Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

 Clarke's long-awaited second novel is nothing like her first, the very British and esoteric Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Piranesi is weird and haunting and gorgeous, a meditative narrative suffused with innocence and melancholy. It's the story of a man wandering a vast House with infinite halls filled with statues, flocks of birds, and oceans that rise and fall, who slowly realizes the world is not what he thinks it is.

Piranesi is an innocent who delights in the world around him -- the endless rooms, the tides, the marble statues representing every human thought, the birds winging through the air and the fish swimming in the seas. He writes everything down in his journals with the enthusiasm of young explorer, but earlier journals have very different accounts from a life he does not remember. As the memories come back he is both made and unmade by them, until two different lives are at odds within him. That tension dominates the last section of the book, but despite everything Piranesi retains what The House gave him -- the capacity to notice the world around him, to take it as it is and find value in every detail.

It's a skill that all too many people have lost, and that some of the other characters are seeking, but they misunderstand it as a putative source of power. For Piranesi, it is a form of inner strength, and indicative of his basic decency. Clarke has taken a genuinely disturbing premise and turned it into a quiet celebration of creation.

I'm so Behind!

The Inspired by Reading book club's selection for February was The Ladies of Grace Adieu, but only today did I finish a piece inspired by it (especially sad given I've already read the book twice).  The stories are mostly dark and elegant, so I made something to match:

The beads are vintage faceted glass in deep purple, and I added sections of black chain between each one (I still need a black clasp). I think it will go nicely with a black and purple cross I strung onto purple ribbon a while back:

Still no word on a sequel.  Sigh.

Book Round-Up

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline:An interesting look at a time period when mysterious "Sea Peoples" attacked nations throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. Cline's thesis is that the Sea Peoples were actually not as mysterious or as unified as scholars previously thought, and that there were a variety of interconnected factors, events, and changes that led to the collapse of so many civilizations.  The book is well-researched, but a little repetitive; I think it would have worked better as a long journal article rather than a book.

A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev:A delightful romance with Indian protagonists.  There is a lot of melodramatic plot, befitting the Bollywood influence, but fortunately the prose isn't too purple.  The best part was the glimpse into Indian cultures, and the differences that arise in such a culturally diverse country -- north and south, city and country, modern and traditional.  Also, the food; I've been craving Indian food ever since I read this.

Season for Surrender by Theresa Romain:This starts out like the typical Regency romance, with an aristocratic rake, a virginal spinster, debauched nobles, a no-nonsense elderly family member, and an eeeeeevil nemesis.  But then, the rake and the spinster actually talk to each other.  A lot.  And in the process they get to know and trust each other, and learn about themselves and what they really want.  As a result, the expected happy ending for the couple was absolutely earned and quite satisfying.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke:After re-reading Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, of course I re-read these stories set in the same universe.  They are wonderfully English and atmospheric, and beautifully enhanced with illustrations by Charles Vess.  Ms. Clark, please write more!

The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger:A modern take on the epistolary novel, comprising of emails, notes, memos, legal briefs, court filings, statutes, and caselaw.  Sophie's handling of her first (and only) divorce was fun and frothy, if a bit unrealistic; the memos between her and her partners are remarkably casual and personal -- good for narrative purposes, but a lawsuit waiting to happen in the real world.  The novel is set right around the time I began practicing law, and I finished the book all nostalgic for that time and thinking maybe I should go back to litigation (ha!).

Pop Culture Badges

Last year Wendi Gratz of Shiny Happy World started making felt merit badges as a way of keeping track of her monthly goals and achievements.  I thought that was a neat idea, but I knew I'd never have the time to do something like that (plus my monthly achievements would be things like prepping X items for serials inventory, filling out medical forms in triplicate, spending Y minutes navigating a bureaucratic phone tree,  successfully shuttling kids from point A to point B, and so on -- not a lot of fun to embroider).

Making badges with various geeky symbols, on the other hand, would be both fun and more manageable.  First up was the coat of arms for the Raven King, from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: argent, raven volant.  I traced the raven image from the book jacket onto water-soluble stabilizer and pinned that onto a piece of cream felt.  I used black thread (Gentle Arts Sampler Thread in Soot) and long-and-short stitch to stitch the raven:

Almost done!

Once I was finished stitching I rinsed the piece in water to remove the stabilizer (and several more times to remove excess black dye that ran) and dried it on a towel:

As I've said before, clear water-soluble stabilizer is a great way to embroider a pattern on felt without having to transfer the markings onto the felt itself, and it allows me to tweak the stitching as I go along without having to worry about exposed permanent marks on the fabric.

The finished badge:

Next up was the deathly hallows symbol from the Harry Potter books:

Another badge of black-on-white embroidery would be boring, so I chose grey and metallic silver thread used together on periwinkle felt.

The third badge has the Stonecutters' symbol from the Simpsons:

Who rigs every Oscar night?

I've been wanting to embroider this symbol ever since I spent a month looking at it last year on my Tapped Out game.

I hope to have a chain of these eventually.  Next up: something from The Lord of the Rings.  Oh, and I have to do Babylon 5.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

I first read Clarke's Novelwhen it came out, and in honor of the BBC series that just premiered (good so far!, and thanks to Bookwyrme for alerting me to it), I reread it.  I think I enjoyed it even more this time around; it is a richly detailed, well-researched story steeped in Regency Englishness.  Strange and Norrell are the two magicians fated to bring magic back to England, which they do amidst the Napoleonic wars, the madness of King George, and the dangerous mischief of a fairy king.  The book is also sprinkled with smudgy, atmospheric illustrations by Portia Rosenberg and footnotes that hint at an elaborate history of magicians, especially the Raven King.

It is a quietly subversive book, too.  The two protagonists of the title are white, wealthy gentlemen, but they are not heroes.  Norrell is selfish, fearful, and petty, and has pretty much every prejudice that exists.  Strange is much more likeable, but he has the casual arrogance that comes with privilege and easy success.  Neither one of them gives a thought to the consequences of their actions until it is too late, and by the close of the novel, neither one fully understands what happened.

It is, instead, the people marginalized by English society -- a black servant and son of a slave, dismissed and silenced women, servants, the poor, the mad -- who are more aware of what is truly going on.  Their experiences serve as an important counterpoint to the dealings of Norrell, Strange, and the Cabinet ministers, and help us piece together the true story.

There are rumors floating around from a few years ago that Clarke is working on a sequel; I dearly hope that is true, because I want to spend a lot more time in this world.

Book Round-Up: Kate and Cecelia Edition

I continue my quest of rereading books from my childhood so I can catch up with the sequels.

Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer: This is an absolutely delightful book, that takes place in an alternate Regency England filled with wizards, witches, dances, parties, and enchanted chocolate pots.  It's a novel in letters, purporting to be the correspondence between two cousins, Kate and Cecelia, as they get caught up in magical and romantic plots.  It is sweet and funny and sparkly and . . . really, I can't say enough good things about it.

The Grand Tour: Unfortunately, the sequel is not quite as good.  The story is interesting enough, involving a magical plot to turn Europe into an empire, but the telling is not as engaging.  This time around the text is excerpts from Kate's private journal and Cecelia's deposition, but the format does not work as well as the letters did.  As an astute reviewer on Goodreads.com noted, the best part of the first book was the relationship between the two friends; this time around, however, we miss out on Kate and Cecelia talking to each other.

The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years After: The second sequel, and a return to the letters between the cousins (and their husbands, this time around).  That brought back a lot of the fun of the original.  The story was good, too, and Wrede and Stevermer fleshed out their world a bit more.  I found the ending to be abrupt, but that may be because my Kindle tricked me into thinking I was nowhere near the end of the book.

Although this series predates it, it struck me as a light and fluffy version of Susanna Clarke's excellent Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.  So now that's next to be reread.