Thanks for listening to The Great and Secret Knowledge: A Speculative Fiction Podcast! In this chapter, Piranesi learns more about the mysterious 16. He studies the scraps. We critique the character of Laurence Arne-Sayles. We hope you enjoy our coverage of Piranesi, Part 4: 16
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Extended Notes
Part 5: Ketterley
P prepares to go collect the scraps of paper in the nests
some paper falls apart but others stay together
he makes a fire and uses warm water to dab away the droppings
79 scraps from 35 nests
"I rely on him to bring me food and water - which only underlines my status as a prisoner, a slave. He leaves the food in the room with the minotaur statues."
he feels bad for the writer, wishes he could teach him how to fish
"with only a little foresight he need never go hungry, how the House provides for and protects its Children."
"Had the concealed person tormented the Biscuit Box Man? Or the other way round?"
the writer thought a statue spoke to him. he's convinced he's losing his mind. He wants to kill someone "before I forget why I HATE HIM."
all caps - dude is losing it
he puts the scraps in different envelopes
he isnt sure whether to tell the Other about the people he's read about
"Supposing he said: Where did you hear of these people? Who told you? I would not know what to say. He must not know that I have spoken to the Prophet. He must not know about the entries in my Journal."
Ketterley says he's planning to do the ritual but it's been two months
"Something had just happened. What was it? What had just happened?"
he moves around until he finds the scent of lemons, geranium leaves, hyacinth, and narcissi. (I wish I could identify all those scents, it would help in my writing)
a beautiful perfume
the scent originates in the first vestibule and goes as far as the doorway to the corridor leading to the first southwestern hall.
he knows the smells of Ketterley and Arne Sayles.
16 was here!
"It was surprising to me that someone like 16, someone so wedded to destruction and madness, should wear a perfume so lovely, so redolent of Sunshine and Happiness."
"It is very likely that he will be pleasing to the eyes. His manners will be friendly and insinuating. This is how he intends to destroy you."
He tells K about the perfume. K is chill about.
He's relieved that they're coming to the halls because he thinks its best to kill him.
"I do not think I could kill someone however wicked they are," I said. "Even the wicked deserve Life. Or if they do not, then let the House take it from them. Not me." (is there a name for this? its not quite pacifism...not sure how to google it)
even K doesnt think he could kill someone up close.
he thinks he'll have to practice. (the idea of K practicing is kind of ridiculous)
K says a old man might come by, he describes him, its definitely the prophet.
"It was always amazing to me that no one killed him while he was in prison."
Piranesi realizes he's lying by omission by not mentioning talking to the prophet.
He's glad that the prophet said he'snot coming back
its raining bad.
he's real anxious about 16 out there plotting to make him go mad
he goes to a hall full of rooks (crows?) he feeds them.
one pecks at his ear and he laughs
he sees a mark made on a door with yellow chalk!
he used to do this, but he never had yellow chalk
16 wrote on the floor! P is worried about madness
he isn't sure if words would make him go mad or if its just listening to 16 speak
its only directions!
by where they put the chalkmarks P surmises that 16 is between 12 and 15 cm shorter than him)
Piranesi writes a wild note to 16 in all caps -
"The other has warned me of how you intend to make me mad. But in order to make me mad, you must first find me and how will you do that? the answer is you will not. I know every niche of these halls, every apse, every place to hide. Return to your own halls, 16, and reflect on your wickedness."
he wasn't sure how to sign it
its other day so Piranesi grills him about reading 16's words.
Other says we shouldnt read his words but also that it's okay.
He actually pats Piranesi on the shoulder! (i was surprised P didnt wax ecstatic about being touched)
K gets a gun, admits he's bad at shooting
P suggests maybe 16 will see his response and stop coming. K shakes his head.
"There's not a chance of it, Piranesi. I know this person. 16 is relentless. 16 will keep on coming."
its cold, he gets waken up but doesnt know why. all is calm
someone has a flashlight!
they're searching around, possibly for someone specific?
The Other is there, shouting "Raphael!"
He threatens to hunt down his enemy.
He drops his flashlight and curses.
He sees some weird shadows but dismisses them
he sees 16! also with a flashlight, he's really studying the statues.
16 looks at the note P had left for him.
16 writes a ton of stuff
he sees the message but tries not to read it
he sweeps up the chalk then looks at the results
he warns away 16
P gives the Other the business, doesnt like being lied to
16 is a woman! Could it be Sylvia Dagostino? Ahgavad Scott?
when he's caught, Ketterley comes clean.
He says that he didnt want P to get all swept up.
"The reason I didn't say anything is that I know you, Piranesi. You're a romantic...I knew it was going to be hard enough as it was to convince you of the threat that 16 poses. But I thought it would be even harder once you knew she was a woman."
he thought P might fall in love with her!
"16 is fundamentally untrustworthy"
P thanks him for looking out for him but tells him not to keep stuff from him.
O wonders how P heard her voice, he explains she was talking to the rooks
P decides to look up Arne-Sayles in the index!
now we're talking
"It is not the fact 16 is a woman that fascinates me and excites me - or at least, not entirely; it is the fact she is another human being. I want to learn everything I can about her - or as much as I can learn without going mad."
interesting that P doesnt want to be kept in the dark but hes still keeping secrets from K
16 mentions Ketterley
"Certainly groomed other potential victims and I ... is 16 boasting of her victims? Of the harm she has done and intends to do? Unclear."
"Been here for almost six years ,did you" unclear what this refers to."
P looks up Arne-Sayles
Discussion with self about feasability of writing a book about Arne Sayles.
Scott is helpful with book stuff.
Is she anti Arne Sayles or pro Piranesi?
she sounds great
pros and cons
Tali Hughes is emotionally unstable and possibly delusional?
i wonder if thats true or if she was speaking sense
talk to Ritter?
"Spending a long time writing about a deeply unpleasant man could be emotionally taxing. It's universallyagreed that AS is malicious, vindictive, manipulative, spiteful,arrogant, a complete and utter prick. Con"
we read Arne Sayles's ideas about how we used to see the world as interacting with them
"When they observed the world, the world observed them back."
at all related to the Observer effect in physics?
"The world was constantly speaking to Ancient man"
"Nature was willing to bend to men’s desires, to lend them its attributes. Seas could be parted, men could turn into birds and fly away, or into foxes and hide in dark woods, castles could be made out of clouds"
magic was real and then it wasnt.
but it didnt die, it went somewhere else
the Marepool bodies at Manchester museum
one is the head of a king and seer
and thus begins the quest for the great and secret knowledge
the museum wont let AS use the head. hes shocked by this?
organizes student protests "Free the Head"
during xmas break someone breaks into the museum and does a ritual with the head
AS has an alibi with a rich couple called the Brookers. Is this our first indication of a cult patron?
we get the correct spelling of Addedomarus, a Romano British seer
Tony Myers told the cops about the breakin later, putting AS, Ketterley, and Robin Bannerman there
Myers claimed the heads lips moved
AS leaves behind the quest for the lost beliefs and powers but rather seeks to find where theyd gone
AS lays out his Theory of Other Worlds
"Picture it, said Arne-Sayles, like rainwater lying on a field. The next day the field is dry. Where has the rainwater gone? Some has evaporated into the air. Some has been drunk by plants and animals. But some has seeped down into the earth. This happens over and over again. For decades, centuries, millennia, the water, seeping down, makes a crack in the rock under the earth; then it wears the crack into a hole; then it wears the hole into a cave entrance – a kind of door in fact."
"it was necessary to cleanse one’s vision in order to see the door. To do this one must return to the place, the geographical location where one last believed the world to be fluid, responsive to oneself. In short one must return to the last place in which one had stood before the iron hand of modern rationality gripped one’s mind."
"The then-owners (dull exemplars of the prevailing mediocrity)"
"surrounded by the roses my mother had planted (though now forced to share their beds with flowers of insufferable vulgarity)"
this guy tells on himself so much
"All around me doors into other worlds began appearing but I knew the one I wanted, the one into which everything forgotten flows. The edges of that door were frayed and worn by the passage of old ideas leaving this world."
he goes through the door between pink roses and finds the halls
"eight massive statues, each one different, each depicting a minotaur"
I Remain Calm - i love how the title answers our first question
"I feel certain that the Other learnt of Addedomarus from Laurence Arne-Sayles. (‘All his ideas are mine,’ the Prophet said)"
"One sentence puzzles me: The world was constantly speaking to Ancient Man. I do not understand why this sentence is in the past tense. The World still speaks to me every day."
P remains calm despite all the strange words and phrases
he thinks he mustve gone into a trance state to come up with this stuff
There Will Be a Great Flood
talk about foreshadowing.
King does this a lot, just whets your whistle so youre in a heightened state of awareness
P realizes he hasnt checked his tide book in two weeks and now a huge flood is coming. He loses it and shouts the f word over and over
"I spoke to Myself sternly, telling Myself that it was no good bewailing the Past; what was needed now was to plan for the Future"
he tells the other there will be a great flood
O says its fine cuz he wont be there on Thursday. P asks where he'll be and O blows him off
the Other asks him "Will you be ok?" wild change, is he softening?
P says he needs to warn 16. The Other doesnt understand why
Are you Matthew Rose Sorensen?
"As I walked I thought about the last message I had left her – the one begging her to leave these Halls. Perhaps in the intervening time she had replied. Perhaps the reply would be something like:
Dear Piranesi
You are right. Today I will return to my own Halls.
Sincerely
16"
he expands on this, hoping 16 will come clean and pledge her willingness to change her wicked ways
P warns her about the flood in his message
"SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF CAUGHT BY THE FLOOD, THEN CLIMB QUICKLY! THE STATUES ARE GRACIOUS AND WILL PROTECT YOU"
he goes to a hall witha slope made of pretty white translucent rocks
finds some rocks have been scooped up.
he wonders if its the rooks.
16 had laid them out to write a message!
He read it before he could think to look away!
are you matthew rose sorensen?
he has a vision of life in the city.
"Dark forms filled the streets; I thought at first that they were statues, but they moved and I saw they were people. Thousands upon thousands of people. More people than I had ever conceived of before. Too many people. The mind could not contain the thought of so many. And everything smelt of rain, and metal, and staleness. This vision had a name and its name was …"
16 was successful, leaving a message that wpuld drive P mad
he starts to accept that he is MRS, but then the old familiar feeling hits him with the words I Am the Beloved Child of the House
Other explains why he calls him Piranesi. Its a name associated with labyrinths
he resolves to look up MRS in the journals
MRS is British, Scottish, and Ghanaian
reading his own words about AS:
"I found it interesting that Matthew Rose Sorensen believed that Laurence Arne-Sayles had denied Science and Reason. In this he was not correct. The Prophet was a scientist and a lover of Reason. I spoke out loud to the Empty Air"
a reference to Doctor Who! timey wimey, 10th doctor, by steven moffatt
"time traveling architecture"
Pgets mad.
"I had learnt nothing. I felt a strong urge to shake my Journal, as if I could somehow shake more information out of it."
he decides to look up the Other and see if he ever mentions MRS
he looks at the entries for The Other
then he looks up Ketterley
son of a soldier and occultist
Ketterley turned on AS in 1992, called for AS to be fired
they waited until the Ritter incident to pull the trigger
Ketterley lives near Battersea Park!
he discovers the missing pages! all related to Ketterley
"Who could have done this? Could it have been the Prophet? I knew that he detested Ketterley. Perhaps his hatred would cause him to destroy writing about his enemy? Or could it have been 16? 16 hated Reason. Perhaps she also hated Writing, a medium by which Reason can pass from one Person to another. But that made no sense. 16 had employed Writing to leave me a long message. And in any case how could the Prophet or 16 find my Journals."
he accepts that only he could have torn out those pages
he puts the scraps together and discovers "The events of 15 November 2012."