The most pleasure I ever had from a book
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I first read this when I was 14. I was recovering from a chill and I devoured it in a couple of days. I have read it, and its companions, 'Gormenghast' and 'Titus Alone', five or six times since and hope and expect to read them a few times more yet.
You read these books for their extraordinary prose, which has a flavour somewhere in the region of Dickens meets Dali. While the plot is huge, intricate and subtle, plot remains secondary. The reader must allow the dense, intricate prose to paint its vivid pictures in the mind, as strange and idiosyncratic as the illustrations and paintings for which Peake is also famous. As a celebration of the English language he is up there with the best. Those in search of a good yarn may find such writing tedious, but for those who like to savour language this is a feast.
The books are frequently described as fantasy, but they are fantasy in a sense entirely distinct from the heroic fantasy tradition resurrected from the Norse, by Tolkien, Lewis and a few others.
In the world of Gormenghast what heroism there is, is bent and twisted and always ultimately futile. There is little space for morality where the roles of most people are prescribed by ancient tradition to a minute degree. The world of Gormenghast is a vast crumbling castle, that has stood for time immemorial, isolated from the world outside. It could be anywhere or anytime. It is populated by a cast of characters made exquisitely eccentric by the castle and the entrenched, stifling tradition it represents. The wonderful characters whom we come to love and loathe include;
Dr Prunesquallor, obliged by his position to behave as a buffoon but the one source of sanity throughout the insane unfolding of events. Endlessly patient with his hugely neurotic sister, Irma.
Countess Gertrude, Mistress of a thousand snow white cats who thinks more of her birds than people.
Earl Sepulchrave, 76th Earl of Groan and father of Titus. He will go very mad.
Lady Fuschia. The sweet, innocent, vain dear Fuschia whom we want so badly to protect from the menace that surrounds her.
The mad aunts, Cora and Clarice who take tea each afternoon in the boughs of a tree that grows horizontally from the side of the castle.
The fanatically loyal manservant Mr Flay, and the despicable chef, Abiatha Swelter.
And then there is the wicked, wicked boy, Steerpike, who seeks to control them all.
These and numerous other more or less strange characters comprise the world of Gormenghast, into which is born Titus, destined to be the 77th Earl.
Whilst a whole industry has grown up around the emulation of Tolkien, no such industry has grown up around Gormenghast, the other key 'fantasy' work of those times. This is because Peake was touched with a unique and original vision in the way that Kafka and Sartre were. Able to see through the contingencies of our world into other worlds so close to our own in form, yet utterly different in detail, such as to create a backdrop for a strangely and subtly distorted form of human experience. As events unfold we watch as the characters are deformed, each in there own bizarre way.
Having read a lot of fine literature I would say that these are among the world's great books and would be worthy of a posthumous Nobel. Everybody I know who has read these books has had their imagination uniquely affected by the experience.
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A great adaptation of a great book
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This is an excellent interpretation of the first two of the Gormenghast books. Unlike the light TV series this captures the mood, the characters and, most importantly, the castle. The use of a narrator works well to provide the all-important descriptive elements that the TV book missed. While the plot is not the point of the book, there is one and this version keeps it at just the right level; not too much to drown the atmosphere and not to little to lose direction. The climax (I won't spoil it for you) is done particularly well. I heard this version when it was first broadcast on the BBC and have listened to this recording several times since. You should too.
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An enormous pleasure to read.
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This is the first book of the Gormenghast trilogy (before Gormenghast andTitus Alone).
The castle of Gormenghast is a huge, maze-like fortress built on the sideof a mountain. It's surrounded by a tall wall, that helps keep the noble"Castle" people and their menials inside, and the "Bright Carvers", atribal people who live in mud dwellings, outside on the arid plain.
In this first volume, we're introduced to the castle's inhabitants, amidstthe bustle of Titus the seventy-seventh Earl's birth, and a few dayslater, of his christening. There's the melancholic Lord Sepulchrave, theseventy-sixth and current Earl of Groan, his enormous wife Gertrude andher white cats, and their teenage daughter Fuchsia. And there is Mrs.Slagg, the frail old Nanny who's always complaning about her poor heart,and Mr. Flay, the Earl's tall first servant with the clicking knees. Andalso Mr. Rottcodd, curator of the Hall of Bright Carvings, and Sourdustthe Librarian, guardian of the Protocol. Doctor Prunesquallor with hisnervous laughter, and his spinsterly sister Irma, as well as Swelter thetyrannic cook and his kitchen boys, among which the young Steerpike. Thencome Cora and Clarice, the Earl's asinine twin sisters, envious of his andGertrude's power... and a few others.
As the story flows, we watch these numerous protagonists interact, asSteerpike slowly works his way up the ranks of the castle. Charminghigh-born ladies, plotting arson, nothing daunts him. And what was a sowell-greased, fine-tuned machine of minutiae and protocol, the veryessence of Gormenghast, is starting to crumble slowly and inexorably.
It's very hard to summarize Titus Groan in a couple of paragraphs. It's sobrimming with court intrigue and mischief, interspaced with lushdescriptions of this amazingly intricate fortress where I wanted to escapeto, or play hide and seek in. As a whole, all I can say it that it was anenormous pleasure to read and that I can't wait to read the next book.
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Wake me up when it's over
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This has to be the slowest, most boring book that I've read/listened to in a long long time. I bought this book to ease me through my 90 minute drive to work each day, a nearly fatal mistake given it's unsurpassed ability to send you to sleep. Endless waffle with hardly any content ... beware!
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The Peake of fantasy
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It's a very, very, very original book - but then what can you expect of novel so widely applauded? Titus Groan is an engaging encyclopaedic account of a world so thoroughly realised that it is hard at times to imagine it is fiction. Mervyn Peake's world of Gormenghast rages against magical fantasy, this is realistic fantasy - a world so close to our own, but with infinite minor differences. The opening of Titus Groan is sweeping and fantastic, the baton moves from character to character as we travel through the vast castle. But through the rapid exchanges and introductions of characters one never feels lost. The book charts the rotting of a rigid hieratical society - one that descends into apathy (as Lord Sepulchrave), madness (the Twins Clarice and Cora), solipsism (Countess Gertrude) and greed (Steerpike). Each character in this book is alone and their primary relationship is the one to the castle Gormenghast - rather than a relationship to each other. The narrative does get dense and repetitive at times which dampens the atmosphere. It's a shame that Titus Groan drags in places as it may well put off the lighter reader. There are errors too in the story, Rottcodd (curator of the Hall of Bright Carvings) states that he not seen anyone in over a year - but the book states early on, "the first morning of June the carvings were ranged every year for judgement by the Earl of Groan." It seems that even for Peake the pedantic nature of Gormenghast is too much to handle. Titus Groan is a classic and made me hunger for the other two books in the series. But be prepared to put a little effort in on your part too.
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