My discomfort with the idea of this fable (I'm especially taken with this idea, Heidi) as Christian text is its attitude toward death. Piranesi is (at best) unsure of the evilness of death. It doesn't disrupt his communion with the dead whom he so carefully tends. And, I don't think his "Edenic" innocence give him a pass here. Adam and Eve, in their innocence and prior to their actual experience of death, know it is evil. And, I understand that Piranesi doesn't have the benefit of a good God telling him of the evils of death ... but maybe that speaks to my point?
My other concern in reading this as a Christian text is commensurate to the first ... I don't see a clear understanding of the idea of original sin - without which there is no redemption (even of a less than orthodox kind). Redemption isn't even needed. All Piranesi needs is forgetfulness, which the House happily offers.
*For what it's worth, Clarke's understanding (and presentation) of death seems a major departure from Lewis who never fails to see death for the evil it is.
I’ll chime in briefly about the attitude to death in the novel just to note a few more places where we see the value of life:
1. Piranesi is pretty clear that the idea of killing someone is shocking and abhorrent to him when the Other tries to persuade him of the necessity of killing 16.
2. Piranesi also tries to make sure that both The Other and 16 are safe from the high tide & flooding, even though he believes they are both a threat to him. He values the lives and actively works to prevent the death of his enemies.
3. I also think that in a way Piranesi does mourn the death of the female child that he believes the house intended to be his wife, even though he never knew her.
4. I agree with Melanie’s point that caring for the remains of the dead is something we do in all cultures, including as Christians, because we so highly value the body. It doesn’t mean that we don’t grieve the death of the person. We know that tending a loved one’s grave, bringing flowers, or even talking to them is a way of honouring their life while also grieving their death. I don’t think that what Piranesi does is any different.
As far as sin goes I think Ketterley’s search for the secret knowledge is an image of original sin. The essence of the secret knowledge he seeks is the desire for power and domination, the desire to be like God, to make his own rules. What Ketterley wants is the rule of power not submission to the rule of love. Isn’t that an image of Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God and to grasp the fruit that the serpent says will make them like gods? And initially the narrator is seduced by the desire to understand the transgressive (read evil) knowledge of Arne-Sayles and Ketterley. It is only in the process of coming to love the House that he comes to see the secret knowledge as a sham and to reject it.
I think in a work of fiction resurrection can be signified in many ways that are symbolic and doesn’t have to be literal. For example at the end of Moby Dick Ishmael survives the wreck of the Pequod holding onto a coffin. This is an image of resurrection, if not literal then symbolic.
So the question is not does the character consciously hope for resurrection but does the novel give us images of resurrection or signs or symbols of resurrection, baptism, salvation. I think it does. First there is the symbolism of him being caught in the hand of the Trampled man. I read the trampled man as a symbol for Christ. And the narrators fall in the dark and being caught and held in a loving hand is a symbol of Christ intervening to save him. I see the narrators fall being washed by the tides as an image of baptism, that is of death and rebirth. Baptism is a sign of resurrection, a promise that death isn’t the end because we have died and been reborn in Christ. Not only is he baptized, he receives a new name. He is no longer Matthew Rose Sorensen but as he calls himself The Beloved Child of the House.
If when the narrator says “the House” you replace that with “God” then he is reborn as the beloved child of God— and isn’t that a symbol of resurrection and new life?
Also the albatross is a symbol of Christ and thus by welcoming the albatross the narrator is symbolically welcoming Christ.
There are more images of resurrection in the final section of the novel.
I agree with almost all of this. I just don't necessarily think the book see the house as God, at least entirely. The book seems to be about consciousness and identity, and the house is, at least in part, an understanding of the inner life.
I don't think it's necessary for the reader to fully accept the House as God, except inasmuch as you have to accept that *for the narrator* the House is the face of God, the name and the guise under which *he* encounters the divine presence.
God meets all of us where we are and shows to each of us a different face. For me one of the first faces of God I encountered was actually Aslan as I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was five. So it makes sense to me that for some people something like this encounter is how the get to know God: first through myth or story, through fiction or fable. And that can work a profound transformation on a soul. Coming to know the historical Jesus and to connect that fictional encounter with what Tolkien calls the "true myth" can come later in the process of conversion and Christian growth.
In other words, no, I don't think we are seeing the fullness of Christian discipleship in the beloved child of the house by any means. He still has a long way to go, but we are seeing a soul who has been profoundly transformed by an encounter with the divine under the guise in which that divinity was accessible to him as he was at the time. He still has to come to recognize that what he sees as good and holy and benevolent in the House has another name and another guise and a story, the story of Jesus's incarnation and resurrection. So in a sense this story is a proto-evangelion. It's not the Gospel, it's a fable that points to a deeper Christian reality by means of analogy.
We can respect other people's journeys towards Christ without fully entering in to the same path they have had to follow. I don't have to accept that the House is literally God so much as accept that when Piranesi says "the House" he is talking about an objective encounter with something good and benevolent beyond himself that he cannot give another name. He has an encounter with God and gives God the name "House". Which... Jesus refers to his Body as a Temple. And another name for the Temple is House of God. So I think by clear analogy we can see that one way to encounter the Word who pitched his tent/tabernacle/dwelling among us is as House. In the Psalms God is a rock, a refuge, a shelter, a hiding place, a fortress. Why not a House? I think Clarke is tapping into Christian imagery, but giving it a twist to make it at once strange/unfamiliar but also having echoes that we can recognize.
“I think Clarke is tapping into Christian imagery, but giving it a twist to make it at once strange/unfamiliar but also having echoes that we can recognize.” I had this thought when I finished the book the first read through, and it’s what compelled me to begin an immediate re-read. I still don’t know if “The House as God” allegory is what she was going for or if she was trying to accomplish the opposite and point out how *delusional* Christianity appears, but either way, it does seem to be a biblically archetypical story arc.
I'm not sure what you mean about the novel's attitude toward death not being evil. Where are you seeing that in the text? I don't see any evidence that death is seen as a good thing by the narrator or by Clarke? Is it because he cares for the dead bodies he finds and brings them offerings? I think you can argue that he's lonely and the Other/Ketterley is hardly filling his need for companionship. The dead that he cares for are the only people he knows. But burial of the dead is a work of mercy and lacking the ability to bury them, I think the narrator is doing his best to ensure the dead are treated with dignity and respect. And for me communion with the dead is actually a key thing the narrator has in common with christian believers. Because I talk to dead people all the time-- I call them saints. That doesn't mean I think death isn't evil, but I do think death doesn't have the last word and that those who have fallen asleep in Christ will rise again.
I don't think a book needs to have an expounding on the nature os sin to be Christian. But clearly Arne-Sayle and Ketterley are evil and I think you can argue that the narrator has undergone a purgation via extreme suffering. It's not just a fading into forgetfulness, but a way of the cross. And I think you can argue that he has undergone a symbolic baptism of sorts as well, lost his old name and become a new man.
You are right. Piranesi does (somehow, although I'm not completely sure why) have a desire to avoid death himself ... and to wish for others to avoid death as well. But, your point about death not having the last word (which I also rejoice in!) is so very apt ... and clarifying.
THIS, this very hope is what is missing from the text (and what leads me to conclude that death isn't bad, it simply is). Do you see resurrection as something for which anyone (or the House even) yearns for? I see bones, carefully tended. I see a communion with the dead. But, no hope (or even desire) that the bones which have been so effectively stripped of their flesh (their imago dei, you might say) will be resurrected and restored.
As to my suggestion about original sin, I'm not suggesting that a text has to make the question of original sin the question its pursuing. Rather, I'm suggesting that if a novel gets the doctrine of original sin wrong (positing that man is innately good rather than innately sinful), it will also get wrong the means of "salvation" (man doesn't really need saving after all; and if he does, he'll do it himself, thank you very much).
Which leads me to ask, if this most basic of Christian beliefs isn't what marks a text as "downstream" of a Christian understanding of the world (whether or not the author is intentionally swimming in that stream or not), what is? You said you think Piranesi is a deeply Christian novel. Why you think so? Is it because he suffers?
I agree with Heidi that Piranesi is innocent. He has forgotten evil and does not perceive it anymore. When I first read this, I found him to be very pre-historic but maybe I even just meant pre-enlightenment. The way he acted in harmony with his world and was oriented toward it through wonder and love rather than trying to extract secret knowledge from it or beat it into submission to his will. Now after listening to the podcast, I'm wondering if what I'm imagining him as is more of a pre-fall Adam. But almost like an apocolypse Adam. Maybe like a lonely Adam/Noah who's world is fallen but himself is starting anew.
I think he's become a new man through a kind of baptism, he's been baptized by the tides of the House and undergone a sea-change through the suffering he has endured.
Piranesi is for me both a heart book and a "hang" book; but I can't tell you why.
I will say that for me the epistemological questions aren't the heart of the novel for me. To me it's a story about enchantment. Also I'm fascinated by the idea of the House as an encounter with the divine. I don't think this is a secular novel. I think it's a deeply Christian novel.
I think the narrator is both mad and good. I don't think you have to choose between the two. But I also think maybe he's something of a holy fool-- sometimes the line between holiness and sanity is kind of blurry. Like in Laurus. When Laurus is a holy fool, I think it's clear that he's not quite sane. But he is good and his insanity ultimately becomes a kind of path towards theosis. In that way the House is kind of like a hermitage, a desert, a wilderness, a place of encounter. The House isn't a place I would want to live, but it's a place I would love to explore. It's a place of wonder.
I really like Severance and I think the question of the parallels between that and Piranesi is a fascinating one. But I would absolutely not want to live on the severed floor or even visit it. The whole idea of severance is so terrifying.
Are you really wanting to say that mentally ill people can’t be holy? Can’t have moral depth? Can’t be moral agents? Maybe think about that a bit harder.
Hmm. Would Clarke’s beliefs or lack thereof impact that view for you? In other words, is it just a Christian book whether she intended it to be or not?
Yeah I'm not very keen on hanging interpretation on the intentionality of the author rather than the evidence of the text itself. I do think an author can tap into Christian themes whether they mean to or not. (Let me tell you some time about a lecture I attended in university about the movement of grace in the movie Pulp Fiction.-- the lecture by a deeply Catholic elder statesman of the literature department did not mistake Quentin Tarantino of being intentional about depicting grace in a fallen world.) Just as Chaim Potok writing about the power of the crucifixion in My Name is Asher Lev taps into deeply Christian themes that are clearly beyond his intent. So I think you can read Piranesi exploring deeply Christian themes whether Clarke means to or not. (Although Clarke has said in interviews that she started to go to an Anglican church, so I think there is biographical evidence to support some level of intentionality.)
Even if she's doing so vicariously through Lewis. Using Narnia as a framework definitely invokes a Christian interpretation-- as does her invocation of Coleridge. To me there's a clear invitation to hold up a Christian lens to the novel to see how it looks. But I think it's deeper than that.
Some of my argument might be a bit spoilers for the ending. But I think even at this point we can start to see that Matthew Rose Sorenson was a very different person from who the narrator is now. There has been some kind of transformation. And no, I do not think that the question of his sanity at all negates the possibility of his holiness. I think this is a story about good and evil. It's clear that the narrator worships and adores the house as a deity: “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite,”. And I think that change in the narrator calls into question whether something about the House has changed his fundamental stance towards reality from being a nonbeliever to being a believer. And before you argue that the House isn't really a loving deity, I think it's worth asking whether the narrator, like the children in Narnia meeting Aslan, come to know something of Christ under a different name and in a different form? Is what he recognizes in "the House" as a benevolent, good, kind beautiful deity a coming to know Christ under a different name? I think there's evidence that he has indeed undergone a kind of kenosis, an emptying of self, and that this new, nameless self who only calls himself "the Beloved Child of the House" and who has been baptized in the tides of the House is a good and holy man. He has regained a primal innocence. This is a story about transformation, metanoia, and the working of grace in the human soul.
Clarke seems to have started back to church after writing this book, which in some ways is even more compelling.
I would argue the book is more philosophically in keeping with Lewis and Barfield than it is theologically. Maybe it’s worth discussing on the next episode. But I don’t think much of anything is meant to be “clear”, per se.
But I'm pretty sure I remember reading that she'd heard Malcolm Guite lecturing on the Inklings, Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield before she wrote Piranesi and that it was a major influence. I don't think she needs to have been a practicing Christian to be fascinated with Christian ideas-- the whole notion of "god-haunted" or "Christ-haunted".
I'm not sure I quite care about the distinction between philosophy and theology. Ideas are ideas. Is the novel developing a theology? No. But what novel does? Does it tell a story that is essentially Christian in its heart-space as well as its head-space? I think it does.
There's a lot of Ishiguro influence here. Reminding me of Never Let Me Go in terms of narration and The Buried Giant on themes in big (and good) ways. I was lukewarm at the beginning but very hooked now.
Excited to see how it ends but nervous because it seems to be drifting away from what I think would be a great reveal/ending. "The ending is polarizing" is usually a nice way of saying bad but we'll see.
I don't actually accept Piranesi as good. Rather, I think he is someone who is deceived and therefore (because he's an adult) as bearing some culpability.
I agree. I don’t accept him as a model for human flourishing in our age or any. More like he was able to adapt to being imprisoned by learning to love the shadows. Plato’s cave in reverse!
Yes, I think so, but I am not saying that is what the author is suggesting. It's my own take although I have not read past this point yet. In spite of parallels to The Magician's Nephew and allusions to other fantasy, Clarke's worldview seems vastly different, and I think she is being transgressive (to use her own word). Is she imagining a world where one becomes good because of the "house" they live in or by forgetting the past?
I'm still a bit confused. Allowing yourself to be deceived isn't a sin?
I also don't see his being innocent as the result of his forgetting or as something that's done to him. I think he's grown through suffering. He has learned to love and he has learned to appreciate beauty and goodness. He's no longer captivated by evil or "transgressiveness" as he called it. Instead he rejects Ketterley's self-serving vision and chooses to live selflessly. He has learned to love his enemy. It's not just about forgetting the past, it's a radical transformation of the whole man. I think the narrator is like the desert hermits who become holy by forsaking the world. He learns to embrace the beauty of the world and his love is transformative.
I fully agree Melanie. I think one question the book is asking is how do we respond to suffering & adversity, to tragic circumstances beyond our control? Why are some people driven crazy by being trapped in the house while Piranesi learns to survive, adapt and even flourish? Suffering itself does not transform people but how we respond to it can make us either bitter or more beautiful.
Piranesi’s transformation comes about because through his suffering he learns to see the beauty & wonder of the house, and to respond with gratitude, awe & respect. He has faith in the benevolence of the house and his own belovedness and that totally changes the way he responds to his suffering.
I was coming here to say this, too. It's Ketterley who sees the House as terrifying and who calls the narrator Piranesi. But can we trust Ketterley's judgement? Especially since the first Ketterly is Uncle Andrew Ketterly in The Magician's Nephew whose response to Aslan-- to Aslan!!!-- is to hear his creation song as merely a lion's growl and who is terrified of him and wants to shoot him. Uncle Andrew who wants to exploit Narnia and who thinks Jadis is a damn fine woman. Clearly Uncle Andrew doesn't see things correctly.
Since that is the case, I think we are clearly meant to be skeptical about Ketterley's judgement of the House (and of Arne-Sayles's as well). They're the ones who treat the House as a prison and a labyrinth. But they're exploiters. They're evil men. I argue that their evil blinds them to the goodness of the House.
Also, I have looked at Piranesi's artwork and it looks nothing like I imagine the House to be. Of course by the time I looked it up, I already had a vivid sense of the House and seeing his imaginary prisons did not cause me to revise my mental picture of the House, which is formed by the narrator's loving descriptions of it.
One of the questions seeing the novel as a retelling of The Magician's Nephew leads me to ask is: is the House more closely equivalent to Charn, the Wood Between Worlds, or Narnia? Or does it have something in common with all three places? And maybe the answer to that question depends on who you are or where your sympathies lie.
It is clearly a choice Clarke made to not describe the house as unambiguously beautiful and benevolent and to point us to the idea of prisons by having his name be Piranesi, even if she complicates it by having the name come from Ketterley. At the minimum she is opening the door for us to question Piranesi’s judgement.
I wonder if some of the disconnect is the question/perspective of what it even means for a world to be benevolent? For example, would you consider the actual world to be “benevolent”? I would — and I think that The House is equally so. I think Ketterley, as in TMN, sees the world/The House with suspicion and as little more than a resource to be exploited (mirroring Lewis’s Uncle Andrew) and Piranesi sees it as a place of hospitable grace and inspiring awe. I agree that it’s not safe, but should that preclude it being good?
My discomfort with the idea of this fable (I'm especially taken with this idea, Heidi) as Christian text is its attitude toward death. Piranesi is (at best) unsure of the evilness of death. It doesn't disrupt his communion with the dead whom he so carefully tends. And, I don't think his "Edenic" innocence give him a pass here. Adam and Eve, in their innocence and prior to their actual experience of death, know it is evil. And, I understand that Piranesi doesn't have the benefit of a good God telling him of the evils of death ... but maybe that speaks to my point?
My other concern in reading this as a Christian text is commensurate to the first ... I don't see a clear understanding of the idea of original sin - without which there is no redemption (even of a less than orthodox kind). Redemption isn't even needed. All Piranesi needs is forgetfulness, which the House happily offers.
*For what it's worth, Clarke's understanding (and presentation) of death seems a major departure from Lewis who never fails to see death for the evil it is.
I’ll chime in briefly about the attitude to death in the novel just to note a few more places where we see the value of life:
1. Piranesi is pretty clear that the idea of killing someone is shocking and abhorrent to him when the Other tries to persuade him of the necessity of killing 16.
2. Piranesi also tries to make sure that both The Other and 16 are safe from the high tide & flooding, even though he believes they are both a threat to him. He values the lives and actively works to prevent the death of his enemies.
3. I also think that in a way Piranesi does mourn the death of the female child that he believes the house intended to be his wife, even though he never knew her.
4. I agree with Melanie’s point that caring for the remains of the dead is something we do in all cultures, including as Christians, because we so highly value the body. It doesn’t mean that we don’t grieve the death of the person. We know that tending a loved one’s grave, bringing flowers, or even talking to them is a way of honouring their life while also grieving their death. I don’t think that what Piranesi does is any different.
Hope that helps.
As far as sin goes I think Ketterley’s search for the secret knowledge is an image of original sin. The essence of the secret knowledge he seeks is the desire for power and domination, the desire to be like God, to make his own rules. What Ketterley wants is the rule of power not submission to the rule of love. Isn’t that an image of Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God and to grasp the fruit that the serpent says will make them like gods? And initially the narrator is seduced by the desire to understand the transgressive (read evil) knowledge of Arne-Sayles and Ketterley. It is only in the process of coming to love the House that he comes to see the secret knowledge as a sham and to reject it.
I think in a work of fiction resurrection can be signified in many ways that are symbolic and doesn’t have to be literal. For example at the end of Moby Dick Ishmael survives the wreck of the Pequod holding onto a coffin. This is an image of resurrection, if not literal then symbolic.
So the question is not does the character consciously hope for resurrection but does the novel give us images of resurrection or signs or symbols of resurrection, baptism, salvation. I think it does. First there is the symbolism of him being caught in the hand of the Trampled man. I read the trampled man as a symbol for Christ. And the narrators fall in the dark and being caught and held in a loving hand is a symbol of Christ intervening to save him. I see the narrators fall being washed by the tides as an image of baptism, that is of death and rebirth. Baptism is a sign of resurrection, a promise that death isn’t the end because we have died and been reborn in Christ. Not only is he baptized, he receives a new name. He is no longer Matthew Rose Sorensen but as he calls himself The Beloved Child of the House.
If when the narrator says “the House” you replace that with “God” then he is reborn as the beloved child of God— and isn’t that a symbol of resurrection and new life?
Also the albatross is a symbol of Christ and thus by welcoming the albatross the narrator is symbolically welcoming Christ.
There are more images of resurrection in the final section of the novel.
I agree with almost all of this. I just don't necessarily think the book see the house as God, at least entirely. The book seems to be about consciousness and identity, and the house is, at least in part, an understanding of the inner life.
I don't think it's necessary for the reader to fully accept the House as God, except inasmuch as you have to accept that *for the narrator* the House is the face of God, the name and the guise under which *he* encounters the divine presence.
God meets all of us where we are and shows to each of us a different face. For me one of the first faces of God I encountered was actually Aslan as I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was five. So it makes sense to me that for some people something like this encounter is how the get to know God: first through myth or story, through fiction or fable. And that can work a profound transformation on a soul. Coming to know the historical Jesus and to connect that fictional encounter with what Tolkien calls the "true myth" can come later in the process of conversion and Christian growth.
In other words, no, I don't think we are seeing the fullness of Christian discipleship in the beloved child of the house by any means. He still has a long way to go, but we are seeing a soul who has been profoundly transformed by an encounter with the divine under the guise in which that divinity was accessible to him as he was at the time. He still has to come to recognize that what he sees as good and holy and benevolent in the House has another name and another guise and a story, the story of Jesus's incarnation and resurrection. So in a sense this story is a proto-evangelion. It's not the Gospel, it's a fable that points to a deeper Christian reality by means of analogy.
We can respect other people's journeys towards Christ without fully entering in to the same path they have had to follow. I don't have to accept that the House is literally God so much as accept that when Piranesi says "the House" he is talking about an objective encounter with something good and benevolent beyond himself that he cannot give another name. He has an encounter with God and gives God the name "House". Which... Jesus refers to his Body as a Temple. And another name for the Temple is House of God. So I think by clear analogy we can see that one way to encounter the Word who pitched his tent/tabernacle/dwelling among us is as House. In the Psalms God is a rock, a refuge, a shelter, a hiding place, a fortress. Why not a House? I think Clarke is tapping into Christian imagery, but giving it a twist to make it at once strange/unfamiliar but also having echoes that we can recognize.
“I think Clarke is tapping into Christian imagery, but giving it a twist to make it at once strange/unfamiliar but also having echoes that we can recognize.” I had this thought when I finished the book the first read through, and it’s what compelled me to begin an immediate re-read. I still don’t know if “The House as God” allegory is what she was going for or if she was trying to accomplish the opposite and point out how *delusional* Christianity appears, but either way, it does seem to be a biblically archetypical story arc.
I'm not sure what you mean about the novel's attitude toward death not being evil. Where are you seeing that in the text? I don't see any evidence that death is seen as a good thing by the narrator or by Clarke? Is it because he cares for the dead bodies he finds and brings them offerings? I think you can argue that he's lonely and the Other/Ketterley is hardly filling his need for companionship. The dead that he cares for are the only people he knows. But burial of the dead is a work of mercy and lacking the ability to bury them, I think the narrator is doing his best to ensure the dead are treated with dignity and respect. And for me communion with the dead is actually a key thing the narrator has in common with christian believers. Because I talk to dead people all the time-- I call them saints. That doesn't mean I think death isn't evil, but I do think death doesn't have the last word and that those who have fallen asleep in Christ will rise again.
I don't think a book needs to have an expounding on the nature os sin to be Christian. But clearly Arne-Sayle and Ketterley are evil and I think you can argue that the narrator has undergone a purgation via extreme suffering. It's not just a fading into forgetfulness, but a way of the cross. And I think you can argue that he has undergone a symbolic baptism of sorts as well, lost his old name and become a new man.
You are right. Piranesi does (somehow, although I'm not completely sure why) have a desire to avoid death himself ... and to wish for others to avoid death as well. But, your point about death not having the last word (which I also rejoice in!) is so very apt ... and clarifying.
THIS, this very hope is what is missing from the text (and what leads me to conclude that death isn't bad, it simply is). Do you see resurrection as something for which anyone (or the House even) yearns for? I see bones, carefully tended. I see a communion with the dead. But, no hope (or even desire) that the bones which have been so effectively stripped of their flesh (their imago dei, you might say) will be resurrected and restored.
As to my suggestion about original sin, I'm not suggesting that a text has to make the question of original sin the question its pursuing. Rather, I'm suggesting that if a novel gets the doctrine of original sin wrong (positing that man is innately good rather than innately sinful), it will also get wrong the means of "salvation" (man doesn't really need saving after all; and if he does, he'll do it himself, thank you very much).
Which leads me to ask, if this most basic of Christian beliefs isn't what marks a text as "downstream" of a Christian understanding of the world (whether or not the author is intentionally swimming in that stream or not), what is? You said you think Piranesi is a deeply Christian novel. Why you think so? Is it because he suffers?
I agree with Heidi that Piranesi is innocent. He has forgotten evil and does not perceive it anymore. When I first read this, I found him to be very pre-historic but maybe I even just meant pre-enlightenment. The way he acted in harmony with his world and was oriented toward it through wonder and love rather than trying to extract secret knowledge from it or beat it into submission to his will. Now after listening to the podcast, I'm wondering if what I'm imagining him as is more of a pre-fall Adam. But almost like an apocolypse Adam. Maybe like a lonely Adam/Noah who's world is fallen but himself is starting anew.
I think he's become a new man through a kind of baptism, he's been baptized by the tides of the House and undergone a sea-change through the suffering he has endured.
Piranesi is for me both a heart book and a "hang" book; but I can't tell you why.
I will say that for me the epistemological questions aren't the heart of the novel for me. To me it's a story about enchantment. Also I'm fascinated by the idea of the House as an encounter with the divine. I don't think this is a secular novel. I think it's a deeply Christian novel.
I think the narrator is both mad and good. I don't think you have to choose between the two. But I also think maybe he's something of a holy fool-- sometimes the line between holiness and sanity is kind of blurry. Like in Laurus. When Laurus is a holy fool, I think it's clear that he's not quite sane. But he is good and his insanity ultimately becomes a kind of path towards theosis. In that way the House is kind of like a hermitage, a desert, a wilderness, a place of encounter. The House isn't a place I would want to live, but it's a place I would love to explore. It's a place of wonder.
I really like Severance and I think the question of the parallels between that and Piranesi is a fascinating one. But I would absolutely not want to live on the severed floor or even visit it. The whole idea of severance is so terrifying.
I would love to hear you talk more about the Christian-ness of this novel (fable?).
I think the Narrator's potential insanity completely calls into question his holiness. Maybe not his innocence, but certainly any moral depth.
*I should also clarify that I have been calling Piranesi the Narrator, because his real name wasn't given at first.
Are you really wanting to say that mentally ill people can’t be holy? Can’t have moral depth? Can’t be moral agents? Maybe think about that a bit harder.
Hmm. Would Clarke’s beliefs or lack thereof impact that view for you? In other words, is it just a Christian book whether she intended it to be or not?
Yeah I'm not very keen on hanging interpretation on the intentionality of the author rather than the evidence of the text itself. I do think an author can tap into Christian themes whether they mean to or not. (Let me tell you some time about a lecture I attended in university about the movement of grace in the movie Pulp Fiction.-- the lecture by a deeply Catholic elder statesman of the literature department did not mistake Quentin Tarantino of being intentional about depicting grace in a fallen world.) Just as Chaim Potok writing about the power of the crucifixion in My Name is Asher Lev taps into deeply Christian themes that are clearly beyond his intent. So I think you can read Piranesi exploring deeply Christian themes whether Clarke means to or not. (Although Clarke has said in interviews that she started to go to an Anglican church, so I think there is biographical evidence to support some level of intentionality.)
Even if she's doing so vicariously through Lewis. Using Narnia as a framework definitely invokes a Christian interpretation-- as does her invocation of Coleridge. To me there's a clear invitation to hold up a Christian lens to the novel to see how it looks. But I think it's deeper than that.
Some of my argument might be a bit spoilers for the ending. But I think even at this point we can start to see that Matthew Rose Sorenson was a very different person from who the narrator is now. There has been some kind of transformation. And no, I do not think that the question of his sanity at all negates the possibility of his holiness. I think this is a story about good and evil. It's clear that the narrator worships and adores the house as a deity: “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite,”. And I think that change in the narrator calls into question whether something about the House has changed his fundamental stance towards reality from being a nonbeliever to being a believer. And before you argue that the House isn't really a loving deity, I think it's worth asking whether the narrator, like the children in Narnia meeting Aslan, come to know something of Christ under a different name and in a different form? Is what he recognizes in "the House" as a benevolent, good, kind beautiful deity a coming to know Christ under a different name? I think there's evidence that he has indeed undergone a kind of kenosis, an emptying of self, and that this new, nameless self who only calls himself "the Beloved Child of the House" and who has been baptized in the tides of the House is a good and holy man. He has regained a primal innocence. This is a story about transformation, metanoia, and the working of grace in the human soul.
Clarke seems to have started back to church after writing this book, which in some ways is even more compelling.
I would argue the book is more philosophically in keeping with Lewis and Barfield than it is theologically. Maybe it’s worth discussing on the next episode. But I don’t think much of anything is meant to be “clear”, per se.
But I'm pretty sure I remember reading that she'd heard Malcolm Guite lecturing on the Inklings, Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield before she wrote Piranesi and that it was a major influence. I don't think she needs to have been a practicing Christian to be fascinated with Christian ideas-- the whole notion of "god-haunted" or "Christ-haunted".
I'm not sure I quite care about the distinction between philosophy and theology. Ideas are ideas. Is the novel developing a theology? No. But what novel does? Does it tell a story that is essentially Christian in its heart-space as well as its head-space? I think it does.
There's a lot of Ishiguro influence here. Reminding me of Never Let Me Go in terms of narration and The Buried Giant on themes in big (and good) ways. I was lukewarm at the beginning but very hooked now.
Excited to see how it ends but nervous because it seems to be drifting away from what I think would be a great reveal/ending. "The ending is polarizing" is usually a nice way of saying bad but we'll see.
Interesting comparison. I really loved Never Let Me Go and I liked The Buried Giant quite a bit-- I think I need to read it again, though.
That’s interesting. I love Never Let Me Go and really dislike The Buried Giant. Wonder what that means lol
I loved The Buried Giant. Never Let Me Go was a brilliant, beautiful book which also I will never subject myself to again.
The last ~50 pages of TBG and the idea of it were very good but yeah the getting there was not great. NLMG is a classic.
I don't actually accept Piranesi as good. Rather, I think he is someone who is deceived and therefore (because he's an adult) as bearing some culpability.
I agree. I don’t accept him as a model for human flourishing in our age or any. More like he was able to adapt to being imprisoned by learning to love the shadows. Plato’s cave in reverse!
Culpability for what? For allowing himself to be deceived by Ketterley? For not seeing through Ketterley's deception?
Yes, I think so, but I am not saying that is what the author is suggesting. It's my own take although I have not read past this point yet. In spite of parallels to The Magician's Nephew and allusions to other fantasy, Clarke's worldview seems vastly different, and I think she is being transgressive (to use her own word). Is she imagining a world where one becomes good because of the "house" they live in or by forgetting the past?
I'm still a bit confused. Allowing yourself to be deceived isn't a sin?
I also don't see his being innocent as the result of his forgetting or as something that's done to him. I think he's grown through suffering. He has learned to love and he has learned to appreciate beauty and goodness. He's no longer captivated by evil or "transgressiveness" as he called it. Instead he rejects Ketterley's self-serving vision and chooses to live selflessly. He has learned to love his enemy. It's not just about forgetting the past, it's a radical transformation of the whole man. I think the narrator is like the desert hermits who become holy by forsaking the world. He learns to embrace the beauty of the world and his love is transformative.
I fully agree Melanie. I think one question the book is asking is how do we respond to suffering & adversity, to tragic circumstances beyond our control? Why are some people driven crazy by being trapped in the house while Piranesi learns to survive, adapt and even flourish? Suffering itself does not transform people but how we respond to it can make us either bitter or more beautiful.
Piranesi’s transformation comes about because through his suffering he learns to see the beauty & wonder of the house, and to respond with gratitude, awe & respect. He has faith in the benevolence of the house and his own belovedness and that totally changes the way he responds to his suffering.
Guys, Piranesi was the name given to the narrator by *Ketterley*. It reflects his impression of The House much more than the author’s.
I was coming here to say this, too. It's Ketterley who sees the House as terrifying and who calls the narrator Piranesi. But can we trust Ketterley's judgement? Especially since the first Ketterly is Uncle Andrew Ketterly in The Magician's Nephew whose response to Aslan-- to Aslan!!!-- is to hear his creation song as merely a lion's growl and who is terrified of him and wants to shoot him. Uncle Andrew who wants to exploit Narnia and who thinks Jadis is a damn fine woman. Clearly Uncle Andrew doesn't see things correctly.
Since that is the case, I think we are clearly meant to be skeptical about Ketterley's judgement of the House (and of Arne-Sayles's as well). They're the ones who treat the House as a prison and a labyrinth. But they're exploiters. They're evil men. I argue that their evil blinds them to the goodness of the House.
Also, I have looked at Piranesi's artwork and it looks nothing like I imagine the House to be. Of course by the time I looked it up, I already had a vivid sense of the House and seeing his imaginary prisons did not cause me to revise my mental picture of the House, which is formed by the narrator's loving descriptions of it.
One of the questions seeing the novel as a retelling of The Magician's Nephew leads me to ask is: is the House more closely equivalent to Charn, the Wood Between Worlds, or Narnia? Or does it have something in common with all three places? And maybe the answer to that question depends on who you are or where your sympathies lie.
I’m not responding to AK’s impressions of the house, but the way the narrator describes it.
“I’m not responding to AK’s impressions of the house, but the way the narrator describes it.”
David, can you be specific about which parts of the description of the house lead you to respond this way?
And why does that description overrule what the narrator says about the house outright when he says it is infinitely kind and beautiful?
It is clearly a choice Clarke made to not describe the house as unambiguously beautiful and benevolent and to point us to the idea of prisons by having his name be Piranesi, even if she complicates it by having the name come from Ketterley. At the minimum she is opening the door for us to question Piranesi’s judgement.
But do you want to identify more with Ketterley’s perspective, or with the narrator’s?
What I’m saying, is I’m not clear that there is is any POV that suggests the house is benevolent . I’m struggling to see that.
I wonder if some of the disconnect is the question/perspective of what it even means for a world to be benevolent? For example, would you consider the actual world to be “benevolent”? I would — and I think that The House is equally so. I think Ketterley, as in TMN, sees the world/The House with suspicion and as little more than a resource to be exploited (mirroring Lewis’s Uncle Andrew) and Piranesi sees it as a place of hospitable grace and inspiring awe. I agree that it’s not safe, but should that preclude it being good?