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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
This book was... Interesting. I read it at the recommendation of Youtuber Sam Tsui, and I honestly can't say whether I'm disappointed or glad I did. The story was not as entertaining as I was expecting, mostly because the author crafts such long, wonderfully descriptive phrases that the simplest events take entire chapters to describe. And therein lies the crux of my dilemma.
I feel that this book was a good thing for me to read, because it challenged me to return to my childhood, when I could read a book like Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" or Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" in the span of a few days. I feel like I've lost some of the mental acuity, or ability to focus, that made this possible. So on the one hand, I think it was beneficial for me to read. And the author really does have a gift for metaphor and description. But at the same time, I was bored for much of the book. Save for one particularly brilliant description of a swordfight, I had a hard time concentrating on the phrases that served no purpose other than to set the tone or mood of a scene. I have from experience gained the ability to skim literature and gain the plot at the expense of the rest of the book, and now it seems I do not know how to stop and truly enjoy the beauty of language books such as this provide.
I wish I could have read this at age 12; I think I would have rated it more truly.
Thanks for the book recommendation Sam! It was an interesting experience to say the least :)
I feel that this book was a good thing for me to read, because it challenged me to return to my childhood, when I could read a book like Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" or Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" in the span of a few days. I feel like I've lost some of the mental acuity, or ability to focus, that made this possible. So on the one hand, I think it was beneficial for me to read. And the author really does have a gift for metaphor and description. But at the same time, I was bored for much of the book. Save for one particularly brilliant description of a swordfight, I had a hard time concentrating on the phrases that served no purpose other than to set the tone or mood of a scene. I have from experience gained the ability to skim literature and gain the plot at the expense of the rest of the book, and now it seems I do not know how to stop and truly enjoy the beauty of language books such as this provide.
I wish I could have read this at age 12; I think I would have rated it more truly.
Thanks for the book recommendation Sam! It was an interesting experience to say the least :)
Listened to this on audiobook, mostly because Neil Gaiman listed it as an influence. It was....strange, long, and maybe just not for me. The plot is minimal, and the driving force of the narration lies in the many many ceremonies and habits of Gormenghast, the seat of the Earls of Groan, and the people who inhabit it. At the start of the novel, the 77th Earl of Groan, Titus, is born. What follows is essentially just the introduction of the myriad and universally bizarre characters who live in the castle and their reactions to the birth of the new Earl. The atmosphere, and the characterisation of each person is excellent, I will not deny. It would be a good book for a long, dark winter. Maybe I will try the rest of the series at that time.
Little gusts of fresh, white air blew fitfully through the high trees that surrounded the lake. In the dense heat of the season it seemed they had no part; so distinct they were from the sterile body of the air. How could such thick air open to shafts so foreign and so aqueous? The humid season was split open for their every gush. It closed as they died like a hot blanket, only to be torn again by a blue quill, only to close again; only to open. [356]
It is difficult to believe that this book was written by a human. It reads like an unearthed mythology, discovered on a far away planet in a cave filled with treasure.
Derivating from the Tolkien model for fantasy, Peake's genius is certainly the progenitor for all non horses-and-swords books of the genre. And his ability to create an ensemble book without a strong lead character is simply amazing. There should be a graduate class taught on his methods of characterization and the importance of coming up with the perfect name (no one has done it better).
I look forward to reading the other two books in this trilogy.
Derivating from the Tolkien model for fantasy, Peake's genius is certainly the progenitor for all non horses-and-swords books of the genre. And his ability to create an ensemble book without a strong lead character is simply amazing. There should be a graduate class taught on his methods of characterization and the importance of coming up with the perfect name (no one has done it better).
I look forward to reading the other two books in this trilogy.
[b:Tito di Gormenghast|22669506|Tito di Gormenghast|Mervyn Peake|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404649569s/22669506.jpg|3250394] inizia con il botto, complice un'ambientazione spettacolare, una scrittura magnetica dove il simbolico e il surreale la fanno da padroni, e un carosello di personaggi incredibili, alcuni tratteggiati in modo splendido e a tutto tondo.
Con il proseguire della lettura però, il coinvolgimento va calando perché spesso l'autore divaga in descrizioni che sì, sono molto affascinanti, ma a volte fanno perdere il filo e la concentrazione su quello che sta accadendo a livello di trama, estremamente originale e memorabile.
Nel complesso, nonostante non sia un romanzo da considerarsi puramente fantastico dal momento che la magia è quasi del tutto assente, credo che rappresenti un'importante pietra miliare del genere, in cui chi apprezza i buoni romanzi gotici non potrà non amare il vero protagonista di questo libro, l'immenso castello di Gormenghast.
Con il proseguire della lettura però, il coinvolgimento va calando perché spesso l'autore divaga in descrizioni che sì, sono molto affascinanti, ma a volte fanno perdere il filo e la concentrazione su quello che sta accadendo a livello di trama, estremamente originale e memorabile.
Nel complesso, nonostante non sia un romanzo da considerarsi puramente fantastico dal momento che la magia è quasi del tutto assente, credo che rappresenti un'importante pietra miliare del genere, in cui chi apprezza i buoni romanzi gotici non potrà non amare il vero protagonista di questo libro, l'immenso castello di Gormenghast.
Exquisitely written. The story seemed to build toward a conclusion that never happened. Each character was deep and interesting. This is the single strangest book I have ever read. I am quite certain it was about nothing. I would have given it fewer stars, but it was too well written and the characters too well devised.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Brilliant writing, haunting imagery, glorious characters. Peake was brilliant and made a mundane castle that trapped in "the old ways" come alive in such a fantastical way that even the most mundane actions came across as strange and surreal. His dialogue was dense with strange and rambling characters that truly only made sense to themselves. The book as a whole was dense and took a little while too read, but was beautiful and inspiring. Never have I come across a writer quite like Mervyn Peake.
Five stars for the masterful atmospheric writing and wonderfully strange characters, and an utterly unique concept.
Titus Groan is not an easy book to read, nor to describe. The plot is actually pretty minimal: the ancient, massive, crumbling Castle Gormenghast, ruled over by House Groan, sits amidst "tracks of country that stretch on every hand, in the North to the wastelands, in the South to the grey salt marshes, in the East to the quicksands and the tideless sea, and in the West to knuckles of endless rock". It is surrounded by "mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls" - mud dwellings built "Dwellers" that are permitted "by ancient law" to live just outside the walls. Those who live within and without do not often communicate. Lord Sepulchrave and Lady Gertrude have just welcomed to birth of their son, Titus, who is to be the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. Meanwhile, a newly-arrived kitchen scullion, Steerpike, seeks to rise above his station.
‘Slagg,’ said the Countess, ‘go away! I would like to see the boy when he is six. Find a wet nurse from the Outer Dwellings. Make him green dresses from the velvet curtains. Take this gold ring of mine. Fix a chain to it. Let him wear it around his wry little neck. Call him Titus. Go away and leave the door six inches open.’
The appeal of Titus Groan lies primarily, for me, with Peake's utterly unique voice, and his masterful descriptions of both the weighty atmosphere of Gormenghast, as well as the inner universes of each of the characters, all of whom have wonderfully Dickensian names (Slagg, Sourdust, Swelter, Flay, Prunesquallor, etc). I read this on an e-reader and was highlighting paragraph after paragraph to refer back to. While there are certainly portions of the book that rise above the others, Peake does not relent across the entirety of the book, writing the most inconsequential of scenes with amazing craft.
When Mrs Slagg reached the cradle she put her fingers to her mouth and peered over it as though into the deepest recesses of an undiscovered world. There he was. The infant Titus. His eyes were open but he was quite still. The puckered-up face of the newly-born child, old as the world, wise as the roots of trees. Sin was there and goodness, love, pity and horror, and even beauty for his eyes were pure violet. Earth’s passions, earth’s griefs, earth’s incongruous, ridiculous humours – dormant, yet visible in the wry pippin of a face. Nannie Slagg bending over him waggled a crooked finger before his eyes. ‘My little sugar,’ she tittered. ‘How could you? how could you?’
Most of the action in Gormenghast follows Steerpike as he attempts to ingratiate himself with a rising ladder of the castle's inhabitants. A conflict between Mr. Flay and Swelter eventually reaches a crescendo. Fuscia, elder daughter of Sepulchrave and Gertrude, struggles with coming to terms with the birth of her brother. And all of the inhabitants, Lord Groan chief among them, are subject to ancient rituals administered by Sourdust, the ancient librarian who ensures the ceremonies are followed.
As she spoke Lord Sepulchrave was returning to his room after performing the bi-annual ritual of opening the iron cupboard in the armoury, and, with the traditional dagger which Sourdust had brought for the occasion, of scratching on the metal back of the cupboard another half moon, which, added to the long line of similar half moons, made the seven hundred and thirty-seventh to be scored into the iron. According to the temperaments of the deceased Earls of Gormenghast the half moons were executed with precision or with carelessness. It was not certain what significance the ceremony held, for unfortunately the records were lost, but the formality was no less sacred for being unintelligible.
I'd recommend this, with many caveats, to many. To those who take special pleasure from a talented author's ability to write evocative prose. To those who want to read a foundational fantasy work that came 8 years before Fellowship of the Ring and to see if they can find its influences in other books they've enjoyed (Gideon the Ninth jumps immediately to my mind!). Caveats include - the plot is minimal. This is not what has become typical fantasy - there are no elves, goblins, no real adventure to speak of, and very few swords. And finally, this is a book that requires your full attention, and it took me longer than a book of its length usually would. But unlike other books I'd say that about, your reward is immediate, as each paragraph has its own payoff.
Distance was everywhere – the sense of far-away – of detachment. What might have been touched with an outstretched arm was equally removed, withdrawn in the grey-blue polliniferous body of the air, while overhead the inhuman circle swam. Summer was on the roofs of Gormenghast. It lay inert, like a sick thing. Its limbs spread. It took the shape of what it smothered. The masonry sweated and was horribly silent. The chestnuts whitened with dust and hung their myriads of great hands with every wrist broken. What was left of the water in the moat was like soup. A rat floundered across it, part swimming, part walking. Thick sepia patches of water were left in the unhealthy scum where its legs had broken through the green surface.
A wonderfully strange book that I'm glad to have read.
Titus Groan is not an easy book to read, nor to describe. The plot is actually pretty minimal: the ancient, massive, crumbling Castle Gormenghast, ruled over by House Groan, sits amidst "tracks of country that stretch on every hand, in the North to the wastelands, in the South to the grey salt marshes, in the East to the quicksands and the tideless sea, and in the West to knuckles of endless rock". It is surrounded by "mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls" - mud dwellings built "Dwellers" that are permitted "by ancient law" to live just outside the walls. Those who live within and without do not often communicate. Lord Sepulchrave and Lady Gertrude have just welcomed to birth of their son, Titus, who is to be the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. Meanwhile, a newly-arrived kitchen scullion, Steerpike, seeks to rise above his station.
‘Slagg,’ said the Countess, ‘go away! I would like to see the boy when he is six. Find a wet nurse from the Outer Dwellings. Make him green dresses from the velvet curtains. Take this gold ring of mine. Fix a chain to it. Let him wear it around his wry little neck. Call him Titus. Go away and leave the door six inches open.’
The appeal of Titus Groan lies primarily, for me, with Peake's utterly unique voice, and his masterful descriptions of both the weighty atmosphere of Gormenghast, as well as the inner universes of each of the characters, all of whom have wonderfully Dickensian names (Slagg, Sourdust, Swelter, Flay, Prunesquallor, etc). I read this on an e-reader and was highlighting paragraph after paragraph to refer back to. While there are certainly portions of the book that rise above the others, Peake does not relent across the entirety of the book, writing the most inconsequential of scenes with amazing craft.
When Mrs Slagg reached the cradle she put her fingers to her mouth and peered over it as though into the deepest recesses of an undiscovered world. There he was. The infant Titus. His eyes were open but he was quite still. The puckered-up face of the newly-born child, old as the world, wise as the roots of trees. Sin was there and goodness, love, pity and horror, and even beauty for his eyes were pure violet. Earth’s passions, earth’s griefs, earth’s incongruous, ridiculous humours – dormant, yet visible in the wry pippin of a face. Nannie Slagg bending over him waggled a crooked finger before his eyes. ‘My little sugar,’ she tittered. ‘How could you? how could you?’
Most of the action in Gormenghast follows Steerpike as he attempts to ingratiate himself with a rising ladder of the castle's inhabitants. A conflict between Mr. Flay and Swelter eventually reaches a crescendo. Fuscia, elder daughter of Sepulchrave and Gertrude, struggles with coming to terms with the birth of her brother. And all of the inhabitants, Lord Groan chief among them, are subject to ancient rituals administered by Sourdust, the ancient librarian who ensures the ceremonies are followed.
As she spoke Lord Sepulchrave was returning to his room after performing the bi-annual ritual of opening the iron cupboard in the armoury, and, with the traditional dagger which Sourdust had brought for the occasion, of scratching on the metal back of the cupboard another half moon, which, added to the long line of similar half moons, made the seven hundred and thirty-seventh to be scored into the iron. According to the temperaments of the deceased Earls of Gormenghast the half moons were executed with precision or with carelessness. It was not certain what significance the ceremony held, for unfortunately the records were lost, but the formality was no less sacred for being unintelligible.
I'd recommend this, with many caveats, to many. To those who take special pleasure from a talented author's ability to write evocative prose. To those who want to read a foundational fantasy work that came 8 years before Fellowship of the Ring and to see if they can find its influences in other books they've enjoyed (Gideon the Ninth jumps immediately to my mind!). Caveats include - the plot is minimal. This is not what has become typical fantasy - there are no elves, goblins, no real adventure to speak of, and very few swords. And finally, this is a book that requires your full attention, and it took me longer than a book of its length usually would. But unlike other books I'd say that about, your reward is immediate, as each paragraph has its own payoff.
Distance was everywhere – the sense of far-away – of detachment. What might have been touched with an outstretched arm was equally removed, withdrawn in the grey-blue polliniferous body of the air, while overhead the inhuman circle swam. Summer was on the roofs of Gormenghast. It lay inert, like a sick thing. Its limbs spread. It took the shape of what it smothered. The masonry sweated and was horribly silent. The chestnuts whitened with dust and hung their myriads of great hands with every wrist broken. What was left of the water in the moat was like soup. A rat floundered across it, part swimming, part walking. Thick sepia patches of water were left in the unhealthy scum where its legs had broken through the green surface.
A wonderfully strange book that I'm glad to have read.
