Consuming read

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PIRANESI is not difficult to read but it is strange. It requires a bit of dedication. It is not long, though, so it isn't the kind of commitment that you will have to spend days or weeks reading it bit by bit. While it doesn't have a real momentum to it in the prose itself, I was compelled to continue and read it quite quickly because I just wanted to know what the hell was happening.

Nothing is quite what you expect here. It is unclear whether the book takes place in a universe resembling our own and what relationship it is meant to have to our world for most of the time you are reading it. It is not a book with a lot of plot or character development either. It is, when it comes down to it, quite simply a mystery. Except that the mystery is the entire concept of the book, where it's set, and who the characters are. Mysteries that exist in a kind of fantastical world are not all that common, though, and it's best for both sets of readers to relax a bit because, remember, this book is not going to follow the conventions of either genre.

My experience of the book was quite delightful, even if, at the end of the day, it ends up being much more of a trifle than JSAMN. They are in many ways opposites, this one so small, a weird little bonbon of a book that is over just as it's begun, while the other is so large and complex, the kind of massive intricate dessert you do not want to eat because it looks so nice. But there are pleasures to be had in an unusual little escape, pleasures to be had in being baffled, and Clarke is more than competent to see you through this small exercise as she is a massive tome. It is, in its way, a perfectly peculiar beach read.