48 pages • 1 hour read
Susanna ClarkePiranesi
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “The Prophet”
Part 3, Entry 1 Summary: “The Prophet”
In Part 3, ten journal entries span about a month: from the end of the 7th month to the end of the 8th month.
Picking up on the 20th day of the seventh month, Piranesi finds an old man in the labyrinth who eventually is revealed to be Laurence Arne-Sayles. During their conversation, Arne-Sayles admits Ketterley was his student, names some of the dead, and says he isn’t the Sixteenth Person that Ketterley is worried about, but came to see the narrator. Arne-Sayles’s brief and final trip to the labyrinth, the reader later learns, is inspired by being interrogated by a police officer about Matthew Rose Sorensen’s disappearance (it is this police officer, Sarah Raphael, who is 16).
The narrator names Arne-Sayles “The Prophet” because he knows so much about the dead and the labyrinth. Arne-Sayles briefly covers how the world of the labyrinth was made and how he went to prison for activities related to the labyrinth. However, like the narrator, he believes the “wisdom of the ancients” (89) that Ketterley seeks in his ritual isn’t accessible via ceremonial magic. They also talk about the statues.
Part 3, Entry 2 Summary: “I consider the words of the Prophet”
The following day, Piranesi reflects on writing the previous entry and believes Arne-Sayles also lives somewhere in the distant halls of the labyrinth. The narrator still does not comprehend that there is another world or understand the concept of prison (this word, which was used by Arne-Sayles, is unfamiliar).
Part 3, Entry 3 Summary: “The Other describes the circumstances under which it will be right to kill me”
On the 24th, Piranesi meets with Ketterley, who warns him that talking to Sixteen will cause “Madness. Terror” (97), and will result in Piranesi attacking Ketterley. Later, the reader discovers that Ketterley is trying to keep the police officer from rescuing Matthew Rose Sorensen. Ketterley says is that he will kill Piranesi if he goes insane after speaking to 16 (that is, after learning he has been abducted). Piranesi hides the fact that he talked to Arne-Sayles.
Part 3, Entry 4 Summary: “My reaction to the Other’s declaration that he may, under certain circumstances, kill me”
The following day (the 25th), Piranesi considers breaking his promise to Ketterley and instead of hiding from Sixteen, talking to her. He also reflects on how he lacks a motive to kill.
Part 3, Entry 5 Summary: “I change my appearance in anticipation of the coming of 16”
On the 1st day of the 8th month, the narrator practices hiding, and takes shiny things (shells, etc.) out of his hair, which leave him feeling naked.
Part 3, Entry 6 Summary: “The Index”
On the 8th day of the 8th month, the narrator describes his process of indexing his journals: he waits about a week to index in order to gauge the importance of events. While indexing his entry about meeting with Arne-Sayles, Piranesi finds an earlier entry about the name Stanley Ovenden, which he didn’t recognize when Arne-Sayles said it. The Index references Journal no. 21, which he can’t find. He also finds other references to other nonexistent journals in his younger handwriting. Upon further investigation, he finds the numbers on his journals have been altered, e.g. from 21 to 1 by scratching out the 2. Piranesi cries in his favorite statue after learning he has lost his memory.
Part 3, Entry 7 Summary: “I resolve to take better care of Myself”
The following day, Piranesi wanders the halls, visiting statues. Initially, he believes he imagined he things he didn’t recognize when he re-read his journal entries, but he eventually realizes he wasn’t imagining. The statues offer some clues by portraying objects that do not exist in the labyrinth.
His resolves to hide his memory loss from Ketterley, eat more, and seek out warmer clothing. He wants to read more from earlier journal entries, but finds this reading is triggering, “giving rise to many painful emotions and nightmarish thoughts” (112). Piranesi grapples with trusting his “House” that causes madness.
Part 3, Entry 8 Summary: “Sylvia D’Agostino”
On the 20th, the narrator describes his activities while waiting a week to try reading his journals again, such as composing “music on the flute that I made from the bone of a swan” (113). Eventually, he gathers strength from the Gorilla statue and reads about D’Agostino: she studies math, then anthropology.
She works for Arne-Sayles and occasionally helps him to pick up young men; he makes her cut off contact with her family. She also crafts films and writes poetry. There are descriptions of her films, including one shot in the labyrinth called “Castle.” Later, D’Agostino refuses to leave a job and romantic interest when Arne-Sayles asks her to, and she goes missing.
Part 3, Entry 9 Summary: “Poor James Ritter”
In a second entry for the same day (the 20th), Piranesi dares to read about another person mentioned by the Prophet. He finds a couple entries: one about the end of Arne-Sayles’s career when a cleaning woman finds a man—James Ritter—hidden in his house and Arne-Sayles goes to jail for imprisoning James.
The next entry is a biography of Ritter, casting him as mentally ill; he was missing in the labyrinth for two years. His descriptions of the House match D’Agostino’s “Castle” film and a book about the labyrinth written by Arne-Sayles. Ritter ends up working as a caretaker for a large building.
Part 3, Entry 10 Summary: “Journal entries on Sylvia D’Agostino and poor James Ritter: some initial thoughts”
The following day, Piranesi recognizes the minotaur statues and staircase (but no other details) from the last journal entry and deducts that Ritter was the source of the trash in the First Vestibule. Again, statues help him figure out forgotten words. The number of names he has discovered matches the number of the dead, and he notes that the existence of other people is implied, meaning that there is a larger world than he previously believed.
Part 3 Analysis
There is a heavy emphasis on books and writing throughout the novel. In this section, the reader learns that Arne-Sayles wrote a book about the labyrinth, and Clarke later reveals that Matthew Rose Sorensen wound up a prisoner in the labyrinth because he was writing a book about Arne-Sayles. Piranesi doesn’t remember contacting Arne-Sayles about the book before his imprisonment by Ketterley, but Arne-Sayles visited him because of the letter he wrote (and the police officer’s questions).
The idea of the power of the written word is also explored through the journal entries that Piranesi doesn’t remember writing but are clearly in his handwriting. He says, “the strange thing was so strange, so entirely incomprehensible that I found it difficult to form coherent thoughts about it. I could see the strangeness with my eyes, but I could not think it with my mind” (103). This describes a breakdown of the signification process of structuralism: a word exists without a corresponding idea due to memory loss. Another breakdown of the chain of meaning is shown through D’Agostino’s writing in a code that cannot be cracked after she is gone.
This section expands on the omnipresent statues of the labyrinth with philosophical ideas: “Do the Statues exist because they embody the Ideas and Knowledge that flowed out of the other World into this one?” (90). This coexists with the personification of the statues, such as how Piranesi cuddles with one: he “flung myself into his Arms, wrapping my arm around his Neck, intertwining my fingers with his Fingers. Safe in his embrace, I wept for my lost Sanity” (108). Using the statues for comfort and fighting against his loneliness, the narrator also considers their powers of representation as a way to continue his search for meaning and uncover his own lost memory.
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