Seeing the World

I’ll review Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi tomorrow when I dive into the books I read in December, but it’s the book that has stuck with me the most from 2020. As in, I spend time every day mentally back in that story. I went into it knowing very little about it, and that’s probably the best way to read it.

I want to highlight a passage that I’ve thought about a lot. (I removed any possible spoilers with brackets and a line through it. Like this: [—].) The words feel particularly fitting right now, during COVID-19 and all of the stress of this year. The pandemic has taught me a lot about people; what I’m willing to accept and what I’m not.

On page 219:

‘Don’t you like the people in your own Halls?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘I like them,’ she said, with no very great enthusiasm. ‘Mostly I like them. Some of them. I don’t always get them. They don’t always get me.”

After she had gone, I thought about what she had said. I cannot imagine not wanting to be with people. (Though it is true that [—] was sometimes annoying.) I remembered how [—] had wondered which of the People of the Alcove had been murdered and the simple fact of her posing the question had made the whole World seem a darker, sadder place.

Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.

People make you think about the things you don’t want to think about. They make you see the world in ways you’d rather not see it. Other people can make the world feel like a wonderful place, but they can equally make it feel like a “darker, sadder place.”

It seemed fitting to find this book at this time.