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mazemaya · 1 month ago

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piranesi reread thoughts (spoilers for the whole book):

(ch. 1, when the moon rose) piranesi says the joining of three tides flood happens only once every eight years but he's been in the House for six. evidence that the House really does speak / impart knowledge onto him

(ch. 1, my journals) 2012 was the Year of Weeping and Wailing!!!! baby boy!!!

(ch. 1, my journals) the first journal entry in the book equates to may 1 2018 and the second is may 7 2018. but piranesi says he started the 10th journal on may 5th. is the first entry of the book from journal 9? did he write about the flood 4 days after it happened? is this an example of his time being out of sync? (or is this an editing error?)

i would love to reread this book: a) on the calendar days the entries are written (like dracula daily), b) to see whether the days of the week (tues/fri) in 2018 match the days piranesi meets with the Other (did he still factor in leap day? did he get # days/month right?), c) to catalogue all the halls/vestibules/statues like piranesi himself, d) to figure out who the dead bodies are (some of arne-sayles' students like ketterley, bannerman, hughes were still alive in the real world. two of the bodies are almost certainly ovenden and guissani. d'agostino probably still alive elsewhere despite new MRS thinking otherwise. it's not a coincidence that she could travel freely and chose to leave on her own)

(ch. 2, batter-sea) what stimuli did piranesi see/hear/taste after hearing "battersea"? just a sense of danger, the general british world, or something specific?

(ch. 2, a white cross) it's heartbreaking to see piranesi talk about cold winters knowing what ketterley did to him, especially with how readily he shares his seaweed with the albatross! he's so generous!!! this entire entry is so pure, probably the one i will return to most often (and a later addition to the book - susanna clarke said in interviews that early readers noticed she never explained why the current year is the year of the albatross so she added it in!)

(ch. 2, a conversation) (jun 11 2018) is there a specific meaning to the birds' "warning"? is it just to show piranesi's personality and attunement with the House? he groups them as "an angel with a trumpet and a ship", "a book and clouds", "a child and mice". but i keep thinking of grouping them as "an angel with a trumpet, a book, a child" and "a ship, clouds, mice". my grouping feels like a guide on how to access the House without a candle ritual, which foreshadows what arne-sayles would later tell raphael how to do (~regress to a childlike state and enter a house with oceans and clouds) (it's implied in piranesi's convo w the prophet that arne-sayles had not yet given raphael these instructions. so this really would be a warning of the future and not an exact mapping of something happening in the other world at the same time)

(ch. 2, shoes) "my feet felt beautifully cushioned and bouncible" is so sweet puppy dog eyes emoji!!!!!

(ch. 2, a list of things the Other has given me) KETTERLEY DIDN'T GIVE PIRANESI SUPPLIES UNTIL 2014?!?!? JESUS CHRIST WHAT A COWARD (see: poor james ritter)

(ch. 2, the eighty-eighth western hall) "After some minutes of peering at it I thought I could make out the word ‘minotaur’. A line or two above I thought I saw the word ‘slave’ and a line or two below the phrase ‘kill him’." this passage seems to connect with the text found in (ch. 4, I retrieve the scraps of paper from the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall) - "I rely on him to bring me food and water – which only underlines my status as a prisoner, a slave. He leaves the food in the room with the minotaur statues. I indulge myself in long fantasies of killing him." it's implied MRS's handwriting was so bad that piranesi had trouble deciphering it fully, but i find it interesting that the first passage says "kill him" and the real entry says "killing him." i wonder if that was intentional for the reader's convenience in ch. 2 or again, an editing error.

(ch. 2, the Other explains that he has said this all before) piranesi named the constellations the Rose, the Good Mother, and the Lamp-post. idk where Good Mother comes from, but Rose is part of his name (and also is just... a flower lol) and I find it very interesting that in (ch. 4, I retrieve scraps of paper from the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall), he had written "Yesterday I could not think of the word for lamp-post." that diary entry was presumably written nov-dec 2012 and piranesi named the constellations in 2014. he forgot the word but remembered again in a different context. more evidence to my timeline idea (see: poor james ritter)

(ch. 2, the Other explains that he has said this all before) "‘Out of sync with what?’ / ‘With me. With everyone else.’" piranesi is so focused on being told about his memory loss that he doesn't pick up on the phrase "everyone else"

(ch. 2, the Other warns me about 16) it is only just now, after reading this book 4 times and writing this post, that i realize the "small metallic objects" ketterley absentmindedly turns over in his pocket are coins. money.

(ch. 2, the Other warns me about 16) ketterley uses neutral pronouns for 16/raphael. piranesi is the one who assumes he pronouns

(ch. 2, the Other warns me about 16) ketterley met raphael on june 24 2018

(ch. 2, the first vestibule) + (ch. 4, i find writing made by 16) knowing the labyrinth has multiple doors on each wall makes navigating it even more confusing. it isn't just 4 doors per room, one per wall. many rooms seem to have at least 3 doors per wall

(ch. 3, the prophet) "We all paid a terrible price in the end. Mine was prison." again, took me multiple read-throughs to see the parallel between arne-sayles in prison and MRS in prison. my first read-through, i was shocked at that statement for being so upfront. but arne-sayles liked the people he met there despite physical restriction, piranesi is lonely with no people even though he's free to walk around

(ch. 3, poor james ritter) james ritter was in the House for about eighteen months despite estimated captivity of about two years. piranesi has his Revelation about the Knowledge about once every eighteen months (ch. 2, the Other explains that he has said this all before). maybe arne-sayles pulled ritter out of the house when he noticed that kind of mental shift and ketterley learned about the eighteen months pattern which is why he stayed away from the House between november 2012 and (estimated) may 2014. piranesi says that the Other got caught in a wave in june 2014 which has made him wary of floods (ch. 2, batter-sea). the timeline makes sense that ~may/june 2014 would be when ketterley started visiting. BUT MRS also says he couldn't feed himself at first. so maybe it's not that ketterley stayed away but that piranesi doesn't remember the negative association w him from the early days / that's the timeframe the piranesi identity fully crystalized and he forgot MRS (is 18mo a biblical reference? also, how old is piranesi? he estimates 30-35... what if he's 33?)

(ch. 4, more people to kill) "‘I do not think that I could kill someone however wicked they are,’ I said. ‘Even the wicked deserve Life. Or if they do not, then let the House take it from them. Not me.’ OHHHH the foreshadowingggg

(ch. 4, i erase a message from 16) "As soon as the Sun rose I fetched my Index and my Journals. I opened the Index at R, but there was no entry for ‘Raphael’." i like how raphael's absence in the index does multiple things for the audience. it tells us raphael and MRS haven't met before but more importantly, it primes us to think of raphael as a last name which itself primes us to question their first name / gender

(ch. 4, i erase a message from 16) i only have the ebook so the spacing in my version might be off (i don't know what might be a line break or an erased word) and i'm sure i'm missing bits but this is my best guess at 16's message: "(dear piranesi/rose sorensen, is my writing) comprehensible? my name (is sarah raphael. i am a po)lice offi(cer. i) read the files on your dis(appearance.) is valentine ketter(ley your captor? he almost ce)rtainly groomed other potential victims and i(s) a disciple of the occultist (professor) laurence arne-say(les. i thi)nk he knows that i have penetrated th(e labyrinth. you've be)en here for almost six years, did yo(u know about the exit? the) way out is locate(d in the) room with the statues of minotaurs. (arne-sayles war)ned me that you may be suffering from (amnesia.)"

(ch. 4, laurence arne-sayles) "I came across one entitled: Laurence Arne-Sayles: pros and cons of writing a book, and, since the idea of writing a book appeals to me strongly, I read this with interest." he's so cute!!!! he does eventually decide to write a book about A-S in (ch. 7, matthew rose sorensen has reappeared). / (speaking of "interesting," in (ch. 4, i am...), piranesi says "I skim-read a few entries. I read how the Other had performed various Rituals at which I had assisted. I read how clever the Other was, how scientific, how insightful, how handsome. I read detailed descriptions of his clothes. This was mildly interesting, but in no way helped me with my present problem." again, i just think the way he thinks is sweet n cute. his own praise about the Other was mildly interesting)

(ch. 4, laurence arne-sayles) i was confused bc i thought "Antoine Rivoire" and "Coquette des Blanches" were rivers at first. they're flowers in A-S's childhood garden. facepalm emoji. listen, i took german in hs, not french

(ch. 4, there will be a great flood) i just like the detail that piranesi says Fuck! 9x to Himself. and then looks toward the future

(ch. 4, there will be a great flood) the size and location of the flood bc i was confused until writing it down. first piranesi says between forty and 100 rooms will be flooded and that it will be centered 0.8 kilometers NW of the first vestibule. then in (ch. 4, are you matthew rose sorensen?) he writes to 16 in the sixth NW hall: 6 halls west, 4 halls north, 5 halls east, 6 halls south. then in (ch. 6, the wave) ketterley says he can't remember if 10 rooms will be flooded or 100.

(ch. 4, i am...) obligatory doctor who blink episode mention. but also ramanujan!

(ch. 6, raphael) "He is dead. My only friend. My only enemy." the way piranesi gathers ketterley's body and calls him handsome and wraps him up for the birds and fish!!!!!!

(ch. 6, as the shadows fell in the first vestibule) angharad scott called MRS's college "in may of this year" to ask about the progress on his book - same timeframe as when this book / journal 10 starts

(ch. 6, other people) raphael says "Arne-Sayles probably murdered at least one of them. Perhaps he murdered all of them." i think this is at least indirectly true. he told his students how to access this world. BUT in (ch. 3, the prophet), A-S says, "Thirteen dead? How fascinating! No one ever told me there were human remains here. Who are they, I wonder?" which seems to imply that he didn't know where his dead students were. i don't think he killed them on purpose. i think some of them entered this world with their ritual and then got stuck and died. like i said before, ovenden and guissani fit that description. d'agostino does not. some dead bodies also could be unrelated, like the folded-up child is probably an unlucky kid who happened to wander in

(ch. 6, other people) "A wave of sadness and helplessness washed over me." nice reference to this chapter title "Wave"

(ch. 6, i leave) "When Raphael arrived, she seemed rather astonished at my pleasant appearance." has become an earworm phrase for me. so wholesome!!!!

(ch. 7, valentine ketterley has disappeared) my first readthrough of the first couple paragraphs, i thought this was a newspaper clipping. clarke does a really good job at distinguishing new MRS's voice from piranesi's and keeping it closer to old MRS

(ch. 7, matthew rose sorensen has reappeared) MRS was an undergrad in 2000. assuming he was ~18-22 in 2000, his birthday is ~1978-1982, making him 36-40 in 2018. he estimated himself (30-35) to be slightly younger than he is! which means he's likely closer in age to raphael than an unobservant reader may think (and he's also not 33 like jesus @ crucifixion). ketterley was born 1955 (ch. 4, i am...), making him 63, slightly older than his estimated age if 50-60.

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this book is SOOOO british. "torch" for flashlight. please. sgkjfhdfjdkjfhg i thought that meant fire stick the first time around

james ritter and jamie askill have the same first name (not a guess that they're the same person or anything - but afaik these are the two ppl besides raphael that new MRS speaks to on page after leaving the House. just an interesting detail. matthew/sarah/james)

MRS was insecure about money and appearance (clothes) but third ID is not. also has a strong sense of perfumes

symmetry: chapters bookend piranesi/MRS. almost bookend other/ketterley. prophet/16 juxtaposed as well. wave bookend. "Beauty of House immeasurable" quote bookend first & last entries. main story takes place over 5 months (may 1 - oct 1) with an epilogue that ends dec 1.

general plotting: you know from the beginning (from the title lol) that the book is going to be about imprisonment and the Other has something to do with it. but clarke is really good at plotting the little details along the way. at first i thought 16 was the prophet before that was ruled out. then, after learning 16 was a woman (which i caught onto with her voice being unexpected!), i thought it would be sylvia d'agostino. i never would have guessed from just the beginning that piranesi would be saved by the angel raphael yet it fits so well with all the religious imagery

piranesi thinks he's going to collide with the albatross at the beginning to create an angel. he "collides with" angel raphael during flood at end

i like the subtle setup of piranesi ultimately choosing to leave his world because he wants to be around more people. his interest in others (even the dead) remains true the entire story. (ch. 4, I decide to look up Laurence Arne-Sayles in the Index) - "It is not the fact 16 is a woman that fascinates and excites me – or at least, not entirely; it is the fact that she is another human being"

waves. drowning. baptism. (ch. 2, the Other explains that he has said this all before) - ketterley says piranesi occasionally forgets things and piranesi foreshadows "suppose I forget something important, like the Times and Patterns of the Tides? I might drown."

from multiple rereads i get the impression that the staircases are in the vestibules and not the halls. aka, vestibules are where it rains and where the floods originate. that would also mean that when piranesi says "door" he must mean "doorway." the surrounding halls would not be flooded (at least not how it's described) if the doors were closed. there are too many citations to list to fully make this point but look at these 3 parts from (ch. 6, wave): "I returned to the First Vestibule. It was now half-past eleven. Two Halls West and North of here, in the Ninth Vestibule, the first Tide was already ascending the Easternmost Staircase." + "I glanced at my watch. Five Halls South and West of here, in the Twenty-Second Vestibule, another Tide was already rising, tumbling up the Staircase." + "It was noon. In the Tenth and Twenty-Fourth Vestibules the last two Tides were rising, filling the surrounding Area with tempestuous, raging Waters." (the "conjunction of four tides" are from the 9th, 10th, 22nd, 24th vestibules)

i wonder if there's symbolism behind the east halls being flooded/inaccessible. sun rises in east and sun symbolizes knowledge of how earth functions? needed for the subtle three motif going on?

(ch. 6, as the shadows fell in the first vestibule raphael returned) raphael says, "It was the first time that we – I mean the police – knew that there was any connection between you and Arne-Sayles." (ch. 7, valentine ketterley has disappeared) jamie askill says, "When we – I mean the police – got there, it was evening..." interesting verbal tick the two different officers have, almost as if they're not actually police and have to remind themselves to pretend to be (I don't personally believe the mental health facility interpretation, but that could work as evidence). SEE ALSO (ch. 4, poor james ritter) "All that they (the police) were able to establish was that Ritter had been seen in and around Manchester..."

it's very cute how piranesi yells "goodbye! goodbye!" he's so sweet. (ch. 2, the other warns me about 16), (ch. 4, there will be a great flood), (ch. 6, strange emotions). also reminds me of when he tries to wave to the Other through the window (ch. 1, a description of the world) (what was the Other doing? a ritual? was this scene a red herring to make the reader believe the Other truly inhabits this world? that scene happens on a monday... hmm...)

piranesi uses this exact wording twice: ..."pretty things that I have found or made: seashells, coral beads, pearls, tiny pebbles and interesting fishbones" (ch. 3, i change my appearance in anticipation of the coming of 16), (ch. 6, i leave). it's cute!!! why reinvent the wheel!!!!!

more repetition: being "saved" (very christian lol). 1) [imagining revenge against ketterley] "And sometimes I raved at him and accused him; and sometimes I was cold and silent, and he begged me to tell him why I had turned against him, but I did not. And always I could have saved him, but I never did" (ch. 6, i was mistaken!). 2) "We were drenched, we were numbed, we were blinded, we were deafened; but always we were saved" (ch. 6, raphael). 3) "I was in a house with many rooms. The sea sweeps through the house. Sometimes it swept over me, but always I was saved" (ch. 7, valentine ketterley has disappeared). 4) "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" (ch. 7, matthew rose sorensen has reappeared). there are other mentions of the word (james ritter was saved working at town hall and the boat didn't save ketterley) but i highlighted the ones to do with piranesi.

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