Umm, is that it?
Ok, let me start by first apologizing to everyone who loves this book. Obviously, I'm an outlier and my thoughts here are decidedly in the minority. So if you feel differently, please don't throw rotten vegetables at me.
Going into Piranesi, I had heard nothing but great things about it. How it's riveting and unputdownable. How no one had ever seen a story like this before. How the twist is going to blow my mind. Unfortunately, none of those turned out to be true for me.
For one thing—and please forgive for saying this—I just don't find endless descriptions of halls, statues, vestibules, tides, fish, and birds to be that interesting. I know, I can't believe I just admitted such a thing publicly. But that is the majority of this book! It was tolerable for the first thirty pages, when I worked hard to read and reread each description slowly so that I may keep straight every hall, statue, vestibule, tide, fish, and bird encountered. But I soon grew tired and just proceeded to read without retaining.
And it wouldn't be a big deal if the only issue with this book is its excessive descriptions. After all, I've read plenty of books like that and still eked out some enjoyment. But here, the descriptions are in combination with writing I couldn't make heads or tails of. I'll be honest, I barely understood most of the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, no matter how much I concentrated or how many times I reread it.
So what's the problem? Well, for me, I just don't see a point to reading like that. When the writing is such that it isn't meant to be understood or remembered, but rather just skimmed to reach the end, then why am I even reading it? Sure, I wiled away some time turning the pages, but I ultimately come away unchanged, and for me, that is the worst result a story can achieve.
For such a short book, this sure was a slog. Lots of readers report reading it in one sitting because they couldn't put it down. It took me three days of dedicated reading time to get through it. Every time I put it down, I had no urge to pick it back up. The only reason I kept going is the promise of that great twist.
And here, my expectations were wrong too. For me, a twist means that the story is leading the reader in one direction, but then a development happens that takes the story in a completely different, unforeseen direction. Thus, the reader is surprised. But that didn't happen here. This book clearly leads you in one direction, and the reveal is exactly what you would expect from it.
Perhaps if you didn't know the book's genre going in (not sure how you'd be able to swing that though), this development would come as a surprise. But it's a fairly common concept. So to prevent the reader from figuring things out early, the book is written such that it maximumly obscures everything. Keeping the reader in this haze-like, confused state for as long as possible is the goal of this story.
And when we do reach the end, no actual explanation of the logistics are given. The how's and why's are just handwaved away. I don't mind being taken for a ride, but the destination had better be worth it. And it wasn't here. I expected creative and original, but I only ended up with derivative and unsatisfying.
I know not every book is for every reader, and this one definitely isn't for me. I marvel at stories that take complex and intricate ideas and turn them into something easily understood. This is the opposite. It takes a fairly simple concept that's been done many times before and somehow manages to turn it into the most obscure and confounding tale. No, thank you.
Readaroo Rating: 1 star
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