, and his own journals, he begins to wonder how it is that he’s able to attach meaning and comprehension to words and ideas he’s never encountered before. As he works through the process of thinking, he notices that,
Two weeks ago I hypothesised that I was able to ascribe a meaning to this seemingly nonsense word because I have seen Statues of Scholars in the House. [...] It occurs to me that there are many other ideas that I understand perfectly, even though no such things exist in the World. For example I know that a garden is a place where one can refresh oneself with the sight of plants and trees. But a garden is not a thing that exists in the World nor is there any statue representing that particular idea. [...] Instead, scattered about the House are Statues in which People or Gods or Beasts are surrounded by Roses or Strands of Ivy, or shelter under the Canopies of Trees. [...] It is from these things that I deduce the idea of a garden. I do not believe this happens by accident.4
Vignette the Fourth
At last, we find that Piranesi has left the House, in a fashion, and he finds himself entering a life that is as unfamiliar to him as the House is to us. He reports his interactions and observations with a sense of distance, of abstraction, instinctively navigating webs of loss, discovery, and grief:
Matthew Rose Sorensen’s mother and father and sisters and friends all ask me where I have been.
I tell them what I told Jamie Askill: that I was in a house with many rooms; that the sea sweeps through the house; and that sometimes it swept over me, but always I was saved.
Matthew Rose Sorensen’s mother and father and sisters and friends tell each other that this is a description of a mental break-down seen from the inside; an explanation they find reasonable, perhaps even reassuring.5
Vignette the Fifth
As Piranesi learns to live outside the House, he begins to find things more familiar than he anticipated, recognizing others from “their” Statues, finding a deeper, longer resonance to their existence than perhaps they themselves experience:
An old man passed me. He looked sad and tired. He had broken veins on his cheeks and a bristly white beard. As he screwed up his eyes against the falling snow, I realised I knew him. He is depicted on the northern wall of the forty-eighth western hall. He is shown as a king with a little model of a walled city in one hand while the other hand he raises in blessing. I wanted to seize hold of him and say to him: In another world you are a king, noble and good! I have seen it!6
Living Within, and Without, the House
So, if we set Piranesi alongside the Platonic Forms, alongside the interpenetration of ideas and Forms, alongside sacramental realities and fairy tales, alongside the difference between pre-modern and modern peoples and how we move through the world...what do we come up with?
Here’s what I think.
I think that, in Piranesi, Susanna Clarke is wrestling with what it means to live, as a disenchanted modern, in a world in which other layers of Reality care nothing for our ignorance, and go on existing with heft and shape and concreteness.
I think Clarke’s wrestling with what it means to live in a world where those layers and its residents are in fact accessible to, and impinging on, our awareness and experiences.
I think she’s wrestling with what it means to interact with someone (or to BE someone) who has actually lived within “the House” of those other realities.
Because, as disenchanted moderns, we cannot go back to the past, either collectively or as individuals - we know too much, as it were. Neither can we access such older worlds as created the House, nor converse with our world as did Ancient Man. We have lost our ability to effortlessly believe in these other layers of reality. To try to construct a view of the world and a way of living that mimics a pre-modern enchantment would be like living an elaborate lie, a fantasy of the worst sort.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t recover an awareness of other realities, a sensitivity to other ideas and realms that interacts with our experience here, that informs or illuminates our movement and posture in this world. It doesn’t mean that we can’t discern a “surplus of meaning” behind many of our familiar objects and experiences, a surplus that makes them symbols, doors to other realities.
As I read through Clarke’s novel, I couldn’t figure out how I was supposed to feel about Piranesi himself, what perspective or relationship this character asked from me. He can seem a bit of a lack-wit, a simpleton, or a buffoon - you sometimes feel the Other’s condescension is not without merit. Other times Piranesi’s deep experience and knowledge of the House, his willingness to let things be what they are, and to appreciate the simple graces and beauties of his life - these all display a wisdom far greater than the Other and his grasping after the Knowledge, even than our own frantic schedules and pursuits.
Even after learning of the Other’s duplicity, of Piranesi’s tenuous joy, I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to pity or ignore Piranesi, root for him, or herd him gently into a padded room.
Then I had an epiphany.
Piranesi is a holy fool.
If you’re at all familiar with the figure of the court jester in medieval plays, or the fool in a modern tarot deck, or in Russian literature, you may know that these figures hold much greater significance than being merely, or only, comic. They provide humor, but also deep insight into the dysfunctions and vanities of the surrounding culture. In many cases, the fool is the only person free to speak the truth without fear of reprisal. They exist under special protection, whether human or divine, considered to have access to deeper insight and wisdom than most people.
But does Piranesi truly fit the figure of a fool, let alone a holy fool? Some hallmarks of the fool include: he or she may lead a carefree and happy life, “since they are not intelligent enough to remember the past and be tortured by the memory of faults and failures or to anticipate the future and suffer anxiety before the unknown.” As we’ve already noted, they don’t have to fear not following usual conventions, nor are they expected to conform to the norms of the surrounding society. We often consider the fool to possess more wisdom than most, or least wisdom gleaned from sources other than formal education, seeing their insight as granted or gifted to the person from another realm, rather than earned or pursued.
These descriptive elements of the holy fool resonate with what we know of the character of Piranesi, especially when we think of the holy fool as possessing knowledge or wisdom not “nourished by myths and stories nor derived from printed texts and reasoned arguments.” Yet the holy fool frustrates most of us, because things can’t actually be that simple, that generous. Can they? Living with enough, delighting in the quotidian enchantments of the world, accepting that we come by wisdom and knowledge in many ways, not just through education and technical expertise...can we really make a life that way?
Piranesi’s wisdom arises from careful attention to his reality, from attending to its rhythms, its behaviors, its patterns and movements. Though it’s an attention borne of needing to survive, it’s also the attention of a craftsman noticing the warp and woof of his materials, making something reflective of, and more than, what previously existed, and all the time delighting in what was and is and will be.
Like fantasy, foolish wisdom breaks the real and creates not an alternative world but an other world by turning our view of reality upside down and inside out.7
Piranesi lives in an other world created by ideas flowing from elsewhere, by myth, narrative, and symbol combining to create the House and the Statues with its excess meaning. His innocence, though, is rooted in amnesia, his previous knowledge and intelligence cruelly stolen from him in a process he remembers only after painful awakenings. By the end of the story, everyone’s reality has turned upside down and inside out. Piranesi’s innocence becomes tinged with melancholy knowledge. And the task for Piranesi, and also ourselves, becomes to discern the line between foolish wisdom and insanity, between genuine insight and arrogance.
Where Do We Go from Here?
So what does the tale of Piranesi have for us, for the here and the now? If we cannot return to (or possibly even trust) the past and its narratives, and if the future is unknown and unpredictable (especially in a post-COVID world), what can an enchanted, holy fool teach us?
When we delve further into the figure of the holy fool, especially those found in folklore and literature, we find a humility, a simplicity and purity in their attitude toward the world, in their posture toward others. Mostly, we find a character motivated solely by love: both the love they’ve received from human and divine lovers, and the love they give out in their life’s work and service. And what is love but a singular and focused attention?
Throughout the story Piranesi, we see no familiar or obvious expression of love: no romance, no equal relationships, no parent or child. But we do see a character who attends to his world and his connections: he loves by supporting and guiding the Other; by welcoming the albatross and offering materials for a nest, even sacrificially so; by trying to reach out to 16 even when fearing 16 as an enemy; by treating new characters with gentleness and grace; by seeing the potential nobility of others even within their worn tiredness. Piranesi attends to others to the point of self-forgetfulness; to an extent that baffles and frustrates some characters trying to manage their world through defining and compartmentalizing knowledge.
And it’s in this singular and focused attention that I find a way to navigate the multiple realities that exist beyond what the rational intellect and my nervous system can define. Piranesi teaches me that, in attending to the specific, the immediate, the real, I may also come to another world that lies behind them, may eventually come into a similar simplicity and purity, may eventually move through the world in love.
And so love becomes a door into an enchanted Deep Reality.
Part I | Part II
Coda
Creative works (especially the best ones) always operate on multiple levels: for the maker, the sheer joy of making something that hangs together, that demonstrates the best of their craft; for the person behind the maker, the outworking of some concern or preoccupation in their life, the need to communicate what cannot be contained; for the audience, the illumination of some aspect of life previously less examined or completely ignored, the delight of something beautiful, surprising, or even disturbing, penetrating the senses and spirit.
I recently read that art can “estrange and complicate reality” so that we “see anew what had become commonplace.”8 If that’s so, then Clarke’s Piranesi deserves to be counted as art, for it has provoked and bothered me since I finished it, forcing me to consider how I really understood myself in the world, how I moved through it, and postured myself in relationship with others. Let me know what you think.
The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.
Let’s be creative, hopeful, and wise — together.
Shalom,
Megan.
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi, p. 60.
ibid., p. 89.
ibid., pp. 147-48.
ibid., p. 121.
ibid., p. 237.
ibid., p. 244.
Peter C. Phan, “The Wisdom of Holy Fools in Postmodernity,” Theological Studies 62
Cecelia Gonzalez-Andrieu, Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty