Science, Magic, and Myth
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi exists at the intersection between cold, scientific intellect and wide-eyed wonder.
Review by Ali Kjergaard
But we do indulge the equally fantastic idea that folk-lore can be treated as a science.”
– G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Science and magic always seem a short step away from one another—at least to a non-scientific mind like my own. I’m regularly in awe of scientific phenomena. In physics, we have laws that explain the ways of the universe, the motion of objects, and the way they will move when force is acted upon them. And we have come to accept them as laws, as facts we can’t debate. But to my untrained eye, they just seem magical.
When man first gazed at the ocean and watched the waves rise and then slowly fall away, that must have seemed like magic, too: that at one time of day there would be dry land and at another it would be swept over with water, first safe then dangerous at the whim of the time of day. The fact that all of this is because the moon causes bulges of water that create the high tides seems to me more like a sort of spell than hard science. I’m still puzzled. I know the facts but still can’t explain it to myself. Dorothy Sayer wrote of the laws of nature in The Mind of the Maker: “In its other use, the word ‘law’ is employed to designate a generalized statement of observed fact of one sort or another.” The concept of the tide is an observed fact, but that doesn’t change that I still find tides strange and mystical.
All of this ran through my mind as I read Piranesi. The book is a mix of science and magic, fact and fiction, whimsical and concrete. I often felt like I was walking through the blurred confusion of scientific discovery, where outcomes aren’t obvious and hypotheses are inconclusive. With the help of our guide, the titular character Piranesi, we piece together a strange new world—one quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen or read about before. I tend to lean into nonfiction when choosing books, and I forget the delight of being spirited away to a world so very different from my own. I was so intrigued by the world Susanna Clarke created that I couldn’t help but keep turning the pages.
Piranesi guides us through the marble halls of his world, or “the House” as he calls it. He spends his days wandering through the corridors and vestibules he has meticulously charted and numbered. There are certain statues in the House that Piranesi has grown particularly fond of, and he has learned to safely navigate the tides that periodically flood the bottom halls of the House.
Piranesi is never smug about his knowledge of the House; in fact, he constantly tries to use it for good.
Twice a week Piranesi meets with The Other, a deeply scientific man. The two stand in sharp contrast to one another. The Other is sharp and critical in his assessment of the House: to him, it’s a labyrinth and a maze, one that he is slightly afraid of. Piranesi, on the other hand, loves the House, as it is the only world he knows. “The beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite,” he writes in the journals we read along in. Still, after Piranesi’s near brush with death because of the tides, we are left asking if this world actually is kind—and if The Other really should be trusted. “Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not,” Piranesi muses.
The Other needs Piranesi because he is the only one who understands the House, and The Other is on a quest for the Great and Secret Knowledge. To him, this world contains something to be gained, but Piranesi simply loves the House for the way it provides for his needs, and for the beauty of the statues and the birds that flit the hallways. Perhaps Piranesi is the true scientist: rather than seeking to use the House for utility and gain, he is enamored of his world as he grows in understanding of the House and respectful of its mysteries and unknowns. “Do not be anxious, I tell myself. It is the House. It is the House enlarging your understanding,” he comforts himself in the face of feared unknowns.
Piranesi is never smug about his knowledge of the House; in fact, he constantly tries to use it for good. He doesn’t lord his knowledge over The Other, but rather concludes that “It is not his fault that he does not see things the way I do.” He is the only one who comprehends the tides that will flood the marble halls and who can navigate the long corridors that can take days to travel through. He loves his strange and watery home with an admiration that no one else seems to share, and yet we see that he nevertheless works to protect himself and others from the dangers that coexist with the beauty of the House.
But when Piranesi is faced with evil, he refuses to touch it himself. He refuses to take what he knows is not his to take. “Even the wicked deserve Life. Or if they do not, then let the House take it from them. Not me,” he protests. The Other, on the contrary, “always thinks in terms of utility. He cannot imagine why anything should exist if he cannot make use of it.” Piranesi’s stance here shows how if we aren’t looking at a world through the lenses of its usefulness, judging everything around us for what it can give to us, we can instead start looking to see how we might help the world around us. Piranesi cares for the birds that fly through the halls, helping with their nests. He visits the dead who lie in certain vestibules to show them that they are not alone. He gives back to the world, and his generosity teaches him to see its intrinsic value and worth.
We will never know exactly what and why everything is within the House, no matter how much data we gather and analyze along the way.
Reading Piranesi feels like performing an experiment, like testing a hypothesis I’m never quite sure about. The experiment may not provide clear answers, and our hypothesis might never be fully proven. All throughout the book there are pieces of what feel like concrete facts: Piranesi’s journals, the meticulous entries and dates, the remnants of a world we feel we know. But the House also feels more confusing and mystical than the labyrinths of Greek mythology. There is unexplained magic here too. As in any experiment, we might not have all the answers by the end, but we don’t need to relentlessly search for everything to make sense. We can leave that to The Other. We are allowed to just open our curious eyes and soak in the magic and the mystery.
And the mystery does linger on. One successful experiment only opens up more questions and hypotheses. We will never know exactly what and why everything is within the House, no matter how much data we gather and analyze along the way. We, as readers, are ultimately asked to be as content with the unknowns as Piranesi is. If not every question is answered with a fact we can make into a law, can we still love the House for the world it has given us as readers?
Piranesi is a page turner, without a doubt. I was lost in the House, wandering the halls with Piranesi, trying to put the puzzle together. And sometimes as the reader I felt discouraged, as if I were walking through a world of evil intellect pitted against goodness and innocence. But Clarke also shows us that the scientific intellect need not always be associated with the cold and heartless. In the character of Piranesi we see that heroism, wonder, and innocence can come together with the pursuit of knowledge about the world—and that together, these qualities might just triumph over cold, ruthless, utilitarian intellect in the end.
Ali Kjergaard currently lives in Washington, DC, where she works as a staffer on Capitol Hill. You can follow her miscellaneous musings on Twitter @AlisonKjergaard.
Piranesi was published on September 15, 2020, by Bloomsbury Publishing. You can purchase a copy on their website here.
