I have to admit, when I first started reading this I was inescapably reminded of the Gormenghast books, by Mervyn Peake, which are some of my absolute favourites. The story isn't at all similar, but a house built on a gargantuan scale with fantastical rooms, a house that is more morbidly compelling than any of its characters... that's the same. It's also not at all the same, because the Piranesi house is a statued museum of classical architecture, and Gormenghast is what would happen if Charles Dickens built a haunted house and surrounded it with funhouse mirrors. In both cases, the house is not easy to escape, and often the characters just don't want to leave anyway. Piranesi himself, suffering from a sort of amnesia that he picks apart as the book goes on, is in two minds... almost literally. He loves the house, and has come to belong there, but that belonging has an enormous price, and one which he comes to understand that he is all too willing to pay.

It's a very, very well-written book, and I was fascinated. It is also, it must be said, utterly humourless. I mean utterly. Which is why I'll always prefer Peake, when it comes down to it - but nonetheless, Clarke has produced a fascinating read.