Piranesi – Susanna Clarke

I liked it (that’s what three stars means, according to the tooltip), but not enthusiastically. Piranesi - the main character - is the best part of the book. He is good, engaging, intelligent, and innocent. The halls in which he finds himself are the next-best part of the book. They are a never-ending source of wonder (literally, perhaps), and no answer to their riddle will ever be as good as the question. The writing is masterful: It does just what the author wants it to do - and when the author wants it to do something difficult it does it without clubbing the reader over the head.

The other characters are shallow. Like characters in a miracle play, they never transcend their simple roles. And there isn’t much story. The author has gone to so much trouble to set the stage and prepare the actors - and now bids us to admire her work.

One of the main ways I evaluate a book’s impact is by the degree to which I’m tempted to go back to the start of the book and reread it. Sometimes I give in to that temptation. In this case, the temptation did not arise. One reading, at one sitting, used the book up.