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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
This series is a part of me in a way that no other is
What can I say about Titus Groan that hasn't already been said? People either love it or hate it. I'm squarely of the lover party. The author, Mervyn Peake, was a painter, and fills his novel with sumptuous word paintings of Gormenghast Castle and the characters populating it and the surrounding area. These places and people are gothicly weird and grotesque, dark, mysterious and quirky. I enjoyed the twins Cora and Clarice, who are somewhat reminiscent (in my mind, at least) of Siamese twins in a circus freak show, or of Flora and Fauna Addams from The Addams Family movie, but who are too vacuous to even follow their own arguments with each other. Fuchsia became a particular favorite. I enjoyed her childishness, in part, because I kept forgetting she was fifteen years old and not eight. She grew on me, nonetheless.
Peake spent his formative years in pre-Communist China, near The Forbidden City, and Gormenghast and it's arcane rituals are a mix of the strange cloistered worlds of the Chinese Imperial family, and British upper-class propriety. Maybe it would help to think of it as a cross between Downton Abbey and Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Last Emperor.
Lord Sepulchrave is the 76th Earl of Groan, who lives in Gormenghast. Titus Groan is his newly-born heir. The novel follows the events in the castle for roughly the child's first year.
His birth coincides with change, something blasphemous in a world controlled by nonsensical rituals that are so old as to have lost their meaning, yet they must still be performed upon the decree of some ancient Earl whose word was made law.
Into this lands Steerpike, the conniving kitchen boy, who cons his way through the castle ranks, throwing everything off-balance.
It's a strange, shadowy world. "Loveable" is not exacty the word I'd use to describe the Groans and their attendants. They're odd and trapped in a claustrophobic world of meaningless ritual, but they are quirky in an interesting way, and I cared about what happened to them.
I also enjoyed the audiobook's narration and voices by Simon Vance.
Peake spent his formative years in pre-Communist China, near The Forbidden City, and Gormenghast and it's arcane rituals are a mix of the strange cloistered worlds of the Chinese Imperial family, and British upper-class propriety. Maybe it would help to think of it as a cross between Downton Abbey and Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Last Emperor.
Lord Sepulchrave is the 76th Earl of Groan, who lives in Gormenghast. Titus Groan is his newly-born heir. The novel follows the events in the castle for roughly the child's first year.
His birth coincides with change, something blasphemous in a world controlled by nonsensical rituals that are so old as to have lost their meaning, yet they must still be performed upon the decree of some ancient Earl whose word was made law.
Into this lands Steerpike, the conniving kitchen boy, who cons his way through the castle ranks, throwing everything off-balance.
It's a strange, shadowy world. "Loveable" is not exacty the word I'd use to describe the Groans and their attendants. They're odd and trapped in a claustrophobic world of meaningless ritual, but they are quirky in an interesting way, and I cared about what happened to them.
I also enjoyed the audiobook's narration and voices by Simon Vance.
Peake doesn’t seem to think women can do anything. Interesting as a sharp contrast to any modern publishing recommendations, though.
This book is rad and would have been 5 stars if it had a plot..
I'm still deciding what I think about this one. I expect I won't really know until I finish the next book, if not the whole trilogy. Lots of elements that I appreciate, but I won't know if it was all worth it until I see where Peake takes it.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Terry Pratchett meets... Lovecraft? Everything in this book is huge, mysterious, grotesque, strange, dense, and absurd. This would usually be right down my alley, but somehow in this case it didn't quite click. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood, but I think the darkness and complex language on top of all the weirdness was just all a bit much for me, in the end.
When I was a kid I read these books called The Edge Chronicles - similarly, these had everything be big, weird, strange, with these crazy grotesque double-page illustrations by Chris Riddell (one of my favourite illustrators even now). I remember liking the first few books of these because throughout all of this Lovecraftian scale, it was still light in tone and style. In the later books, these shifted to fit to the rest of the narrative, and it all just became a bit much. Gormenghast felt the same.
When I was a kid I read these books called The Edge Chronicles - similarly, these had everything be big, weird, strange, with these crazy grotesque double-page illustrations by Chris Riddell (one of my favourite illustrators even now). I remember liking the first few books of these because throughout all of this Lovecraftian scale, it was still light in tone and style. In the later books, these shifted to fit to the rest of the narrative, and it all just became a bit much. Gormenghast felt the same.
Peake is an exceptional writer. As others have mentioned, he was also a painter and illustrator, and perhaps this is what helped him in his writing, because I have never read such vivid descriptions as his. The language is complex, although not old fashioned, which forced me to slow my usually fast reading and allowed me to properly absorb the vision and atmosphere of this book. The characters are memorable and grotesque, and the plot, although slow compared to other books, moves at a suitable pace and is intriguing and fantastical. Titus Groan is undeniably fantasy, although there is no magic, no dragons, no gods and not a prophecy in sight. Instead it is a fantasy of manners, the fantastic element comes from the characters themselves and from the great castle of Gormenghast.
I highly recommend this, it is the best written piece of literature I have ever read.
I highly recommend this, it is the best written piece of literature I have ever read.
"And now for something completely different..."
That is what comes to mind when I try to come up with what to say about this book. In some respects, this felt very Terry Pratchett-like. But it was more epic. And yet, it only covers one year. Is that epic?
I like the symmetry of the beginning and the ending of the book. Even I, who have long since forgotten how to read like a literature student, recognized that. Other than that, I found the language, especially about Gormenghast itself, too too much. Too flowery. Too descriptive and yet not painting pictures of things I could actually visualize. I skimmed paragraph after paragraph when it got into those lengthy descriptions, so the mood that was trying to convey was mostly lost on me who just wanted the narrative to continue. I enjoyed the characters, though (which are mostly what reminded me of Pratchett), and won't mind revisiting them in at least the next of the three books in the trilogy.
In short, the book took me much longer to read than it should have because it just wasn't compelling enough to make me want to pick it up each night and it tended to put me to sleep with the long, descriptive passages.
That is what comes to mind when I try to come up with what to say about this book. In some respects, this felt very Terry Pratchett-like. But it was more epic. And yet, it only covers one year. Is that epic?
I like the symmetry of the beginning and the ending of the book. Even I, who have long since forgotten how to read like a literature student, recognized that. Other than that, I found the language, especially about Gormenghast itself, too too much. Too flowery. Too descriptive and yet not painting pictures of things I could actually visualize. I skimmed paragraph after paragraph when it got into those lengthy descriptions, so the mood that was trying to convey was mostly lost on me who just wanted the narrative to continue. I enjoyed the characters, though (which are mostly what reminded me of Pratchett), and won't mind revisiting them in at least the next of the three books in the trilogy.
In short, the book took me much longer to read than it should have because it just wasn't compelling enough to make me want to pick it up each night and it tended to put me to sleep with the long, descriptive passages.
Molto ben scritto, stile caratteristico, ma è lento all’inverosimile, non ha una direzione chiara, e i personaggi sono piatti al di là dei loro peculiari modi di parlare. 560 pagine di nulla cosmico. Unico personaggio per cui è valso la pena (ma comunque non tutta) leggere questo libro: Fucsia.
Took me an incredibly long time to read. It is just so incredibly dense. I am truly glad I did read it through, however, as it has grown to be one of my favorite books. I am excited to continue reading other books in this series (Gormenghast and Titus Alone) once I get my hands on the physical copies