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Title details for Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Available
3 of 3 copies available
3 of 3 copies available

Vuelve la autora de Jonathan Strange y el señor Norrell con una novela hipnótica ambientada en una realidad onírica.

La casa de Piranesi no es un edificio cualquiera: sus habitaciones son monumentales, con paredes llenas de miles de estatuas, y sus pasillos, interminables. Dentro del dédalo de corredores hay un océano aprisionado en el que las olas retumban y las mareas inundan los aposentos. Pero Piranesi no tiene miedo: comprende las embestidas del mar igual que el patrón del laberinto, mientras explora los límites de su mundo y avanza, con la ayuda de un hombre llamado El Otro, en una investigación científica para alcanzar El Gran Conocimiento Secreto.

La crítica ha dicho...
«Diecisiete años después de la maravillosa Jonathan Strange y el señor Norrell, Susanna Clarke regresa a la novela con una personalísima reinterpretación del mito del laberinto. Piranesi, el joven protagonista de esta novela, es una especie de náufrago que, en lugar de una isla, explora la casa fantástica y llena de significados en la que parece atrapado. La casa es descomunal, fastuosa y complicada. Está atiborrada de estatuas y parece contener un océano en uno de sus pasillos. Con la minuciosidad del naturalista y la inocencia del buen salvaje (el Piranesi original, arquitecto y grabador especializado en prisiones fantásticas, fue contemporáneo de Rousseau), el protagonista anota en un diario sus avances y descubrimientos, también sus conversaciones con otro misterioso inquilino con el que a veces se encuentra. Al amparo de Borges y Escher, Susanna Clarke ha escrito una novela fascinante.»
El Correo

«Susanna Clarke demuestra con su desbordante imaginación que no hacen falta mamotretos de mil páginas para construir un mundo de fantasía épico capaz de inducirte un embriagador sentido de la maravilla. A través de los ingenuos ojos de Piranesi, observa lo cotidiano desde un prisma de inocente fascinación y nos atrapa con su embrujo en una atmósfera familiar, pero lo suficientemente adulterada como para resultar mágica. Reconforta saber que, cuando sales de la Casa, algo de la Casa se te queda dentro para siempre.»
Generación Reader

«Nos recuerda el poder de la ficción para llevarnos a otro mundo y ampliar así la comprensión del nuestro. [...] Supera las expectativas en todo.»
The Guardian

«Como un sueño febril: desorientador, fascinante, persistentemente extraño. [...] Se introduce en el subconsciente con acertijos que van mucho más allá de la última página. Brillante y singular.»
The Sunday Times

«Una lectura sutilmente cómica y completamente seductora.»
Daily Mail

«Espectacular. [...] Una segunda novela que roza la perfección.»
The Times

«Una fábula deslumbrante sobre la soledad, la imaginación y la memoria.»
The Spectator

«Bella, extraña, fascinante.»
Mail on Sunday

«¿Por qué no atreverse con el nuevo libro de Susanna Clarke para viajar al subconsciente sin necesidad de tomar nada?»
New York Magazine

«Una lectura adictiva de máxima calidad. [...] Una hazaña sobresaliente.»
The Wall Street Journal

«El ingenio y la imaginación singulares de Clarke siguen intactos. Una historia mucho más comprimida pero no menos cautivadora.»
The Boston Globe

«De una agudeza inmensa.»
The Washington Post

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 29, 2020
      Clarke wraps a twisty mystery inside a metaphysical fantasy in her extraordinary new novel, her first since 2004’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The story unfolds as journal entries written by the eponymous narrator, who, along with an enigmatic master known as the Other (and 13 skeletons whom Piranesi regards as persons) inhabits the House, a vast, labyrinthine structure of statue-adorned halls and vestibules. So immense is the House that its many parts support their own internal climates, all of which Piranesi vividly describes (“I squeezed myself into the Woman’s Niche and waited until I heard the Tides roaring in the Lower Halls and felt the Walls vibrating with the force of what was about to happen”). Meanwhile, the Other is pursuing the “Great and Secret Knowledge” of the ancients. After the Other worriedly asks Piranesi if he’s seen in the house a person they refer to as 16, Piranesi’s curiosity is piqued, and all the more so after the Other instructs him to hide. In their discussions about 16, it becomes increasingly clear the Other is gaslighting Piranesi about his memory, their relationship, and the reality they share. With great subtlety, Clarke gradually elaborates an explanatory backstory to her tale’s events and reveals sinister occult machinations that build to a crescendo of genuine horror. This superbly told tale is sure to be recognized as one of the year’s most inventive novels.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Chiwetel Ejiofor narrates an intricate fantasy presented in the form of diary entries. An unnamed narrator chronicles his daily life in the house, keeping track of tides, the migration of birds, and the visits he is paid by The Other. Gradually, he comes to learn that his world is not at all as it seems. Ejiofor carefully establishes the narrator's reality-- and then just as carefully shatters it as the self-doubt and anxiety the narrator suffers rise to the surface. When the narrator endures great mental anguish due to a sudden and unexpected betrayal, Ejiofor's grief and despair are raw and gutting. A nuanced performance of a deeply complex work. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Good Reading Magazine
      Piranesi is a difficult novel to review, in part because it resists categorisation – it’s fantastical and dark, yet poignant and sweet – but also because it’s a book best discovered on its own terms. Susanna Clarke, who gave us the remarkable Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrell, has pulled another rabbit out of the hat with Piranesi and has produced a singular and curious tale. The eponymous hero, Piranesi, lives in the House. The House is seemingly infinite and contains innumerable statues, staircases, halls, vestibules and even an ocean. While Piranesi lives alone in the House, he’s content. He understands it and knows how to sustain himself from its offerings. As he says, ‘The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite’. Twice a week, Piranesi receives a visit from The Other. Like the reader, Piranesi doesn’t understand why he’s there or why The Other calls him Piranesi when that’s not his real name. (Readers familiar with Giovanni Piranesi, an Italian artist known for his etchings of fictitious prisons, will have a head start on our hero). The start of the novel is confusing and disorientating, but that’s part of its ingenuity and what makes it so compelling. Clarke’s deliberately clunky prose is alienating at first but, as the story unfolds, it’s perfectly calibrated to communicate Piranesi’s singular point of view and extraordinary circumstances. It’s also the perfect vehicle to demonstrate Clarke’s superlative imagination. If you like books with a clear narrative and relatable characters, then this isn’t a book for you. But, if you are happy to give yourself over to the unexpected, can let the narrative tease and taunt and trust it to unravel at its own pace, Piranesi should be high on your reading list. Reviewed by Louise Falconer
    • BookPage
      “It is my belief,” writes Piranesi, the protagonist of Susanna Clarke’s new novel of the same name, “that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies.” Clarke’s first novel since 2004’s wildly successful and critically acclaimed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Piranesi centers on a strange, haunting world and features a main character whose earnest goodwill is piercingly endearing. The House, composed of hundreds of huge rooms filled with statues and wild birds and containing an ocean’s four tides, is so vast it may as well be infinite. Piranesi spends his days fishing, drying seaweed to burn for warmth, tracking the tides and cataloging the features of each room of the House in his journals. Twice a week, he meets with the Other, the only living person Piranesi has ever known. The Other is obsessed with finding and “freeing the Great and Secret Knowledge from whatever holds it captive in the World and to transfer it to ourselves,” and the guileless and devoted Piranesi has been his cheerful collaborator. But just as Piranesi begins to lose faith in the Knowledge, a discovery leads him to question his own past. From this point, the novel is almost impossible to put down. The reader reflexively mirrors Piranesi in his quest to interpret the clues revealed to him by his beloved World. Stripping this mystery back layer by layer is a magical way to spend an afternoon, reading narrative motifs like runes and studying Piranesi’s journals as if they are the religious texts they resemble. Piranesi hits many of the same pleasure points as Jonathan Strange—Clarke’s dazzling feats of world building, for one. But at one-third as many pages, Piranesi is more allegorical than epic in scope. With their neoclassical verve, certain passages recall ancient philosophy, but readers may also see connections between Piranesi’s account and the unique isolation of a confined life—whether as a result of a mandatory lockdown during a global pandemic, or perhaps due to the limitations caused by a chronic illness, such as Clarke’s own chronic fatigue syndrome. Lavishly descriptive, charming, heartbreaking and imbued with a magic that will be familiar to Clarke’s devoted readers, Piranesi will satisfy lovers of Jonathan Strange and win her many new fans.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • Spanish; Castilian

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