Book Pairings: Counterpoint Edition.
So y'all know I love daisychaining, right, but sometimes I find a couple books that just have to get a picture together. I've been meaning to Actually Take Those Pictures for years, so I'm finally starting a tag for it! These will all be filed under "book pairings," which I'm envisioning generally as recommendations to the tune of "if you liked this, try that!"
Naturally, I have to start with the exact opposite of that (in my defense: PIRANESI and COUP DE GRACE are both fresh in my brainpan lol).
Piranesi and Coup de Grâce feel like opposite ends of a spectrum. While both feature isolated young men trapped in some sort of labyrinth (Piranesi gets the House, Vicken's stuck in a subway station from hell), the characters and their outlooks on life could not be more different. Where Piranesi is full of wonder and peace, Vicken struggles--hard--with depression and suicidal ideation, to the point where I'm not actually comfortable recommending Coup de Grâce without massive disclaimers (see my linked review above).
Both their labyrinths are stone-oriented, but Piranesi gets marble Halls and Statues while Vicken's stuck in brutalist concrete subway hell; both books are shortish and feature very tight casts and first person narration; both books deal with explorations of psyches and self (though in very different directions).
If you loved Piranesi but thought "wow I really want something way more fucked up and darker and heavy and hopeless and horror that does weird experimental metafiction shit," check out Coup de Grâce (but PLEASE start with the content warnings, this book is absolutely not fucking around).
If you loved Coup de Grâce but thought "wow I wish this was more hopeful and charming and beautiful and had a mystery throughline," check out Piranesi (which I can recommend wholeheartedly!! Piranesi's got its fucked up moments, too, y'all know I wouldn't love it otherwise, but it's nowhere NEAR the level of Coup).
