*** Warning - there are possibly a few spoilers and more importantly, this article is not for the faint-hearted, I discuss some dark topics ***
Kafka's "The Trial" is almost undoubtedly one of the most famous classics of the 20th century and in my opinion, deservedly so, I particularly like this review from Auden:
The Dante of the Twentieth Century -- W. H. Auden
also from Camus and Márquez
It is the fate and perhaps the greatness of that work that it offers everything and confirms nothing -- Albert Camus
It was Kafka who made me understand that one can write differently -- Gabriel García Márquez
For one of the Amsterdam bookclubs, we read "The Trial" last month and then "Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke this month.
I was expecting Piranesi to be a lighter book e.g. as per the amazon pitch
For readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.
The strange thing is that I found Piranesi to be even more sinister than Kafka's The Trial:
* On one hand, The Trial is written in a direct, harsh and brutal style: a chaotic and whimsical world full of corruption, double standards and power politics? However, my interpretation of The Trial is of being in the perverted fantasy of a middle-class, bank clerk, bored to death by his total un-inspiring and highly bureaucratic job. While Kafka'a world is surreal and shocking, it also feels at times a bit comical and satirical. If Kafka had lived to the 21st century, I can imagine he would have enjoyed a night output at the Torture Gardens, especially if he was allowed into the VIP rooms.
* On the other hand, Piranesi initially feels much soft, unlike Kafka's brash style which immediately makes you on-guard and constantly vigilant for the next attack, Clarke draws you into her private and mythical world with charming prose and a narrator who initially seems full of life and good humour, if a little crazy. However as the story goes on and we go deeper into this underworld, which was initially charming and even slightly romantic, the disturbing mythical nightmare themes start coming out. Piranesi is a book centred on a labyrinth, and like the narrator, I felt a little nausea and a little lost, as I was struggling along with where this story was going.
So the big difference for myself: was that unlikely Kafka's The Trial where I left with a sense of sharing the author's absurdist humour, in his over-the-top depiction of power plays and petty corruptions of the petite-bourgeoise; Clarke's Piranesi might start off lighter but gets progressively darker and darker until I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable. We are in the unfortunately well-documented world of sexual psychopaths and the living hell of their survivors.
One part of the book, while referencing preserved Moor bog bodies from ancient times:
“In 1976 Manchester Museum had in its collection four preserved bog bodies, dated between 10 BCE and 200 CE, and named after the peat bog in which they had been found: Marepool in Cheshire. They were: • Marepool I (a headless body) • Marepool II (a complete body) • Marepool III (a head, but not one that belonged to Marepool I) • and Marepool IV (a second complete body). Arne-Sayles was most interested in Marepool III, the head. Arne-Sayles said that he had performed a divination that had identified the head as belonging to a king and a seer. The knowledge the seer had possessed was exactly what Arne-Sayles needed to further his own researches. Combined with his own theories, it would result in a watershed moment for human understanding.”
although this is from nearly 2000 years ago, given Arne-Sayles is a shocking sexual psychopath, I couldn't help but think of the modern-day horror of The Moor's Murders. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were two of the most shocking killers ever.
So unlike The Trial which initially seems brutal but where I think I see comedy and farce, Piranesi while beautifully written and with tantalizing psychological insights into the imaginary prisons of the victim's mind, I also have a deep foreboding feeling about this novel and where it is going. Which is exacerbated as I'm still not 100% sure what story the author is trying to tell here?
Bizarrely and I know you should never judge a book by its cover, it appears to be marketed as a children's book:
