Piranesi: A Ghostlights Book Club

Piranesi: The House, the Labyrinth & the Sacred

A Ghostlights Book Club

Imagine a house so vast that it contains an ocean. Waves rise through its staircases, clouds gather in its upper halls, and statues stand watch over seemingly endless rooms.

For our next Ghostlights book club, we’re reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: a strange, beautiful novel about a man who calls this extraordinary place home.

There’s a mystery at its heart, but there’s also something quietly moving about the way Piranesi inhabits his world, noticing its smallest details and finding companionship and meaning in unexpected places.

We’ll explore the House, the story’s unfolding mystery, and its questions about memory, solitude and belonging.

I’m particularly interested in its sense of the sacred: how a place can become meaningful through the attention we give it.

I’ll bring a handout with a few prompts and ideas to get us started, and we’ll leave room for whatever caught your imagination:

• a favourite passage,
• a puzzling moment
• or an image you can’t quite shake

Please read the book beforehand if you can, as we’ll discuss the whole story, including the ending. New faces are very welcome.

PRACTICAL DETAILS

This event is free.
Optional donations towards the group’s monthly Meetup running costs are also welcome:
PayPal here: https://paypal.me/ghostlightscollectiv
Or my Revolut here: revolut.me/dani6t1c

Ghostlights Collective explores practical esotericism, folklore, myth, depth psychology and the imaginative arts through participatory events in and around Manchester.