Item from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Years of meticulous notebooks filled with tidal observations, statue catalogues, sketches of halls, and the quiet, devoted record of a life lived entirely inside the House.
The journal is Piranesi's most important possession — more important than food, than warmth, than shelter. It is his memory, his science, his companion. He writes in it every day with a devotion that borders on ritual, recording everything: what the tides did, which statues he visited, what the Other said, what he ate, what the light looked like in a particular hall at a particular hour. The journals also contain gaps and contradictions that Piranesi does not notice. References to knowledge he should not have. Skills he cannot explain possessing. Names and words that surface from a life he does not remember living. The journals are simultaneously the most reliable record of life in the House and the most revealing document of everything Piranesi has lost — if only he could read them with different eyes.
Multiple battered notebooks of varying sizes, their covers water-stained and salt-crusted, pages rippled from humidity. The handwriting inside is small, precise, and consistent — the penmanship of someone who treats the act of recording as sacred. Pages are filled with tidal tables, hand-drawn maps of halls, detailed sketches of statues, inventories of the dead and their possessions, weather observations from the Upper Halls, and the daily narrative of Piranesi's life. Some entries are illustrated with careful drawings. Some contain pressed seaweed or small shells tucked between the pages.
Also known as: The Journals, Piranesi's Notebooks, The Record