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Such a curious book with a great main character. I love its interpretation of infinity and labyrinths, mapping it in a house that, before Piranesi's eyes, is the whole universe. Few beings inhabit the house, and Piranesi is fascinated by all, including an enigma who goes by The Other.

It's with this childlike wonder that he guides the reader so lovingly through the dizzying architecture of infinity, offering a bright and, in my opinion, endearing voice in the journal entries he loves to write.

I can't say much else because it's really such a unique book in terms of worldbuilding. If you like statues and/or architecture, this will leave you inspired.

One minor but cute character detail that stuck with me: Although it is a world ravaged by floods, the sound of the ocean is calming to Piranesi, and easily it lulls him to sleep.

Something about this sentiment resonates with me as I try, along with everyone else trapped on this planet, to survive the calamities of capitalist industry, under whose tumorous weight the world's tremors are suppressed, and go tragically unheard. Buried in the silicon screech of manufactured problems and junk solutions.

Amid this I still reach for a book, or my laptop opened to a blank doc, and let myself be lulled toward dreams.

The only 'hard-boiled detective' fiction I will ever read, because it's a parody and homage to the genre. 🥚 The bare-bones plot, a construction of cheeky noir cliches, quickly falls away to the forceful and intense circuitry of the narrator's thoughts. This book to me wasn't about a murder mystery, but about the emotions that hound all those who participate in one.

The prose is hypnotic, not just in sound but in the smooth visceral way it made Tourette's click for me. I'm still not as educated as I'd like to be on Tourette's, so it's not my place to say how authentic this book is about the experience, but to my primitive understanding the metaphors felt incredibly human. Palpable. And personal. A very vivid inhabiting of mind.

Another beautiful dimension to the story exists in the relationship between Lionel and his father figure Minna, who doesn't actively move the plot but looms over Lionel's narrative like a slowly setting sun.

I don't remember many details now but this is a 90s book so ⚠Warnings for slurs. Narrator's thoughts about women & mental illness are probably typical to the hardboiled genre. Whether or not the beautiful writing redeems it is the reader's choice, but worth a read if you want to see Tourette's being organically woven into the narrator's approach to grief, loss and reality.

I love books that make me feel 💖normal💖

The asymmetry found in the gap between two identical events--shoelaces breaking on either shoe at different days despite being subject to the same wear and tear--grates at the mind and the day is spent churning neurons over life events only tangentially linked, not so much by a clear trail of cause & effect, but by a need to unearth some hidden logic above which the universe twists, an intricate code as dazzling as sunlight on the mezzanine, a need to locate and analyze the bizarre workings of this world and regain some equilibrium, some even footing, in this lopsided realm of disharmonies created by man-made structures and systems (which are increasingly ugly in logic, aesthetic, etc due to capitalism)... this book describes my Everyday Mind without the taint of pretense or shame about being 'weirdly obsessed' with the minute details of mundane life.

These are the little things, the magical shapes of sunlight, shoelace knots and memories, that continue to evade the disfiguring grip of corporate interest. That is why they are worth observing. That is why they are precious.

Delightfully unapologetic book.