“Fictions are like dreams”

The author talks about writing, the influence of CS Lewis, her illness, the lockdown, and her new novel, Piranesi

1

How much did CS Lewis inspire Piranesi?

The Narnia book which most influenced Piranesi is The Magician’s Nephew. There are two worlds in that book (neither of them Narnia) which have quite strong connections to Piranesi’s reality. In The Magician’s Nephew one of the worlds the children visit is a very old, dying world called Charn. Lewis meant this to be an utterly desolate place, literally empty and spiritually empty. But I always rather liked it. I liked the silence and the crumbling architecture and the endless, empty courtyards. There are even statues. I think Piranesi’s world (which he calls the House) owes something to Charn.

2

Who did you have in mind when writing Piranesi?

I don’t really have any sort of reader in mind when writing. The thing is not to write for an imagined person or a real person, the thing is to get the story right (or as right as you can); to find the right characters to serve the purposes of the story; and conversely to find the right story that the characters can tell. That is the thing I am always trying to get right, the story. The story is the plot, yes, but it’s also the events and the characters and the unique atmosphere — the unique taste of that story alone.

3

Of his journaling, Piranesi says, ‘I do this for two reasons. The first is that Writing inculcates habits of precision and carefulness. The second is to preserve whatever knowledge I possess for you...’ Do you feel that way about your writing practice?

Precision is something that Piranesi names as important in writing, and I would certainly agree with that. In choosing words, in descriptions you want to be as specific as you’re able. As to how much back story I give each character, it varies wildly. For some characters I know pretty much the same as the reader knows and no more. I think this is probably true of Piranesi — he grew up out of the writing and before my eyes. I learnt about him by writing him.

4

Piranesi is content in his confinement. The book was written long before lockdown.

Fictions rise up from God-knows-where. They’re like dreams; they mean different things to different readers. When I became ill my life became severely curtailed. As I got towards the end of writing Piranesi I realised that I (a person living a very confined life) was writing a story about a man who couldn’t leave his house. The bizarre things about lockdown for me has been the way it’s opened my life up. When people start to meet again in the real world, I shall be happy for them and for all of us, but I expect my world to get a little smaller.