48 pages 1 hour read

Susanna Clarke

Piranesi

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Part 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 5: “Valentine Ketterley”

Part 5, Entry 1 Summary: “The events of 15 November 2012”

This section only has one entry, which is written on the scraps of paper that the narrator has pieced together. It describes the interview that led to Sorensen’s abduction at Ketterley’s Battersea home. At first, the interview proceeds normally: Ketterley is a former academic, now practicing psychologist. He comments on how the narrator carries his handwritten journals instead of a modern electronic device.

The interview takes a turn from Sorensen’s interest in Arne-Sayles’s “transgressive ideas” (175) to disappearances in the labyrinth, and Ketterley admits to having seen the labyrinth. Sorensen is only a little suspicious when Ketterley asks if anyone knows where he is, and agrees to participate in the ritual that will allow him to see the labyrinth for himself. This involves a candle and Ketterley chanting “Addedomarus” (181). Sorensen arrives among the minotaur statues. Across the threshold, Ketterley says Sorensen was just what he was looking for and laughs, trapping him.

Part 5 Analysis

Sense imagery continues to play an important role in this section, first through music. Ketterley plays music by Hector Berlioz, a 19th century French composer known for his work “La Damnation de Faust,” a long vocal piece based on the poem Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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