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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
This is not the first time I've read Gormenghast. It will not be the last. I adore everything about it - the imagery, the plot, the language. The utter ridiculousness and tragedy of the characters. True, I am less interested in Titus than I am in everyone around him - the most compelling of the characters in this volume is surely the Countess Gertrude, with a strong supporting role going to the comic hideousness of Irma Prunesquallor - but Titus is there to represent a feeling, a desire for escape, a way out of monument. Because that's what Gormenghast Castle is: a monumental beast of a place, one which looms and smothers and covers everything over with the dust of centuries.
I'd still give my eye teeth to be able to explore it. Or to be able to write like this. Oh, Mr. Peake. How sorry I am for what happened to you. It was cruelty worse than Steerpike.
I'd still give my eye teeth to be able to explore it. Or to be able to write like this. Oh, Mr. Peake. How sorry I am for what happened to you. It was cruelty worse than Steerpike.
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5/5 : by no means an entertainment, and by every means a devastating and masterful show of brutal atmosphere in tone and prose, brilliantly gothic and true-to-something characters, and ponderous, frightening terrors and violence. This second novel of Gormenghast is simultaneously bleak and beautiful, and definitely a hell of a read. I couldn’t help laughing aloud at the macabre and miserable moments, and I was held in a fascination, an awe, of Peake’s delight in imagery and characterization. This one will haunt me for a while.
Again, Mervyn Peake awes me with his style.
He is a writer who makes me say, not once, that "This is SO GOOD" (in terms of prose). He is a writer with a vision of deeply symbolic events in and around the castle of Gormenghast and its seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan. He is a writer who writes, and writes superbly.
He is a writer who makes me say, not once, that "This is SO GOOD" (in terms of prose). He is a writer with a vision of deeply symbolic events in and around the castle of Gormenghast and its seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan. He is a writer who writes, and writes superbly.
When I have all books of a series on hand, I tend to prefer to review them together. In the case of the Gormenghast trilogy, I'm going to review books 1 and 2 as a pair and then book 3 separately. Titus Groan (Book 1) and Gormenghast (Book 2) are very much a pair and feel nearly complete while Titus Alone (Book 3) takes us off in a new direction.
The first two parts of this series are incredible! Absolutely and highly recommended. The story is not quite fantasy but close, if you count an imaginary kingdom as fantasy. Rather this is a Gothic fable filled with grotesque images, peculiar characters and baroque poetic imagery.
Gormenghast is a strange kingdom. Not quite a country. Not a city. It's a sprawling, mazelike ancient castle surrounded by a handful of shanty towns occurring in something close to medieval times. Most strange of all, it seems to have no relations whatsoever with the rest of the world. It is an isolated entity that has no trade, wars or diplomatic contact with any other kingdom. It is self-sufficient yet decrepit and crumbling. It seems to be surviving on habit and inertia alone.
The world that Peake creates is phenomenal. He describes in loving detail the castle, the land and community around the castle, and the appearances and behaviors of the inhabitants. At times, Peake’s prose shimmers like moonlit water and other times achieves heights of absurd humor. The comedy usually arises from simply describing the characters and actions in excessive detail. The tone is dark and melancholy and put in the mind the cartoons of Edward Gorey.
The setting and the poetic writing are half the appeal and the compelling characters are the other half. Peake has crafted some of the oddest characters that I’ve ever read in literature. There’s an ineffectual old king, Lord Sepulchrave, who is slowly going mad; the queen, a physically massive individual, more like an iceberg than a human, who shows neither expression nor emotion, ignores her family, and dotes over her hundreds of cats and birds who live on and around her, and follow her as if she were their Pied Piper; the daughter Fuchsia, the most normal of the group, who begins self-centered and rather dull-witted, but grows to become more kind and thoughtful; the creepy Cora and Clarice Groan, who are mad twins with half their bodies dead from strokes; the Lurch-like servant Mr. Flay; the pig-like, sadistic chef Abiatha Swelter; the witty dandy Doctor Alfred Prunesquallor who has a tic wherein he laughs during every sentence; and lastly Steerpike, the youth who is brilliant, ambitious, and quite possibly…psychotic.
The entire edifice of the kingdom is dependent on the following of ritual. Ritual sustains them in their isolation and enforces conformity and submission. Ritual is the primary factor that drives much of the story. Titus grows up to see ritual as a trap that he wants to escape. He doesn’t want to be bound by the expectations of royalty and his family. He confronts the question of whether he is defined by society or by himself. Steerpike in some ways, with his modern logical thinking, stands for the opposite of ritual. Neither is posed as the ideal way forward. The ritual is arbitrary and absurd, while Steerpike’s logic and forward momentum is cruel and amoral. In the end, they collide and the results are tragic.
Titus Groan and Gormenghast are an amazing achievement and highly recommended works of art, particularly if you have a taste for the peculiar.
The first two parts of this series are incredible! Absolutely and highly recommended. The story is not quite fantasy but close, if you count an imaginary kingdom as fantasy. Rather this is a Gothic fable filled with grotesque images, peculiar characters and baroque poetic imagery.
Gormenghast is a strange kingdom. Not quite a country. Not a city. It's a sprawling, mazelike ancient castle surrounded by a handful of shanty towns occurring in something close to medieval times. Most strange of all, it seems to have no relations whatsoever with the rest of the world. It is an isolated entity that has no trade, wars or diplomatic contact with any other kingdom. It is self-sufficient yet decrepit and crumbling. It seems to be surviving on habit and inertia alone.
The world that Peake creates is phenomenal. He describes in loving detail the castle, the land and community around the castle, and the appearances and behaviors of the inhabitants. At times, Peake’s prose shimmers like moonlit water and other times achieves heights of absurd humor. The comedy usually arises from simply describing the characters and actions in excessive detail. The tone is dark and melancholy and put in the mind the cartoons of Edward Gorey.
The setting and the poetic writing are half the appeal and the compelling characters are the other half. Peake has crafted some of the oddest characters that I’ve ever read in literature. There’s an ineffectual old king, Lord Sepulchrave, who is slowly going mad; the queen, a physically massive individual, more like an iceberg than a human, who shows neither expression nor emotion, ignores her family, and dotes over her hundreds of cats and birds who live on and around her, and follow her as if she were their Pied Piper; the daughter Fuchsia, the most normal of the group, who begins self-centered and rather dull-witted, but grows to become more kind and thoughtful; the creepy Cora and Clarice Groan, who are mad twins with half their bodies dead from strokes; the Lurch-like servant Mr. Flay; the pig-like, sadistic chef Abiatha Swelter; the witty dandy Doctor Alfred Prunesquallor who has a tic wherein he laughs during every sentence; and lastly Steerpike, the youth who is brilliant, ambitious, and quite possibly…psychotic.
The entire edifice of the kingdom is dependent on the following of ritual. Ritual sustains them in their isolation and enforces conformity and submission. Ritual is the primary factor that drives much of the story. Titus grows up to see ritual as a trap that he wants to escape. He doesn’t want to be bound by the expectations of royalty and his family. He confronts the question of whether he is defined by society or by himself. Steerpike in some ways, with his modern logical thinking, stands for the opposite of ritual. Neither is posed as the ideal way forward. The ritual is arbitrary and absurd, while Steerpike’s logic and forward momentum is cruel and amoral. In the end, they collide and the results are tragic.
Titus Groan and Gormenghast are an amazing achievement and highly recommended works of art, particularly if you have a taste for the peculiar.
Oh, Fuschia. I will miss you the most, you big-feeling weirdo.
I was hoping, before Steerpike went on his killing spree, that he and Titus were going to join forces somehow and ??? (fight crime?) and $$$. This would've still required the library fire to happen (even though that was the start of his spree, he hadn't forseen [or planned for] those consequences).
But: no. He is the worst wurst.
I found the whole Irma/Bellgrove everything tiresome, but the final search for Steerpike was tense and difficult and pretty much perfect. See also the description of the flood.
I am not much looking forward to the last book because Titus, alone, isn't very much fun. Still, he deserves at least a happiness. (Maybe with dogs instead of cats like the Countess?)
I was hoping, before Steerpike went on his killing spree, that he and Titus were going to join forces somehow and ??? (fight crime?) and $$$. This would've still required the library fire to happen (even though that was the start of his spree, he hadn't forseen [or planned for] those consequences).
But: no. He is the worst wurst.
I found the whole Irma/Bellgrove everything tiresome, but the final search for Steerpike was tense and difficult and pretty much perfect. See also the description of the flood.
I am not much looking forward to the last book because Titus, alone, isn't very much fun. Still, he deserves at least a happiness. (Maybe with dogs instead of cats like the Countess?)
Not as good as Titus Groan I think, but very atmospheric, new eccentric characters, and a quickly unraveling plot.
Nothing to say except this is just fucking stupidly well written. I’m building a shrine to Mervyn Peake in my room immediately
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Gormenghast is nothing like any other book I’ve ever read. Mervyn Peake was an illustrator first and a writer second, and he approaches his writing with an artist’s eye for visual detail. The cumulative effect of the book’s thousands of vivid images is like that of a dream—I have memories of scenes from the book burned into my head in the same foggy way that you remember your nightmares as you wake up. It is gorgeous, it is disturbing, it is frequently very funny, and it is otherworldly. The castle and its characters will haunt me for a long time yet.