Enchantment in Piranesi
Susanna Clarke’s speculative fiction novel, Piranesi, explores the reclamation of the ancient, enchanted world, conducted by the contrarian occultist Laurence Arne-Sayles and experienced through the eyes of a man named Piranesi. The word enchanted struck me because I knew I had read about this concept before in James K.A. Smith’s How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor and I immediately revisited those chapters. Because Clarke’s angle is explorative rather than expository, it is hard to say if Piranesi comes to any conclusions at all, but I believe that it encourages readers to at least consider, as Smith explains, that the world used to correctly operate as though the things around us are charged with meaning and power outside of ourselves.
Interestingly, the character in Piranesi to champion this concept is a heartless, manipulative cult leader, Laurence Arne-Sayles. Laurence “began with the idea that the Ancients had a different way of relating to the world, that they experienced it as something that interacted with them … When they looked up to the stars, the constellations were not simply patterns enabling them to organise what they saw, they were vehicles of meaning” (Clarke 102-103). Laurence recognizes that ancient societies operated on a wholly different plane than modern society: one of enchantment. He actually finds a way to access a labyrinth stemming from the old ways and leads others to it. Eventually, Piranesi finds himself in this labyrinth.
Smith describes the medieval times similarly: “People lived in an enchanted world, a world ‘charged’ with presences, that was open and vulnerable, not closed and self-sufficient” (Smith 27). We see Piranesi embody this idea as he interacts with the physical objects around him as though they are enchanted. Statues impart messages and warn him of danger, and the labyrinth, called the House, treats him with goodness and kindness. He trusts the House and is open to powers, like a star, residing outside of the House. In the beginning, however, Clarke reveals that Piranesi is clinically insane, suffering from severe memory loss. But by the end, the House is a refuge for Piranesi and even one of the sane characters as they interact with the real world. Clarke adds another layer when she seems to reference Plato’s Cave as Piranesi sees a human in the real world that is the exact image of one of the House’s statues. The reader is left wondering, is the House a creative source of life or merely shadows of the real thing?
Statues are not telepathic, and houses are not kind, but believing that we are self-sufficient is a state of disenchantment. Smith defines this state: “Significance no longer inheres in things; rather, meaning and significance are a property of minds who perceive meaning internally” (Smith 29). We seem to believe that we subjectively give meaning to things from ourselves, instead of things conducting an objective significance. The ne plus ultra of this belief is Antoine Roquentin from Paul-Jean Sartre’s Nausea, who operates under a closed, self-sufficient world system. We see Antoine interact with the world around him: “Just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object … I opened my hand, and looked: I was simply holding the door-knob” (Sartre, 4). In contrast to Piranesi, Antoine becomes crippled by the realization that everything is defined by his thoughts.
Why is Antoine’s belief so upsetting? Rather than Antoine simply turning a doorknob because he wanted to open the door, it becomes a battle for meaning. He must agree in his mind that the cold object is a doorknob, and that he is using his hand to turn it; furthermore, that he has a reason to do so. On a conceptual level, we can say that a rose is beautiful (the cold object is a doorknob), but why are things beautiful and how does beauty penetrate our thoughts and emotions (why does Antoine sense the feeling of the doorknob?)? Who can say that they created Beauty (can Antoine actually know that the sensation of the doorknob is real?)? While the House is a disorienting labyrinth full of statues and salt water, for Piranesi, the House is the creative energy source that expresses endless beauty in a way for him to enjoy and explore.
Maybe, Piranesi is not so crazy after all.
Works Cited
Clarke, Susanna. Piranesi. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. Translated by Lloyd Alexander, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2013.
Smith, James K. A. How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014.
