Two years later, Clarke published The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a short-story collection set mostly in the same alternate-Napoleonic world as Jonathan Strange.
What if a mock-academic 19th-century historical tome from an alternate dimension sold millions of copies and inspired a BBC TV adaptation?
It was like a fantasy novel in its own right. Multiple publishers rejected it as unmarketable before Bloomsbury saw its potential and offered Clarke a seven-figure advance. The book was long, twisty, playfully erudite, written in an arch-pastiche of Austen and Dickens, and so crammed with footnotes people compared it to Infinite Jest. In 2004, her debut novel, the historical fantasy Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell-the story of two would-be magicians in a version of Regency England where magic was once real before mysteriously vanishing from the world-became a hugely unlikely bestseller. Piranesi is Clarke’s first novel in 16 years it’s her first book of any kind in 14. What if there were a house so large it contained an entire ocean? What if the house-an endless succession of enormous classical halls lined with marble statues, separated by grand staircases and vestibules-was so vast it made it impossible to say how large it was, because no one had ever seen all of it? What if one person set out to explore it? What if there were a magic ring that gave an evil being near-unlimited power, and the evil being lost it? What if there were a school where children went to learn magic? What if the back of the closet hid a doorway to another world?Įven by fantasy standards, though, the what-if behind Piranesi, Susanna Clarke’s long-awaited new novel, is a doozy. Fantasy, on the other hand-great fantasy novels can almost always be picked out by their what-ifs. “What if a man in a bad marriage went back to his hometown after his mother had a stroke?” is a question that could lead to a great realist novel, but as a premise, it feels a little interchangeable realist novels don’t always depend on memorable starting scenarios. Some books, and some types of books, have more memorable what-ifs than others. Welcome to Ringer Reads, a semiregular column by Brian Phillips about his favorite books, writers, and various literary happenings.Įvery book begins with the question what if, but not every book is immediately identifiable from the what-if that spawned it.
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