Ep 693 - Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode 693 - "Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke

Introduction to "Piranesi" and Initial Impressions

In Episode 693 of Overdue, hosts Andrew and Craig delve into Susanna Clarke's novel, Piranesi. The conversation begins with light-hearted banter about the book's title. Andrew humorously remarks:

"Every time I see Piranesi, I'm like, but doctor, I am Piranesi. Like, that's... he just seems like the name of a sad clown." (01:07)

Craig complements Andrew's playful take, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of the book's themes and structure.

Susanna Clarke's Background and Literary Journey

Andrew provides a brief overview of Susanna Clarke's literary background, highlighting her debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, published in 2004. He notes:

"Susanna Clarke was born in 1959... she spent some time editing cookbooks for Simon and Schuster before her novels gained prominence." (04:07)

This context establishes Clarke's transition from editing to crafting intricate fantasy worlds, laying the groundwork for Piranesi.

Structure and Style of "Piranesi"

The hosts discuss the unique structure of Piranesi, emphasizing its composition through diary entries. Craig explains:

"It is all diary entries. And so you are, with a little bit of exception, kind of locked into the perspective of Piranesi, who thinks this way." (19:27)

Andrew adds insight into the book's stylistic choices:

"It's a little, like, stream of consciousnessy... floaty. Dreamy." (16:57)

This dialogue underscores the novel's immersive and introspective narrative approach.

Setting: The Infinite House

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the book's setting—the Infinite House. The hosts describe it as a labyrinthine structure filled with countless halls, vestibules, and marble statues. Craig elaborates on the grandeur and complexity of this space:

"The ninth vestibule is remarkable for the three great staircases it contains. Its walls are lined with marble statues, hundreds upon hundreds of them, tier upon tier, rising into the distant heights." (15:05)

Andrew reflects on the emotional resonance of the setting:

"I have spent a lot of time contemplating this statue of the woman with the bee on her." (19:34)

The Infinite House serves as both a physical and metaphorical backdrop for the protagonist's journey, symbolizing exploration and confinement.

Character Analysis: Piranesi and The Other

The primary characters, Piranesi and The Other, are examined in depth. Piranesi, portrayed as meticulous and reverent towards his surroundings, maintains detailed journals:

"He indexes his journal. He has a journal just for the tides and a journal just for the statues. He's a very organized guy." (25:02)

Craig discusses the enigmatic figure known as The Other:

"The Other refers to it as a labyrinth. Like, that's... that's the thing." (35:16)

Their interactions are pivotal, with The Other representing a possible threat or collaborator, adding layers of mystery and tension to the narrative.

Themes: Seeking Meaning and Reality

The conversation delves into the overarching themes of the novel, particularly the human quest for meaning and the nature of reality. Craig posits:

"This is a book about why we seek meaning in the world and how sometimes that can be fruitless. But that doesn't mean that existence is fruitless." (30:50)

Andrew connects these themes to broader philosophical concepts:

"His understanding of the world, but not. But only through representation." (56:17)

The hosts explore how Piranesi's perceptions are limited yet deeply meaningful, reflecting on Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the search for truth within constructed realities.

Plot Overview and Key Events

Andrew and Craig provide a comprehensive overview of the plot, highlighting pivotal moments such as the discovery of other individuals within the Infinite House and the culmination of revelations about Lawrence Arne Sales' dark past.

Craig summarizes a critical turning point:

"And then he traps him there. Sure. The book kind of comes to a climax with this big flood sequence where 16 is there. She's a cop named Sarah..." (52:34)

Andrew adds a touch of humor while discussing plot complexities:

"He's counting, like, 14 skill nets. Yes, in part, this account." (38:07)

These discussions illustrate the intricate weaving of mystery, personal discovery, and the unraveling of hidden truths within the story.

Comparisons to Other Works and Listener Reactions

Throughout the episode, the hosts draw parallels between Piranesi and other literary and media works. Craig mentions:

"It reminds me of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. It makes me want to play Myst." (60:34)

Andrew reflects on the book's alignment with themes from TV shows like Lost and Severance:

"It's like being trapped in this infinite house... similar to people watching Severance at the season..." (24:18)

Listener feedback from Discord adds diverse perspectives. For instance, Meg shares her evolving appreciation for the book:

“My experience of Piranesi was... I loved the first part of the book for how kind of strange it was, and I love when a book kind of forces Me to get on a perspective character's wavelength like this.” (46:34)

Impact of COVID-19 and Feeling of Entrapment

The hosts draw connections between the novel's themes of confinement and the real-world experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Craig notes:

"A lot of people like this book because they were reading it during COVID and they were trapped in their houses. And it did give them a kind of like, you're in this trapped, but I gotta feel good about being trapped kind of experience." (59:17)

Andrew adds a personal reflection on the parallels:

"There are a lot of things about that time that I don't like revisiting... it's a distinct thing." (59:38)

This segment highlights how Piranesi resonates with listeners' experiences of isolation and searching for meaning during challenging times.

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

As the episode wraps up, Andrew and Craig synthesize their insights on Piranesi. Craig shares a poignant observation:

"The beauty of the house is immeasurable, its kindness infinite." (58:51)

Andrew concurs, emphasizing the protagonist's growth and newfound appreciation for the real world:

"He is, you know, extending his perception of the world that he was in to the real world that he now inhabits and like, seeing the connections between the two." (56:17)

The hosts conclude by reflecting on the book's enduring impact and its exploration of existence, reality, and self-discovery.

Notable Quotes and Attributions

• Andrew: "Every time I see Piranesi, I'm like, but doctor, I am Piranesi. Like, that's... he just seems like the name of a sad clown." [01:07]
• Craig: "It is all diary entries. And so you are, with a little bit of exception, kind of locked into the perspective of Piranesi, who thinks this way." [19:27]
• Andrew: "He indexes his journal. He has a journal just for the tides and a journal just for the statues. He's a very organized guy." [25:02]
• Craig: "The beauty of the house is immeasurable, its kindness infinite." [58:51]

Conclusion

Episode 693 of Overdue offers an insightful and engaging exploration of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. Through thoughtful analysis and relatable comparisons, Andrew and Craig illuminate the novel's intricate narrative structure, rich themes, and emotional depth. Their discussion not only deciphers the complexities of the Infinite House but also connects the fictional quest for meaning with real-world experiences of confinement and self-discovery.

Whether you're a long-time fan of Susanna Clarke or venturing into her literary universe for the first time, this episode provides a comprehensive guide to understanding and appreciating the nuances of Piranesi.

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Note: Timestamp references (e.g., 01:07) correspond to the points in the transcript where the quoted statements occur, providing context and enhancing the summary's fidelity to the original discussion.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a Headgum podcast.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

Oh, you sounded like you had something. Do you have something to share with the class?

[Andrew]

No, I mean, I don't think. I. I don't. I was just think I was looking at Piranesi, the name of the book that you.

[Craig]

Piranesi.

[Andrew]

Piranesi. For this. For the podcast where every week one of us reads a book that we've never read before and then tells the other person about it. Yeah, Susanna Clark was the one who wrote this one. But every time I see Piranesi, I'm like, but doctor, I am Piranesi. Like, that's. He just. It just seems like the name of a sad clown.

[Craig]

Did you also say it sounded like a cookie?

[Andrew]

Who said it sound like it sounds like it? Yes, I also said it sounded like one of those flavorless European like butter cookies that you get in those tins.

[Craig]

Uhhuh.

[Andrew]

But then you open up the tin and it's always just like somebody's junk drawer and it's like the cookies are long gone. Those are the two things that this is. This is my type 5 about the title, with the title Pyra, named after.

[Craig]

The 18th century Italian artist Giovanni Batista Piranesi.

[Andrew]

Who Was he a. Was he a clowning artist?

[Craig]

I don't, I mean, I don't know what he did in his free time. He drew. His most famous work, I think is this collection of imaginary prisons that he sketched. Well, that were like. Yeah, proto. Not quite MC Escher, but like before mc. Like, what if I just drew some cool boundless prisons?

[Andrew]

I. Yeah, I'm sure there's so much of my. Live so much of my life in an imaginary prison that my like brain creates for me through like mental illness. I don't feel like I need to like subject myself to somebody else's.

[Craig]

Well, it sounds like this book is gonna be right up your alley.

[Andrew]

Oh, good. So Susanna Clark also wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which we read in episode 366 way back in the day. Craig will listen to that episode, first part of it, complaining about air travel.

[Craig]

Baby, can I just. Wow. I hadn't put it together. So I also read that book and I also liked that Book. And I liked this book, except that.

[Andrew]

Book seemed like a lot longer than this one.

[Craig]

Way longer.

[Andrew]

That's the kind of book you can read when you don't got no kids and you're trapped in an airport, I guess.

[Craig]

Yes. And I don't remember how much I talked about on the recording. I drove several, several hours home that day.

[Andrew]

We talked about it a lot.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Don't worry about how much we talked about it.

[Craig]

Came into that recording pretty tired coming into this recording. Pretty tired from the world. And I finished reading this book at five in the morning after my son had been awake for an hour and needed me to just sit on the floor next to him.

[Andrew]

And so I just talk about imaginary prisons.

[Craig]

I know. I just kind of locked in on Piranesi, which was really kind of neat because the next morning Laura was like, how'd that go? And I was like, I got my reading done.

[Andrew]

At least it went the way it went. Yep.

[Craig]

But boy.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Susanna Clarke was born in. So we. We covered this in the 1959 Strange episode. Born in 1959. That book, Jonathan Strange, which she began writing in 1993 and came out in 2004, was her first novel. Ye had been published in some sci fi and fantasy anthologies before this was sort of discovered by a guy that we don't talk about anymore. And she had. Before that, she had spent some time, like, editing cookbooks for Simon and Schuster. Like, she. She was in the. In the biz, but had been. Had not really published a novel before this. Then this book, Piranesi. Piranesi.

[Craig]

P. I gotta say, 2020, I think I listened to the. To the wonderful audiobook for most of it that was voiced by Chiwetela Giofor. And he says, piranesi.

[Andrew]

That's fine. Piranesi. It's a meme.

[Craig]

And he just does it British. He doesn't put a Super Mario stink on it like I'm doing.

[Andrew]

I mean, you're putting a little bit of Mario on it.

[Craig]

He just says Piranesi.

[Andrew]

So can we do like a. Like a. Ha ha. Piranesi.

[Craig]

Piranesi.

[Andrew]

Like a Wario stink.

[Craig]

Oh, well, Wario always stinks.

[Andrew]

So this from 2020 is her second novel. Yeah, there were a few short stories that came out between these two books. And then she also claims to be working on a novel that's set in Brantford, England. She'd said that in early 2024. So I do look forward to seeing it on shelves in like, 2036.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, this came out in 2020. It won the 2021 women's prize for Fiction. She did an interview with the Guardian around when the book came out in September of 2020. And I make light of the, of the gap between the two books, but actually, I don't want. I want to be serious.

[Craig]

Yeah, let's be serious.

[Andrew]

Yes. Because after Jonathan Strange came out, she was, you know, she did get sick. She was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Which I don't want to make light of because it's like an insidious and awful disease and no one will take your symptoms seriously. In many ways, it is similar to authors we have talked about who have talked about their experience with like, Long Covid and how that has, like, impacted their creative process. So she wanted to do a proper, like, sequel to the Jonathan Strange book, which, as I recall, sort of ends on a cliffhanger. Yeah. But she was like overwhelmed by the decision making process. This is her in the, in the Guardian. I think it may be a feature with chronic fatigue that you become incapable of making decisions. I found it impossible to decide between one version of a sentence and another version, but also between having the plot go in this direction and having it go in that direction. Everything became like uncontained bushes shooting out in all directions. That's the state that the sequel to Jonathan Strange is in. It's almost like a forest now. But there was a miniseries that was happening in like 2015 that she was invited, you know, to come on the set for. And she, you know, she. She was feeling like, I am not an author anymore. This is not a thing that I can like, do. But she was on the set of this and it sort of reconnected her with the work and with like the process of writing again. She says, I was really uncertain about going. I thought it would be too much for me, but I loved it. I'd felt I'm not an author, I'm just this invalid, and I have been for years. But they treated me as an author and that made me feel it was possible, was a possible thing again. So leaving aside the still in work Jonathan Strange sequel, she returns to like, snippets of an older, like a story that she'd been working on before Jonathan Strange even. And then that becomes Peter Nancy. And that's basically what I've got on the background of the book is it's kind of a. Like there's a long gap. But if you consider it to be a gap between like 2015 and 2020, it's actually not that big.

[Craig]

Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to think about it, actually. And yeah, if you haven't gone back and listened or if you haven't read Strange and Norrell, like the big appeal of that book or not one of. There are many appeals of that book, but like, one of the pitches that sticks with you.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Is the like, it feels reference booky. It's got the like, we got all these footnotes. It's set in history, but not quite. And it's doing magic stuff. So it's like you get your Anglophile British history thing going, but also you get to read about cool magic and you get to be a nerd. It's like this wonderful but like, dense exercise. And this book is same. Yeah, this book is dense in its way. It's much shorter. It's like 250 pages or something like that. And I, I saw, I think I maybe saw some clips from that Guardian article about Piranesi also that she didn't feel like she had to do a lot of research for this one. Like, that was one of her other stumbling blocks in that it is just. It feels like a thing that was in her brain and like kind of tumbled out of it. It's so singular in its way and it's for it is both dense and slight. What a wonderful dessert I'm describing. There are references to Narnia in this book. In addition to the namesake Piranesi being the this like magical prison man, there's also lots of like references to this characters who share name with Narnia. The one of the epigraph at the beginning of the book. Is that what that's called? Like, when there's like quotes at the beginning of the book?

[Andrew]

Oh, I don't know what that's to.

[Craig]

Make you think about things.

[Andrew]

I'll look it up. You keep going. But one of them beginning of a book. What called.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

An epigraph. A short quotation, saying or poem that is used in novels. These often fictional quotations can either be included at the start of the book or at the beginning of each chapter. Thank you, Jericho writers, for telling me. What is an epigraph?

[Craig]

All you need to know one of them.

[Andrew]

I love finding SEO articles about epigraphs about words.

[Craig]

One of them is from the Magician's Nephew by C.S. lewis, and another is from a guy called Lawrence Arne Sales in an interview in the Secret Garden made 1976, where he says that people call him a philosopher or a scientist or anthropologist. He's none of those things. He's an. An Amnesiologist. I study what has been forgotten. Now, I've never heard of this man.

[Andrew]

No, I've never heard of amnesiologists, though I assume that everybody in the field knows that you just hit them over the head with a big hammer again and they remember everything. Like, that's not. This is a preventable illness.

[Craig]

It's a tricky little epigraph, this one, that may have something to do with the rest of the book.

[Andrew]

I can't wait to know more. Do you have anything else that we need to talk about before we take a quick break?

[Craig]

No, I don't think so. No.

[Andrew]

Okay, good.

[Craig]

Sorry. I usually I try to throw it to the break a little more elegantly, but. Pyrenees we go. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Andrew. It's important to have a support system. Do you have one?

[Andrew]

Yeah, my legs kind of support my. My. Like my hips. And on that, my torso is. And my arms hang off of that, and my head's on top. And it all kind of, you know, it does. It doesn't work great, but it does work great.

[Craig]

I'm glad that you have some physical support. Yes. Okay, so I want you to think about your favorite leaders, mentors, idols. Surely you have some of these.

[Andrew]

My favorite leaders, yes.

[Craig]

They don't have all the answers, but they do know when to ask questions or seek support. Now, I'm just going to editorialize and say, I don't know that all the leaders do that, but maybe some of your favorites have ever done that. Extend some benefit of the doubt. We live in a very individualistic society, Andrew. A real, hey, I'm walking here world, and I think it's time. Time to start saying, hey, I'm talking here to my therapist. Because we're all better when we have a support system behind us. I think that therapy is a very important tool for learning how and when to reach out to folks in your life. Ask for a little help. Ask if they need a little help. Because we are all in this together. Turns out. And therapy can help you identify and learn to make the most of your support network, which also means finding ways to be supportive yourself. BetterHelp is fully online. It serves over 5 million people worldwide. You can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can switch them up whenever you want, anytime, no cost. So build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com overdue today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp H E L p.com overdue.

[Andrew]

Speaking of support, your support viewers, that listeners at home is so important to us. I mean, you're viewing us with your ears, I guess. So if you want. If you want to find other different ways to support us. I got good news. Because we are conducting an audience survey, I think this is the last time you will hear about the audience survey. Bear with me, Gum FM Slash Overdue. We want to hear from you so we can keep making content that you love. You know this, we know this. There are ads on our podcast. We want to improve that experience. But in order to do this, we need to know a little bit about you, our audience. The survey is a quick, easy and free way to support this podcast. Get it? It'll take you two minutes and you'll be helping us out so much by doing it. Please do it. Go to Gum FM Overdue to fill out our audience survey. That's G U M F M O V E R D U.

[Craig]

Andrew, I'm just going to send you the beginning of this book.

[Andrew]

You'd like to do this to me now? Well, you like to send me the beginning. Are you asking me to read it?

[Craig]

Yeah, I would like you to read it.

[Andrew]

You'd like me to read it aloud into the can?

[Craig]

I need you to speak into my can. And I also need you to know it's coming at you in like three bullets, the way it's formatting in our slack.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

The first is like the title of the diary entry. The second is the day, and then the third is the entry.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And then I just want you to read it and then just kind of describe to me what you read. A little bit like the style of it.

[Andrew]

This. Oh. Described you. Okay. So, okay, the first thing is the title.

[Craig]

Yeah. Of the diary entry.

[Andrew]

When the moon rose in the third Northern hall. I went to the ninth vestibule as the first bullet point. Second bullet point entry. For the first day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the southwestern halls. Third bullet point. When the moon rose in the third northern hall, I went to the ninth vestibule to witness the joining of three tides. This is something that happens only once every eight years. The ninth vestibule is remarkable for the three great staircases it contains. Its walls are lined with marble statues, hundreds upon hundreds of them, tier upon tier, rising into the distant heights. I climbed up the western wall until I reached the statue of a woman carrying a beehive 15 meters above the pavement. The woman is two or three times my own height. And the beehive is covered with marble bees the size of my thumb. One bee. This always gives me a slight sensation of queasiness. Crawls over her left eye. I squeezed myself into the woman's niche and waited until I heard the tides roaring in the lower halls and felt the walls vibrating with the force of what was about to happen.

[Craig]

That's the opening of Piranesi.

[Andrew]

And so you're. You're asking me just, like, literally, the.

[Craig]

Words in front of you, what do you notice about them?

[Andrew]

I mean, there are a lot of things that are kind of capitalized.

[Craig]

A lot of caps.

[Andrew]

Beehive, pavement, tier, woman.

[Craig]

The bees.

[Andrew]

The bees are capitalized.

[Craig]

Anything about. Just the style that strikes. That struck you as you read it.

[Andrew]

I mean, it's. I don't. I wonder what you were asking me to notice about this. It's a little, like, stream of consciousnessy.

[Craig]

Sure, it's a little stream of consciousnessy. Yeah.

[Andrew]

And it's a little, like. I don't know if, like, storybooky or sing songy is quite what I want to get to, but it's a little, like, kind of floaty. Dreamy, like. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yes. It's got. It's got an affect to it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

That is like, what am I reading? What am I listening to? What do you mean? It's the year that albatross came to the southwestern halls. Why is. Why did I. Why is there this one little line where we kind of get a laugh out of the B on the eye and the woman's niche? Like, we know that this is sort of funny on purpose. Like, it's.

[Andrew]

Sure. It's also like, you know, you. You crack open a new book and you read like, oh, when the moon rose, rose in the third Northern Hollywood Tonight, vestibule entry for the first day, the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the southwestern halls. Like, either reading more is going to explain more of why it's being written that way, or it's just not, and you're just going to. Then that's just going to be the way it is.

[Craig]

That, I think, is kind of the point I might be building to, which is a number of people, including Carrie in our Discord and other reviews I've read about the book say that they found reading it incredibly frustrating and, like, couldn't make it past 40 or 50 pages.

[Andrew]

And I completely. Yes, I've read stuff exactly like that. And, like, a little bit of this is like, oh, that's kind of fun. And, like, A lot of this can be like, oh, that's. That's a lot.

[Craig]

Yes. And the thing that you're dealing with here. And this, like, I fired up the audiobook, got in the car, and I was like, whoa, I am gonna need to lock in or I'm gonna miss things.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I bet it could easily, like, wash over you in a way that is not, like, conducive to then having to get on here and talk to me about it for an hour.

[Craig]

Yes. And the other. But the other thing it does is you learn that the whole book is, you know, I guess it's sort of epistolary. It's not letters, but it is all diary entries. It is all diary entries. And so you are, with a little bit of exception, kind of locked into the perspective of Piranesi, who thinks this way. This is how he perceives his world, which is in this kind of, like, very familiar, but very, as you said, dreamy or fairy tale. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, familiar. Insofar as, like, yeah, I've. I've spent a lot of time contemplating this statue of the woman with the bee on her.

[Craig]

Yes. There's also a reverence.

[Andrew]

Allow me to squeeze into her niche while the waves crash down upon building or whatever.

[Craig]

There's a lot of, like, reverence for everything in this space. What is called the house, which is the only world that Piranesi knows, which is this endless house of, like, I get. I don't know if it's supposed to be, like, a mix of fancy mansion and classical Greek palace or something.

[Andrew]

It sounds. It sounds very Greek palace. But I'm just thinking about, like. I mean, I'm in a headspace for columns and marble statues.

[Craig]

Yes. And he. You know, he. He says things like, I'm determined to explore as much of the world as I can in my lifetime. To this end, I have traveled as far as the 960th hall to the west, the 890th hall to the north, and the 768th hall to the south. You're like, okay, that's a lot of halls. Tells you that this place is comically large, and he's been to that many of them to name them all, and, like, is keeping track of them in his head somehow. There are all sorts of statues in this house, in this world. There's the beehive.

[Andrew]

Is it. Is it just him in here at the statues, or is there other stuff?

[Craig]

Well, let me tell. I will. He will tell you also about this, but other statues include a smiling faun, a squatting gorilla, a boy playing cymbals, an elephant carrying a castle, two kings playing chess. You know that?

[Andrew]

Yeah. All the greats.

[Craig]

The. The roof on the upper floors has fallen in part, so clouds come in. Sometimes the whole bottom floors are flooded. And he has spent a lot of time mapping the tides. Sometimes there are floods that come up into the upper floors. But he also believes that there are 15 people in the house, including himself.

[Andrew]

Has he ever actually directly met any of them, or is he just finding evidence?

[Craig]

On Tuesdays and Fridays, he meets with the other, who is another human man, he that he speaks with and hangs out with for an hour or two, and then the other just leaves. And he doesn't really talk about or question the fact that the other leaves or goes anywhere or where he goes. But, like, the other shows up and they talk about the house and have some scientific inquiries, and then the other leaves and he sees him every, you know, third day, and that's that. The Piranesi says that he is a scientist like himself there in search of the, you know, imagine all the caps as I say this. The great and secret knowledge.

[Andrew]

Of course, I mean, we all want the great and secret knowledge.

[Craig]

My uncle at Nintendo knows the great and secret. The other says that, you know, if we find this great and secret knowledge, it could give us things perhaps like immortality or flight or the power to transform or knowing another person's mind through means of telepathy.

[Andrew]

Are they here to get the great and secret knowledge, or are they just like, here? And doing again, like, trying to get great and secret knowledge is a way to, like, spend the time or try to make sense of why they're here.

[Craig]

Like, these are really good questions. The Piranesi has never been anywhere else to his knowledge. He only knows the house.

[Andrew]

The way you said that was a really good question. Instead of answering my question makes me think that I would find this book very frustrating.

[Craig]

I don't know if that's true. I think you might find this book frustrating, but I think. I don't want. I didn't want to lead with, hey, all you severance heads, here's a book for you. But there is big severance energy pouring off of Piranesi in the sense that he only knows this place. He's never been anywhere else. You, the reader, are getting winks, nudges, nods and inklings that all of those. Something, something else must be going on. There must be a larger thing here, whether it is a, like, larger fantasy world that Clark has constructed that you're only seeing part of. Or is this not the real world and we're gonna find out more? Or like, you're just kind of waiting for that to happen. There's a dramatic irony to the first 50 pages or so where you're just like, the Tumblr lock is gonna click and, like, I'm gonna learn something. But you just. Yeah.

[Andrew]

You're just kind of waiting for them to, like, drop.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

More knowledge on you in a way that moves the story forward, much like people watching Severance at the season, the.

[Craig]

Later part of season two, but. So he doesn't really know what the other's deal is. But the Piranesi that you've met so far isn't asking a lot of questions. The other does occasionally ask Piranesi what he remembers, because Piranesi claims that he remembers everything. And he can tell you basically anything about the house he knows. Anything he's been to in the house, he remembers it. He writes in his journal all the time.

[Andrew]

He has thousands of floors, the halls he's been to or whatever.

[Craig]

He. He indexes his journal. He has like a.

[Andrew]

An organized.

[Craig]

He can look up, like, entries later. He has a journal just for the tides and a journal just for the statues. He's a very organized guy.

[Andrew]

He sounds like it.

[Craig]

But there's a. There's a scene where the other asks him, you know, like, if I say the words Battersea, does that mean anything to you? And Bernays is like, sounds like a.

[Andrew]

Delicious place to do some frying. Dunk my chicken in the batter sea and fry him up.

[Craig]

And Piranesi's like, I don't know what that means. And the fact that I don't know what it means means that it's probably a test that you're giving me as. Like I said, I know and remember everything, and now you've given me something I don't remember, and you're just trying to trick me. And the other's like, cool. Great. Thanks. Wonderful. Good question. Good talk. See you Friday. Those are the. Those are the two humans in the house. The other 13 people, Andrew, are skeletons.

[Andrew]

Are they living Skellingtons or they. Okay, do they talk? Nope, they're just Skellingtons.

[Craig]

They're just Skellingtons that Piranesi found. And the other doesn't really. The other doesn't really know about or engage with them.

[Andrew]

But Piranesi found Norman Bates stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Talking to Skellingtons.

[Craig]

Piranesi found, like, one of them he called. And Piranesi has, like, names for a bunch of them. Like the biscuit box man, who, like, some of his small bones are in a biscuit box. That book's very British. I don't know if you could have imagined that.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But, yeah. Pop, pop.

[Craig]

Biscuit box. The. There's the fish leather man whose bones are all bound with fish leather. There's the concealed person who was. Who's a skeleton in, like, a little crevice. There's a small, you know, perhaps childlike skeleton that Piranesi, you know, will bring, like, kind of offering. He, like, goes to all these skeletons and, like, is like, hey, here's what I did today. Just thinking about you, kind of. It's not religious, but it is. Like, again, reverence.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

His take on the house. Piranesi, at the start of this book is the house provides. I'm here. I've never known not being here. There's fish for me to eat. There's a guy who shows up Tuesdays and Fridays. Sometimes he brings me shoes and multivitamins or multivitamins. And we're searching for the great and secret knowledge. And there's all these statues here that, like, teach me about things. And I. I know things about them just by being here. That's what I know. I'm Piranesi.

[Andrew]

I mean, does he know anything that isn't the house? Like, what was he doing before he was here?

[Craig]

Well, he has several journals, Andrew, that he has names of that they've all been named based on the years that they cover. Right?

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

And as you might recall, this book takes place in the year the albatross came to the Southwestern halls.

[Andrew]

Year of the Depends adult.

[Craig]

Under a little bit. Right. But his First Journal says December 2011 to June 2012.

[Andrew]

Sure. That's more concrete, I would say.

[Craig]

There's an entry.

[Andrew]

You got it. Got the Gregorian calendar up in here. Thank you very much.

[Craig]

Clark knows her way around a little joke because she does this thing where she's like, here are all the years that Piranesi puts on his books. December 11 to June 2012, volume one, June 2012 to November 2012. Volume two, volume three, November 2012. It has been scratched out, but Piranesi says, but this has been crossed out at some point, which is very passive voice. Piranesi, who did this to your journals? And then it's written 30th day in the 12th month in the year of weeping and wailing to the fourth day of the seventh month in the year I discovered the coral halls. Clark, what are you.

[Andrew]

I suppose your second full year in there would be the one of weeping and wailing, or however long it's been. Yeah.

[Craig]

Other years include the year I named the constellations, the year I counted named the dead, the year the ceilings in the 20 and 21st northeastern halls collapsed.

[Andrew]

I just think you could do this. And the number.

[Craig]

Well, he doesn't remember the numbers or he'd never do the numbers.

[Andrew]

They just proceed sequentially from 2011.

[Craig]

I don't think he knows that. I don't think he knows that. Those were years. Maybe.

[Andrew]

Well, then. Okay, so how does the voice change from the. Like, the. The early journals to the late journals? Are we privy to that information that.

[Craig]

Comes up later in the book? Yes.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

So this all builds to, like, I think it's around page 45 or 50. He's talking to some birds. The birds don't talk. He just, like, you know, in the way that you might talk to a squirrel in the park because you're lonely and there's a squirrel there.

[Andrew]

Like, you know, or that you might talk to the Skellingtons that you found.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

In your house.

[Craig]

And the birds fly from statue to statue in a. In a pattern. He sees an angel with a trumpet, a book and clouds and a child and a mouse, and he interprets it as an omen.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He's going to receive a message from afar. There's going to be obscure writing, and innocence will be eroded.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And so this is, like the kind.

[Andrew]

Of guy who finds symbolism wherever he looks, though.

[Craig]

Well, he's. He lives in a giant, infinite house full of statues. It's nothing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right. That's what I'm saying is that, like, that's what you. That's what you got to entertain yourself, is just coming up with symbolism. And so this is what being deep into a fandom is like. I'm just trapped in this infinite house of, like, Steven Universe lore that I can't escape from.

[Craig]

So I will take a quick break here and just say this is the part in the book where if you're on board to keep going forward, you have a lot of questions and you hope that they get answered. If you are not on board, you find Piranesi's voice challenging or grading, or you're just. You signed up for something a little more straightforward or with more footnotes, then maybe you're going to nope out of this book. But I would encourage you maybe. Maybe stick around. My questions include, what does it mean that he doesn't remember anything before this, but he also remembers a lot. What does it mean that this guy shows up Twice a week. Why does he have a quote shining device that he taps? Clearly a smartphone. How does a Piranesi know what a multivitamin is? And he's very charming, but also childlike, but also clever, but also a bit much. Those are kind of my vibes at this moment. And if you, the listener right now are like, hey, I might want to read this book. This is the part at which the book starts, like pulling curtains back or otherwise starting to explain itself. And that is the part, the point of the book, I think. So the whole book is spoilers, I can tell you that. I think this is a book about, like, why we seek meaning in the world and how sometimes that can be fruitless. But that doesn't mean that existence is fruitless. You know, it could be a book about what it is to like, learn about yourself and how we hide parts of ourselves away. But it's also a book about finding out what happened. So I'm gonna tell you a bit about what happened.

[Andrew]

Yeah, now tell me what happens because so far it's just been like a lot of set up and like, statue stuff.

[Craig]

Well, set up a statue stuff. So he, he and the other go on this. They actually do a thing. This is where the book is like, hey, we're going to do something.

[Andrew]

Ooh, doing something.

[Craig]

We're going to go to a room that looks like a temple. And the other wants to conduct a ritual. He wants to maybe communicate with a spirit. It's a little unclear, but he has a ritual he wants to do and he needs Piranesi to find this room for him and like, know, like, do make. Make a star chart, like jot down what's in the sky when he's in the room so that, yeah, the other has the right stars for, for his ritual. Piranesi goes there and it's this cool room because the moon is very bright. It's very wonderful and beautiful. But in this room there is a particular statue or set of statues that's very different. He sees them. The rear wall was a mass of statues, not neatly arranged in tears, but a jumbled, chaotic crowd. Foremost among them was a young man who stood bathed in the moonlight, elation in his face, a banner in his hand. I almost forgot to breathe for a moment. I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the world, there were thousands. And I, like, I stopped the audiobook and just yelled that into my phone. Siri. Siri interpreted. Siri interpreted it as per an AC192 West Hall. What if there were more than two people? I screamed, thank you, Siri, but just. I love this moment where Piercey is like, wow. What? Oh, did you activate your.

[Andrew]

No, I was just. I was looking to make sure that I didn't.

[Craig]

Sorry, everybody at home.

[Andrew]

But no, it's good.

[Craig]

Just this moment where Piranesi is like, wait a second. What if the world could be different? What if more than. Because he only sees statues, so he sees, like, a person at a time. He sees himself in the other. He sees the 13 bones. Like, he doesn't have a concept of, like, population. And this is the first statue he's seen or said of them that, like, communicates a different idea of what people can be to him, which is kind of interesting. And he has this realization, or revelation, he calls it that. He doesn't think that the knowledge is worth it. He thinks it maybe is bunk anyway. And, like, why are we trying to solve the house? The house is beautiful. The house giveth.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Why is he trying to solve their maze?

[Craig]

It's. Yeah, it. He doesn't think it's a maze. The Other refers to it as a labyrinth. Like, that's. That's the thing.

[Andrew]

I mean, yeah, kind of definitionally a mace.

[Craig]

Yes. Yes. He finds some scraps of paper. He's not sure what they are. He tells the Other about his revelation and the Other, and he's like, I don't think we should search for the truth anymore. And the Other goes, not this again. And then we learn some things, that this is not the first time the Piranesi has had this revelation. This is not the first time the Piranesi has come to the Other and been like, hey, we should abandon our quest. And the Other has to break into Piranesi. That he has memory problems.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And what is strange and fascinating about him is that he does not have memory problems about the house itself, but that, like, he forgets what he's learned about the Other and about himself, and he loses time. And you're led to believe that this is all pretty on the up and up. Like, this maybe the Other has something nefarious going on. But he's not, like, lying about this part anyway.

[Andrew]

Yeah, this is a device that I don't dislike in fiction, where you're, like, you're discovering something that you. You haven't known before, and then someone informs you, hey, this is not like you. You, the reader, are with this character on this particular loop of, like, realization, because this is the one that's gonna lead to some other End. But, like, the character's been here before. What does that mean?

[Craig]

And it helps to explain. Like, you're reading the first few chapters of the book and you're going, like, how does he not. Where has he been? Has he. He's like. It's like a Garden of Eden existence where he's always been here hunting fish or whatever. And that's, like, clearly not true. And this is the first time the book, like, tells a character. Yeah, that's not true. Like, there has been a before, and that. That is something to consider. And so he's like, hey, we can't abandon this because you're not. You don't have a. You're not a trustworthy mind. Like, you need my help. I need your help with the labyrinth. But, like, we can't rely on you to make calls here, period. AC. Because your brain is mush, which is not a nice thing for piracy to hear. He doesn't like hearing that.

[Andrew]

No, it's not. It's like, is his brain mush because of the labyrinth, or is that.

[Craig]

Yes. And the other says he takes precautions and does not explain himself. But Piranesi is like, well, why can't I take precautions? Like, nope, not great question, though. So then we learn about some other people. One day, the other shows up, and it's like, hey, if you see someone else here, run away, don't talk to them. And Pyrenees is like, what the heck do you. What do you mean, other people? Why would. That would be the 16th person that could have. That has ever existed.

[Andrew]

But he's already. I mean, yeah, okay, fine.

[Craig]

Yes, exactly.

[Andrew]

I have to get over that. He's counting, like, 14 skill nets. Yes, in part, this account.

[Craig]

Well, and the other is like, what do you mean, 15 people? There's just the two of us. And he's like, but all the. All the skeletons.

[Andrew]

But all the skillets.

[Craig]

And he's like, Listen, 16 is bad person. This is just like when the androids showed up on Dragon ball. He's like, 16 is bad. Don't trust 16. You don't know what they're gonna do. And Piranesi's like, okay, sounds weird. And then he finds. He finds a letter from a guy named Lawrence, like the guy in the epigraph. And Lawrence was writing to someone else about needing help through the maze. And then a chapter or two later, Piranesi meets this man. He is who he dubs the Prophet. And we later. We can assume. And Piranesi later learns that this is Lawrence Arn Sales. He's an old guy who is like, wow, you're here. You're kind of strange. Where's that other guy named Ketterly? Which is, we learn, is the. Is the other. This old guy admits that he went to jail for many crimes and that his like group of friends all paid terrible prices and explains to Piranesi that this is like a different world from the main world that exists.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He calls it a distributory world that is created from ideas flowing out of another world. And the prophet Lawrence, his whole thing is that he. And he believes, and obviously this labyrinth is proof somehow that in explanation is a labyrinth of ancient sorts. In ancient times, like, man had like a more like mystical connection to reality. Reality was a little more fluid. We were in touch with nature in a way beyond like just respecting it. Right. We could maybe bend it to our will. It's very mysticismy, right?

[Andrew]

You know, if we only would stop using seed oil, we could get back. We could get back to this place.

[Craig]

And he figured out a way, he did, to get to this world, this labyrinth world. He makes a reference to other people needing rituals to do it, like Ketterle. And he says something like, that's probably how Ketterly brought you here. And Piranesi doesn't know what any of this means.

[Andrew]

Sure, yeah.

[Craig]

What does he say? The prophet. The prophet name checks a bunch of people, which is very bizarre to Piranesi because he's literally never heard anybody's name. Like that just doesn't, like, that doesn't track for him. He knows that they are names, but he doesn't actually. Like he's never met another person, Right?

[Andrew]

He only met another person. He already replaced all the numbers and years with. With long, like long explanations of what happened in each individual year. So yeah, yeah, like labels.

[Craig]

This guy, he says Lawrence to Pirnaisi. I am too well aware of the consequences of lingering in this place. Amnesia, total mental collapse, etc, etc. Though I must say that you are surprisingly coherent. Poor James Ritter could barely string a sentence together by the end. And he wasn't here half as long as you. So then he goes to the other Piranesi does, because the prophet leaves and he's like, this is. He doesn't tell him about this. But the other's like, hey, if. If 16 shows up and. And writes something or talks to you, it's gonna drive you insane. So like, don't do that, because if you go insane, I may have to kill you. Just like straight up. We're friends. I might have.

[Andrew]

And this is. And yeah, this is the arrangement you and I have always had.

[Craig]

So this is.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And pretty is like, this is this. This is the arrangement you've always had. Oh, okay. And then the book takes a big. Not a big, but a tonal and stylistic shift where Piranesi goes to his index and he's like, the prophet mentioned a bunch of names. And like, I didn't understand them when I heard them, but I knew that they were named, so that might mean something. I should look in my notebooks and just see if maybe I've written something down. People keep saying I forget stuff. I should go look at my index. And all these names are in there. Stanley Ovenden, Sylvia D'Agostino, James Ritter. All these people are in the index of his notebooks. It's also referencing numbers of notebooks that he doesn't believe. He has like 21 and 22 and 23.

[Andrew]

What happened to them?

[Craig]

He looks at his first journal, number one, and just sees that somebody scratched out the two. So he's like recycled these journals so then he can go back in these journals. And now he's reading stuff that somebody else wrote or he wrote about all of these people connected to Lawrence Arnsales. I think this is the part where the book is like telling you what it is. And it is about a group of academic mystics who fell into the thrall of this magician man. And he committed a series of crimes in his quest for knowledge and understanding, including breaking into a museum and touching a 2000 year old head and Whomst among Us and like kidnapping a guy and trapping him in the, you know, dimension X. But like, nobody believes that that's real. So he also just kept him in a closet, probably killing people, you know, probably doing worse. And then entries on his various students who were in his cohort who also tried to find this place. And this is where the book starts to feel a little like, strange and Noral, where you have like, or House of Leaves or books where you are like sorting through quote, unquote primary documents or.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like you've. You've hit the part of the, of the book where whatever, like where some big component of the truth has been revealed and I need to go like sift through everything else to put it all back together.

[Craig]

Yes. And I think it was. Who was it in our discord. Patreon.com overdue podcast.

[Andrew]

You. Okay, this is a. This is. And not to. Not to do, like, not to have like a show meeting, like in public with everybody. What you like to kind of sneak in mentions of the Patreon, which I think is great. I think that's on brand. And you're really, you know, you're really pushing the. The upsell, which I think is good. You do need to slow down and not. And not whisper it. I thought secret that.

[Craig]

I thought that's how it was pronounced. I thought it was pronounced patreon.com no, like a medical ad.

[Andrew]

It is. No, it is not. It's not a list of side effects that. That an antidepressant has. It's a thing that we're trying to get people to go and do.

[Craig]

Wait, how do you. How do you say it?

[Andrew]

I mean, just say patreon.com overdue pod patreon. Patreon.com overduepod is a great way to support the show and to get extra bonus content.

[Craig]

Anyway, you can get into, like you would.

[Andrew]

Like you would get on a DVD back in the day.

[Craig]

Yeah. This book, we do.

[Andrew]

We do. We do commentary on our old episodes. It gets real. There's a lot of talk.

[Craig]

This book has a reference to Betamax in it. So one of the. One of the people who is listed in this index that piracy is reading all of these and just kind of like losing it. Like, he doesn't understand what he's reading. One of the folks, Sylvia, is also a filmmaker. And one of her art films. One of her art films is just footage of the place. It's very, like, mystical. And everyone's like, ooh, that's so cool. Like, what is it? And, you know, clearly she went into a different dimension and took a Betamax camera with her. But one of the folks, they should have known that.

[Andrew]

They should have known that one was gonna lose. Name it Betamax. Come on. He's. Name it, like, Sigma, Max. You know, what's the best. What's the best medium I can think of, folks?

[Craig]

In the. In the Discord, Meg said, my experience of Piranesi was. I don't know why so many people are so obsessed with this book for most of the first half. And then as we started to get more backstory, I moved towards, okay, I kind of get it. And Sarah F. Said, I love the weird dreaminess of it. I liked it less once more realness was revealed and I could. I can kind of. To make the. The Borges reference that's also relevant here. Like Garden of Forking Paths. I can see both experiences pretty clearly. Like, I loved the first part of the book for how kind of strange it was, and I love when a book kind of forces Me to get on a. On, like, a perspective character's wavelength like this. But I can see that being a hurdle to, like, what is the book about? And I just. The reveal, then, to me, it doesn't, like, build to another reveal if that, like, there is. You can tell right now. I would hope that there's gonna be a. Well, we have to find out who Piranesi actually is. Yeah, it is that. That is a part of the book, and that is a part of the plot of the book. It is not what I sort of expected, which is perhaps my own fault. Or like, maybe Clark is doing. Is probably doing this on purpose. His identity is not some, like, secret key to understanding why this place is the way it is. Or he's not, like, he's not a member of the original Arn Sale, like, cult group or anything like that. Okay, so the book maybe feels like it should be building to something like that. If you're comparing it to other, like, kind of mystery box stories. And instead it is just like, no, we're going to find out who this guy was, and something tragic happened to him, and then he found a place that, like, I don't know, is it sad? But he'd found a purpose there and a life there, and now his whole world is being rocked, and he has to, like, deal with that. It.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

It doesn't. It. It doesn't. It's more like Lost, actually, than. Than something that you might consider more traditionally satisfying.

[Andrew]

Real. A real tradition. Yeah.

[Craig]

I say that as a compliment, though.

[Andrew]

No, that's a. That is a good way to describe Lost. And so many mystery box shows is, you know, like, if you want to show that's, like, conventionally satisfying, then maybe this isn't the one that you need to spend your time on.

[Craig]

But I have spent time with these shows and find them very emotionally satisfying. So, like, I. You know. You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

You're making a face. You're making a face.

[Andrew]

No, I'm not. Listen, I know what you mean. It doesn't make me want to watch Law School. I appreciate. Listen, I like me a show that does both. I like me a show that's like. It's got emotional truth. And then also I can watch it and be like, oh, yeah, this story has a beginning, a middle, and an end that somebody thought about for more than two seconds.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yes. So, like, you spend the middle part of this book in all of these entries about these people, learning about what happened to them, learning about James Ritter, who is clearly a poor Guy who are in Sales put in this dimension and had a way worse experience than Piranesi. When people found him again, he, you know, is almost a vegetable. Like, his brain is so fried. And constantly talks about, like, I need to go back to the minotaurs. The Minotaurs have my food. And you're like, what are you? What's happening? And Arn Sales winds up going to prison. But he, like, he kind of disavows what he was teaching. But it is weird that he's here in this dimension talking to Piranesi. And Ketterly wants to kill 16. Ketterly being the other the prophet Lawrence Arnsales wants to help 16 get Ketterly because he doesn't like Ketterly. But he also says that sixteen's real plan is to rescue Piranesi and to help him somehow. The. There's a sequence of chapters where Piranesi and 16 are, like, trying to communicate with each other by writing things down. And Piranesi is still scared that he's going to go even further mad if he reads anything.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

It builds to a question where 16 asks if Piranesi by, like, leaving rocks on the ground. If Piranesi is someone named Matthew Rose Sorenson.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And this is like a real like. And then his head exploded part of the book. Because he looks up Sorensen in his book and he finds out that there's whole pages that were ripped out and there's a whole chapter that is from Sorensen's perspective of him going to Ketterley's house in November of 2012.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And it's this, like, he's researching Arn Sales. He's researching all these people in his thrall and what happened to them. And Ketterly's like, hey, you didn't. So you didn't tell anybody that you're. That you're here. Interesting. You've got, like, a real bright mind, huh? Okay. You want me to show you?

[Andrew]

No. I've seen enough crime procedurals to know how this happens. That, like, even though there's no law and order, where you get thrown into, like, a statue house where you lose your mind for five years. Like, I know you showed up with nobody knowing where you are. I know it's. I know what's gonna happen next.

[Craig]

And so he shows him the ritual and then he traps him there. Sure. The book kind of comes to a. To a climax with this big flood sequence where 16 is there. She's a cop named Sarah. Raphael did not expect her to be a cop. As I think Ambrose in our Discord said. But that's my own politics, I suppose. She's just. She's just there to rescue somebody who she heard went missing. That's what she's.

[Andrew]

Your politics. Your politics is being surprised by cops.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's not.

[Andrew]

It's not like having opinion, an opinion about policing. It's like, oh, cop.

[Craig]

Whoa. I'm so surprised. That's my policy. And Ketterly doesn't make it. He gets Scott in the flood. And we have this connection between Iron Sales, not Arn Sales, between 16 and Piranesi, who knows he is not Sorensen. But also the fact that he was Sorensen has made him think he's not Piranesi anymore either. Piranesi being a nickname that the other gave him, a reference to that man with the infinite prisons. And she apologizes for the whole thing with Arn Sales. And this is like a. I don't think this is what the book is about. I don't think it's like the sole theme or anything.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think we can. We can close with like, what's this about? Yeah, why are we. Why, why. Why are we doing this?

[Craig]

Yeah, I think so. This, this paragraph stuck out to me though, in thinking about why you have a book about a, like a Svengali wizard who ruined a bunch of people's lives. She says he'll never be punished for what he did to you or what he did to them. I've gone over and over in my mind and there's nothing I can do, nothing he could be charged with. Not without a lot of explanation that literally no one will want to believe. I said that this is a perfect world, but it's not. There are crimes here just like everywhere else. So there is this. Like sometimes it's a. It's. It's not just the fairy tale. Like, sometimes bad things happen. Like, it's like a children's book about learning that the world is not perfect. Right? But this, like a guy did things and he can't be punished for it, even though we know he did them. And even though. But also, like people can't really believe what it is he did. Like that. That is just. I don't think it is a one to one allegory to anything, but it is like tapping on a. On like a third rail truth of the last like 15 years of our cultural reckoning with dudes doing terrible things. For me, that. That's just what that stood out as. So that's one thing. And then the kind of Denouement of the book. I don't know how you say that in Italian, so I just said it in French, I mean.

[Andrew]

And that is your way. That is what the audience has come to expect.

[Craig]

Oui, oui. Is that there's, like, a little bit of back and forth with Piranesi in 16 when he's giving her a tour of the world. And he's like, these are all these beautiful statues. I love them. And she's like, wow, it's kind of sad that you, like, have never seen any of these things or people for real. And he's like, no, these are like, no, this is how I understand the world. They're real. They're like. They're. They're perfect. They don't age, they don't crumble. Like, I'm learning all these concepts and feelings about the world. So that's like very Plato Allegory of the cave. Like, he has an understanding of the world, but not. But only through representation. Okay. And he thinks that the house is all that there is and that it provides for him. So now he moves out into the real world. She gets him to come out because she's like, hey, you look like Matthew and his family would be really happy to see you. Which is like, a really, like, kind of heartwarming way to coax him out of his beloved Dimension X.

[Andrew]

It's heartwarming. But also, imagine, like, hearing that and being like, well, not even. It's not even very sad. Like, he would be the wildest thing.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

In the whole world if, like, you died. And this happens when I. All the time, when I go to the park when the Phillies are in the playoffs, it's just like, from a hundred yards away, anybody could be Craig. So, like, if you died and then I saw some guy like that in the park, and then I brought him to your. Your mother, and I was like, this guy kind of reminded me of Craig. And I thought, you would like to see him. Does this make. Is.

[Craig]

It would make that man feel very strange, which is what this book is about. And so he's out in the real world. Like, there's a bit where he and James Ritter do a little trip into the house, and they, like, like it, but they leave. And the closing chapter is, whoever this is now, Pirna C. Sorenson talking about walking around in a park in the city, and he's seeing people in this snowy park setting, and they start reminding him of the statues he saw. And he, like, sees this guy, and he's like, wow, I know him. No, actually he does. He doesn't know it, but he's a statue in my like perfect world. I love this man. I love him that he's here and then he sees like some kids playing and he's like, wow, those are those, that's like those kids in the statue. And so he's like gaining an appreciation for the real world that he is now experiencing.

[Andrew]

And then, okay, so where's Bi? Where's old Bi?

[Craig]

I don't know where Bi is.

[Andrew]

That. That feels very weird to have him be like, I recognize all these people from the statues. But you wouldn't do the like, the first statue that you have.

[Craig]

The book is not that neat, I suppose, is the thing. It's not because I feel like I.

[Andrew]

Want him to like, see a woman with a bee on her eye and like, and then they fall in love and they live happily thereafter.

[Craig]

But this is the closing paragraph of the book. I came out of the park. The city streets rose up around me. There was a hotel with a courtyard with metal tables and chairs for people to sit, to sit in more clement weather today. They were snow strewn and forlorn. A lattice of wire was strung across the courtyard. Paper lanterns were hanging from the wires. Spheres of vivid orange that blew and trembled in the snow and the thin wind. The sea gray clouds raced across the sky and the orange lanterns shivered against them. The beauty of the house is immeasurable, its kindness infinite. And he is, you know, extending his perception of the world that he was in to the real world that he now inhabits and like, seeing the connections between the two.

[Andrew]

The house. The house is. The world is the house.

[Craig]

The world is the house. In a, in a manner of speaking. A lot of people like this book because they were reading it during COVID and they were trapped in their houses. And it did give them a kind of like, you know, you're in this trapped, but I gotta feel good about being trapped kind of experience.

[Andrew]

There are a lot of things about that time that I don't like revisiting. And there are a lot of things about that time that I just like, don't remember. I think I've just like convinced myself didn't happen. I don't know because of how reality works. But there is a distinct thing. When you hit a book that became popular in 2020 or 2021 on this show.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And we always get to that moment where we're like, yeah, everyone was trapped in their house. And like, that's, that's why, that's why.

[Craig]

This book did well, it's interesting. Like, she's not writing about that. Like she was writing. Working on this book before that happened.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but it.

[Craig]

But it is this. Like, okay, I'm trapped in my little world. How do I find meaning in it? And if I can't find a. Like a clear, concise meaning, how do I make meaning in it? How do I make connection in it?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Without, you know, maybe ruining the things about the world that I already like. Like, that's the tension, I think, that Piranesi has. Okay. The book reminds me of Allegory of the Cave, Robinson Crusoe, severance. What if House of Leaves was not horrifying?

[Andrew]

Lost.

[Craig]

Lost.

[Andrew]

Everything reminds you of Lost.

[Craig]

It reminds me of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

It gives me very big protagonist exploring a ruined space energy.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

Which is just ripe for video games because then you don't have to animate all the other people in the world. They can just be statues.

[Andrew]

You can just make big bosses with glowing weak points and not worry about the rest of it.

[Craig]

Gives me obra dinna vibes. It makes me want to play Myst. Andrew. I've never played Myst.

[Andrew]

I've never played Myst, never played Miss. I feel like it's one of those games.

[Craig]

We missed it, so to speak.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, you have to. You have to have played it when it was new or, like, you just would never be able to forgive what we perceive now to be like, clunky, outdated, like graphics and mechanics and stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. We can close on a note from Ambrose, who says, the nitpick that immediately left to my mind is, how can you name the year after its most significant event? What if it happens in October? Are you going to go back and scribble out the year I found a rock that looked like a mushroom when something really weird happens?

[Andrew]

That's a good. That's a good question. I think it's a. You know, it's about. It's about sticking to your guns, I think. You know, when you. When you hit a name. That's right. I think you'll know.

[Craig]

Yeah. The year when the bus dropped me off at the wrong stop and I walked home and it worked out.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Did that happen?

[Craig]

That's ever happened to you? To me? Yeah.

[Andrew]

Okay. But I just didn't know if it happened to you right now.

[Craig]

No, it happened several months ago and. But this is the year of that, so.

[Andrew]

Well, last year was the year of that. This year is the year of something else.

[Craig]

Yeah, well, I can't wait to find out what. I'm sure it's going to be wonderful.

[Andrew]

This is, this year is the year that I stopped being able to buy Pokemon cards because they don't make enough of them no more.

[Craig]

On the fifth, the, the third day of the fifth month of the year where I stopped being able to buy Pokemon cards because they don't make them anymore.

[Andrew]

They don't. I mean, they just don't make them no more. You go, you go into a Target and you go to the part where they got all the TCG and they've like spread out the Disney Lorcana cards to take up all the space the Pokemon cards used to take up. It's like, I know what you're. I see what you're doing. Target.

[Craig]

Thanks for joining me in the labyrinth, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Oh, you're welcome. I'm just mad about Pokemon cards.

[Craig]

Now I know you're trapped here in the first vestibule with no Pokemon cards. If you are trapped in another dimension, send us an email. We'll try to help. Overdupodmail.com hit us up on social media. Thanks to James, William, Joseph, Rebecca, Emma, Gigi, Kayla, Isabel and more. You can find us on social sites such as bluesky@overdue podcast. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurengis. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overduepodcast.com is our Internet website where we have the schedule of books that we have read and are going to read as well as like a little player that you can use to play the episodes in your web browser if that is a way that you like to listen. There are, there are hundreds of you. Hundreds.

[Craig]

We hear from you and we hear for you. I fixed them all.

[Andrew]

So Craig had been putting errant spaces into all of the URLs now.

[Craig]

No, no. Many of them were from an old hosting service that the last few months were from the errant space.

[Andrew]

Okay. Only Craig is only ruined the last few months. If anything's older than that, it's because technology ruined it.

[Craig]

Yeah, but I fixed it. Don't worry about it.

[Andrew]

We also have another website. It's a picture.

[Craig]

Patreon.com overdue pod media training.

[Andrew]

There you go. You did it. Patreon.com overdue pod donate to support the show financially, you get access to our Discord server where the conversation is always popping off. People were talking about our p tend versus lying conversation about acting until like, pretty recently. And I bet if you came in and tried to get it started again, you probably could without too much trouble.

[Craig]

Just like touching a nest of wasps.

[Andrew]

Yeah, just like doing that. It's just like, oh, yeah. We're doing hot dog as a sandwich again. We're doing P10 versus lying again. Again.

[Craig]

Yanni or Laurel.

[Andrew]

You also get what color is addressed. You also get access to our current long read project, which for us is Sit me baby one more time. About an M. Martin's babysitter club series. We do our monthly dusty bookshelves newsletter. The new issue of that went out a week ago. Talked a little bit about winter. Talked a little bit about the birds. Go Birds.

[Craig]

Go Birds. Birds in this. Go Birds Hardy.

[Andrew]

Go birds to you and yours.

[Craig]

My name is Hardy. Go Birds. I live in Philadelphia.

[Andrew]

My name is Hardy. Hardy. All right, everybody. Next week we're reading. We're choosing to have an adventure and it is the choose your own adventure book. Supercomputer. Can't wait to find out about what wonders the future holds.

[Craig]

Yeah, this book is probably from the late 80s or early 90s.

[Andrew]

I know it's going to wit, I can't wait. Because like the representation of computers is already going to be really bad and wrong. Yeah. But doing that on top of it being a period piece, I think it's going to be exciting.

[Craig]

I can't wait to turn into Ms. Dos. That's.

[Andrew]

Or maybe it's going to take us back to the time where like, technology was exciting and we weren't. Like just every day I regret that we taught the sand how to lie to us. Wow. And that's computers.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

But there was. It wasn't always like this. And so maybe supercomputer will take us back to that time.

[Craig]

I choose that adventure.

[Andrew]

Yeah, me too. Okay, everybody, thank you so much for listening and getting stuck in this maze with us until we talk to you. Next time, please keep the bees out of your eyes and try to be happy.