Piranesi not only celebrates a woman writing about anything she wants to, in whichever way she choses, but it also celebrates overcoming adversity. The Guardian | 9 Sept 2021 | Alison Flood Piranesi is ultimate escapism, a mind-bending trip”. And I think that’s a wonderful message to send to girls and women who are reading or writing: You can write about whatever you want. Why can’t women? Women can be just as successful writing about whatever story in whatever world pops into their head. And that’s all very important, but it sort of constrains women”…. So much of the time, when you talk about women’s fiction, female authors will tell you that they’re told to write about their experiences, that women’s stories need to be heard. Mee said that Piranesi, for her, “pretty much sums up what the Women’s fiction prize is all about … And that’s that women can write about whatever they want. So it was so hard to compare these books, because they were all so different and individually brilliant, but Piranesi really made a lasting impression on us.” It’s certainly like nothing I’ve ever read before, and we all kept returning to this book. We’ve had a year like no other, and we feel that we’ve got a winner like no other. “But we went for something that was totally original. “It was difficult because this year’s shortlist was so varied,” said Mee. Judge Sarah-Jane Mee had this to say about picking Piranesi as the 2021 winner. Next up, Susanna Clarke and the Women’s Prize for Fiction.įantasy books rarely win literary prizes that are not specialty fantasy/sci fi awards. The story, the mystery, if you like, then hinges on why and how this forgetfulness has occurred. He is not deliberately trying to bamboozle you Piranesi is in a genuine state of forgetfulness. Even when you quickly realise his unreliable narrator status, you are not dismayed. What the blurb fails to reveal though, is the almost trance-like state you enter as you read Piranesi’s story. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But Piranesi is not afraid he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. So let me start with the story blurb, so you can carry a vague impression of what happens with you through this post. That means one post a day until the end of the year.īut I WILL reread Piranesi one day, so anything that I miss saying in this post can be picked up later. I now feel a VERY strong desire to complete all my outstanding 2021 reviews before the New Year ticks over. But time and Covid-19 disruptions got in the way. I had planned on rereading Piranesi before writing this post as some stories are meant to be read multiple times this is one. It’s an exercise in slowing down, being in each moment as it happens and simply letting the story wash over you and through you. In the end Piranesi is rather like a zen meditation. Where was this story taking us, what did we need to pay attention to, what did we need to remember? Some of us started making lists of the statues and rooms, but before long, we all reached the same decision – to simply let it all go, and go with the flow. It ended up being one of the best book discussions we’d had together during my time with the group.Ĭuriously we all had a similar response to the beginning, in that we felt some hesitancy. Piranesi was the book I chose for my book group to read in November. I’m really not sure how I can write a review for this story that will do the reading experience justice. This is something that happens only every eight years. When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of Three Tides.
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