44 pages 1 hour read

Susanna Clarke

Piranesi

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Part 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 6: “Wave”

Part 6, Entry 1 Summary: “I was mistaken!”

Part 6 consists of ten entries, spanning only about two weeks (the end of the 9th month and 1st day of 10th month).

In the fourth entry of the 21st day of the 9th month, the narrator reacts to reading his journal fragments: he vomits, shakes, and realizes that forgetting his identity meant forgetting the identity of his enemy. With the new context, he reviews what he does remember and realizes there is the “Other World” (187) of London. Arne-Sayles’s warnings about the consequences of staying in the labyrinth now ring true for the narrator, and he worries about forgetting again. Filled with regret for all the ways he has aided Ketterley, he fantasizes about revenge using his fishnets to trap Ketterley in the flood. 

Part 6, Entry 2 Summary: “It is 16 that is my friend and not the Other”

On the 22nd, the narrator eats breakfast and thinks Matthew Rose Sorensen cries out from within him. He tries to calm Matthew inside him, and realizes it was Ketterley, not 16, who was trying to drive him insane. Now believing that Raphael is trying to save him, the narrator wants to see her and walks back to where they exchanged messages. However, his warning about the flood and her pebble message are gone; the narrator correctly surmises this is the work of Ketterley and rewrites his warning.