Piranesi

Piranesi is new enough (2020) that I don't want to give any spoilers. I went with my wife to her book club last night to discuss it. We are uncertain who the main character is at first, nor the Other - the only other living person until well into the plot, nor the bleached bones which Piranesi names, tends and gives offerings to.

Nor the House itself where Piranesi lives, which is populated by hall after hall of statues and is washed over day by day with interacting tides. Everything is uncertain at first and we leap at guesses. There are multiple references to CS Lewis, especially Narnia; to Jorge Luis Borges "The Library of Babel" and "The Minotaur," to Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose and as we speculated last night perhaps a half-dozen other writers and artists. I recommend rereading The Magicians Nephew beforehand. 

We gradually learn that the mysterious aspects are part of an actual murder mystery with multiple victims. We are in the dark because the narrator has remarkable clarity in some thinking, but is misled and deceived in other aspects.  I was particularly taken with its issues of identity lost and gained, and the hypothesis that it is intended as a Planet Narnia example of being under the influence of Neptune, and the effect of the occult on the good versus the evil characters.

Highly recommended. Short but full.