Piranesi is a book that takes place in an impossibly labyrinthine mansion where the basement is flooding. It is told from the journal of a narrator who may or may not be named Piranesi.

The plot centers on Piranesi cataloguing all the locations and the ways he spends his days. There are two other characters, the Prophet and the Other, who exist in the world of the House. Having the story be presented in the form of diary entries really worked for the intrigue. The narrator knows about as much as the reader does, and the pace which both reader and narrator learn the truth of this strange locale works really well. There is also an examination of identity and freedom, which come together seamlessly by the very end. To speak more specifically is spoiler-territory.

The prose and presentation read like a dream diary. The decision to capitalize most proper nouns and giving enough detail to get the sense of shape, but keeping the aesthetic overly vague really added to dream-like quality of this work. There is a sense of time being all sorts of broken, and it all works to unsettle but entrance the reader.

Creepy but entrancing, a whimsical novel with all the trappings of dream gothic.