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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
I did not expect the third book in this trilogy to be a picaresque adventure so separate from the first two books. For that reason it was disappointing. On its own merits, I enjoyed it, for similar reasons to the first two: superb descriptive writing, classical drama, and the presentation of an amusing comedy of manners. Unfortunately, even if I consider the books in the series as individual novels this one is the weakest.
I still don't know what to make of this one, and it took me forever to finish (audiobook) because it's such a surprisingly different thing from its predecessors. I found much to admire (including some surprisingly Kafkaesque bits like the trial) and I loved Muzzlehatch and Juno but, eh. Might require a re-read sometime.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Wacky, bizarre, melancholic and just sentence-level perfection. Every single line is an midwestern emo album title. Maybe it’s just because I read it most recently, but I enjoyed this the most and I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t.
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I loved the first two Gormenghast books, and began this one excitedly, but by the end I found it to be obnoxious.
The problem begins with our protagonist, Titus, who is easily the least interesting character in the series. This can be overlooked in Gormenghast because his purpose in that novel is to represent a foil to Steerpike. Both characters represent change. Steerpike wants to change Gormenghast for selfish power. He is extremely clever, moreso even than the castle's elite, and considers Gormenghast's dense and arbitrary rituals to be completely foolish if not potentially useful. The change he seeks is all-encompassing. Gormenghast is a relic, a societal automaton whose gears have been grinding away for centuries with no critical thought or input. Steerpike represents the first genuine intelligence in this machine, and his surroundings repulse him. He views the others, who are content to simply fill their roles and await death, as inferior and seeks to dominate them.
By contrast, Titus represents something alien. He is not particularly smart, or exceptional in any capacity, but is simply different. This may be why Peake made the character so boring; every other member of the castle is cartoonishly idiosyncratic, but Titus is a generic, ambitious, freedom-loving male. The change Titus seeks is individual, and can never arise in Gormnghast, even if the place were to change its ways, because all he wants is not to be restrained.
This contrast is clear enough in Gormenghast, and Titus' chapters there are interesting because 1) they are mixed in with many other subplots, and 2) they focus on how he and his seemingly-simple desires chafe against the rest of Gormenghast. When those elements are removed, however, and Titus is never made more interesting, the result is an unpleasant slog about a character that becomes intensely dislikable.
Peake tries to cover for the lack of multiple subplots by cramming a lot of things into the book. Titus' situation is constantly changing as he finds himself thrust into new precarious situations in new locales with new wacky characters every few pages. Despite the density of action, nothing happens. There is almost no connection between one scene and any other scene. Things simply pop up and occur, Peake describes them in his characteristically slow, detailed fashion, then they simply disappear forever, serving no purpose whatsoever. There is no humor, and rarely wisdom or beauty, in his words. The descriptions become repetitive, the flow of exposition and even many of the similes and adjectives are the same, just the nouns change. The entire book is utterly serious in tone, lacking any of the charm or comic relief of the previous two entries. It's dry and leaves one apathetic.
Most infuriatingly, there is no growth. Titus is an arrogant free spirit who charges his way into obviously bad or dangerous situations, then gets deus-ex-machina'ed by some powerful individual who just happens to be in the right place at the right time and, for some reason, is instantly slavishly devoted or in love with Titus and is willing to put everything on the line for this stupid boy in rags. Titus responds with rudeness, name-calling, ungratefulness, and charges out into another bad situation where the same person miraculously rescues him yet again, only to face complete indifference, or even scorn, by Titus. This occurs constantly throughout the book, probably about a dozen times. Literally the only reason the plot moves, and it moves frequently, is because Titus gets bored or angry and leaves, simply to be saved by a new member of his inexplicable fan club.
There is only one time someone realizes that Titus is awful and utterly self-centered. This dawns on her because he repeatedly uses her for sex and tells her, directly, that she is only good for as much, after she saved him and cared for him for months in her own bed, spending all day tending to his needs and learning about him through his unconscious speech while he lay in a coma. For about the dozenth time in the novel, there is no real reason for her to care for him so intently; she had never met him and doesn't speak to him until he wakes up. She just finds him that interesting, for no reason, like everybody else. Her reward for this is to become the antagonist of the novel in its final, anticlimactic scene where she pranks him as revenge for his rudeness by coordinating a series of actors in large puppet suits to pretend to be people from Gormenghast. In response, 5 people who secretly pledged to follow Titus to the ends of the Earth, laying down their lives if necessary to protect him after he told them he never wants to see any of them again, bust onto the scene and murder her father.
Given the constant sneering allusions to technology and modern society, including our late antagonist's father owning a robotics factory, and the fact that Titus contains some kind of Messianic magnetism despite his awful behavior, I wonder if Peake is trying to make some kind of statement on monarchism or, more broadly, the futility of change. Everything Titus does is odious, but he is still a king. This book takes place entirely in modern, capitalistic cities, but its citizens cannot help but be drawn to royalty, even as it spurns and rejects them. Eventually this devotion wins out against the super-intelligent robots and the elite capitalists, as both are destroyed by Titus or his followers. My best guess is that Peake is attempting to make some appeal to monarchism and its structures, claiming that, despite our conception of it as being old-fashioned and pointless, there is some kind of inborn divine right to those in the ruling family. Regardless of one's opinion, this would perhaps come across more coherently if the overriding theme of the previous two entries in the series was not that old rituals are arbitrary will eventually only be used for evil or discarded entirely.
One minor annoyance with this book is also the misogyny. Every woman is gorgeous and utterly in love with Titus at first glance. It's a sharp, disheartening contrast from the diverse array of women in the earlier books. That's not to say the first two books didn't have their problems; some parts of Irma's character felt misogynistic, or at least distasteful, and the rape/murder of the forest girl by Titus felt both unnecessary and revolting, particularly as a plot device to represent the protagonist gaining his freedom from the castle. Outside of these two, however, women in the novels are treated fairly and have as much depth (and as little sexualization) as their male counterparts.
Overall, Titus Alone is a disappointing, scattered conclusion to an otherwise delightful series.
The problem begins with our protagonist, Titus, who is easily the least interesting character in the series. This can be overlooked in Gormenghast because his purpose in that novel is to represent a foil to Steerpike. Both characters represent change. Steerpike wants to change Gormenghast for selfish power. He is extremely clever, moreso even than the castle's elite, and considers Gormenghast's dense and arbitrary rituals to be completely foolish if not potentially useful. The change he seeks is all-encompassing. Gormenghast is a relic, a societal automaton whose gears have been grinding away for centuries with no critical thought or input. Steerpike represents the first genuine intelligence in this machine, and his surroundings repulse him. He views the others, who are content to simply fill their roles and await death, as inferior and seeks to dominate them.
By contrast, Titus represents something alien. He is not particularly smart, or exceptional in any capacity, but is simply different. This may be why Peake made the character so boring; every other member of the castle is cartoonishly idiosyncratic, but Titus is a generic, ambitious, freedom-loving male. The change Titus seeks is individual, and can never arise in Gormnghast, even if the place were to change its ways, because all he wants is not to be restrained.
This contrast is clear enough in Gormenghast, and Titus' chapters there are interesting because 1) they are mixed in with many other subplots, and 2) they focus on how he and his seemingly-simple desires chafe against the rest of Gormenghast. When those elements are removed, however, and Titus is never made more interesting, the result is an unpleasant slog about a character that becomes intensely dislikable.
Peake tries to cover for the lack of multiple subplots by cramming a lot of things into the book. Titus' situation is constantly changing as he finds himself thrust into new precarious situations in new locales with new wacky characters every few pages. Despite the density of action, nothing happens. There is almost no connection between one scene and any other scene. Things simply pop up and occur, Peake describes them in his characteristically slow, detailed fashion, then they simply disappear forever, serving no purpose whatsoever. There is no humor, and rarely wisdom or beauty, in his words. The descriptions become repetitive, the flow of exposition and even many of the similes and adjectives are the same, just the nouns change. The entire book is utterly serious in tone, lacking any of the charm or comic relief of the previous two entries. It's dry and leaves one apathetic.
Most infuriatingly, there is no growth. Titus is an arrogant free spirit who charges his way into obviously bad or dangerous situations, then gets deus-ex-machina'ed by some powerful individual who just happens to be in the right place at the right time and, for some reason, is instantly slavishly devoted or in love with Titus and is willing to put everything on the line for this stupid boy in rags. Titus responds with rudeness, name-calling, ungratefulness, and charges out into another bad situation where the same person miraculously rescues him yet again, only to face complete indifference, or even scorn, by Titus. This occurs constantly throughout the book, probably about a dozen times. Literally the only reason the plot moves, and it moves frequently, is because Titus gets bored or angry and leaves, simply to be saved by a new member of his inexplicable fan club.
There is only one time someone realizes that Titus is awful and utterly self-centered. This dawns on her because he repeatedly uses her for sex and tells her, directly, that she is only good for as much, after she saved him and cared for him for months in her own bed, spending all day tending to his needs and learning about him through his unconscious speech while he lay in a coma. For about the dozenth time in the novel, there is no real reason for her to care for him so intently; she had never met him and doesn't speak to him until he wakes up. She just finds him that interesting, for no reason, like everybody else. Her reward for this is to become the antagonist of the novel in its final, anticlimactic scene where she pranks him as revenge for his rudeness by coordinating a series of actors in large puppet suits to pretend to be people from Gormenghast. In response, 5 people who secretly pledged to follow Titus to the ends of the Earth, laying down their lives if necessary to protect him after he told them he never wants to see any of them again, bust onto the scene and murder her father.
Given the constant sneering allusions to technology and modern society, including our late antagonist's father owning a robotics factory, and the fact that Titus contains some kind of Messianic magnetism despite his awful behavior, I wonder if Peake is trying to make some kind of statement on monarchism or, more broadly, the futility of change. Everything Titus does is odious, but he is still a king. This book takes place entirely in modern, capitalistic cities, but its citizens cannot help but be drawn to royalty, even as it spurns and rejects them. Eventually this devotion wins out against the super-intelligent robots and the elite capitalists, as both are destroyed by Titus or his followers. My best guess is that Peake is attempting to make some appeal to monarchism and its structures, claiming that, despite our conception of it as being old-fashioned and pointless, there is some kind of inborn divine right to those in the ruling family. Regardless of one's opinion, this would perhaps come across more coherently if the overriding theme of the previous two entries in the series was not that old rituals are arbitrary will eventually only be used for evil or discarded entirely.
One minor annoyance with this book is also the misogyny. Every woman is gorgeous and utterly in love with Titus at first glance. It's a sharp, disheartening contrast from the diverse array of women in the earlier books. That's not to say the first two books didn't have their problems; some parts of Irma's character felt misogynistic, or at least distasteful, and the rape/murder of the forest girl by Titus felt both unnecessary and revolting, particularly as a plot device to represent the protagonist gaining his freedom from the castle. Outside of these two, however, women in the novels are treated fairly and have as much depth (and as little sexualization) as their male counterparts.
Overall, Titus Alone is a disappointing, scattered conclusion to an otherwise delightful series.
Mervyn Peake was, by all accounts, a powerful presence, an electric character, and a singular creative force. While Tolkien's poetry is the part everyone skips, Peake's invigorates his books. His voice and tone are unique in the English language, and his characterization is delightfully, grotesquely vivid. As an illustrator, he was perhaps somewhat less precise than Dore, but more evocative than Beardsley.
His life and his vision were singular, from his birth in China to his years on the channel island Sark, and finally, his slow deterioration, until he was unable to speak, and drew only clowns in profile, capped as dunces. Though many suggest this deterioration marks the perceived failing of Titus Alone, Peake would complete his final illustrations more than a year later, and did not succumb to death for another decade.
There were some editorial problems with Titus Alone, and though they have been mostly repaired, there are still dissatisfied grumblings about the final form. The ultimate Titus book is not easy to come to terms with, and indeed it took me long thought and consideration. However, I will not coax or argue mitigating circumstances: this book is Peake's vision, and while not as expansive or exacting as the others, it stands as its own work, and completes Peake's philosophical and literary journey as well as we might wish.
Peake was never one to pander. He did not write for any crowd, and he certainly did not write to facilitate escapism. He may have fashioned his work by an aesthetic, so as to mesmerize or mystify the ear, tug at the mind, and certainly to tickle the eye, but he did not give comfortable or simple answers.
The first two books are rather congruous, despite the subtle shifts, the advances and retreats, the many skirmishes Peake engages the reader in, only to return the veil before any clear victory or defeat can be claimed. It was not Peake's intention to stroke and comfort his readers, but to take them from high to low, to present them with wonder and with a vast, unconquerable world of wretched beauty.
Over the long stretch of the first two books, the reader becomes accustomed to the castle Gormengast, to identify with Titus' everyday struggles against plodding tradition. Characters die, others take their place, filling out the ranks, buttressing the ancient walls with their very breath.
There is a safety in tradition, in the comfort we slowly gain from it, as we do in Gormenghast itself: always separate from the world without, unknown and forbidden. Like Titus, we imagine that the outside world must be like the inside one: it cannot be so different, after all, from this crumbling castle, this place which has become another home to legions of awestruck readers.
But any reader content to watch it all play out so familiarly has not been paying attention—has not been listening to Peake. Though there is always the susurrant coo of that comfort, that tradition, we must not forget that, for young Titus, tradition is death, is rot, is black and stagnant waters.
Many readers find themselves utterly thrown when they first begin to encounter the world outside Gormenghast, and realize that it is not what they expected. However, it is difficult for me to imagine how such readers could at once praise Peake for the the singular, spectacular world of the first two books, and then become upset when he continues to expand his vision. They find themselves well-seated by yesterday's revolution, and resent such an unwelcome start.
Peake continues a thread of literary exploration which draws through the great epics, from Homer to Virgil, Tasso, Ariosto, and Milton, to Byron, to Eliot. Like these great works, Peake explores the role and nature of the hero: his connection to tradition, and the purpose chosen for him.
Originally, the epic hero was governed by his own mind, like Odysseus, a mind devious beyond measure, it proved. Then Virgil created his hero of Piety, of submission. Aeneas grasped hold of tradition, trusting in it to lead him. This was a message to the populace: trust in our ways, our traditions, and our Emperor to provide all that you might need. While this message is useful to an empire, it can be rather destructive to the individual, asking that he give up himself to the greater good.
Milton eventually continues this tradition, except he promotes subservience to Church instead of Empire (though there was little enough difference at the time). However, Milton included the old, violent, self-serving hero as a cautionary tale: humility and piety are Adam's strengths, while Satan has the 'false' strengths of warlike might and Odyssean skepticism.
Many later writers, including Byron, found that the Satanic mode of heroism was more appealing to the individual, especially to the iconoclast and artist who was tired of being told to 'pipe down' and 'follow orders'. Nietzsche would carry this sense of heroic individualism to the cusp, when he stated that mankind would have to demolish all tradition, and each individual would have to create a whole philosophy of meaning for himself, and thus become a philosopher of the future known famously as the Ubermensch.
Of course, there is a point when we all must question the whole of tradition, and just as we did when we first learned the art of speech, test what happens when we respond to all questions and demands with a resounding 'no!' These later rebellions, these existential crises can happen at any time, whenever we find ourselves struggling to make a place for ourselves.
Titus leaves home--as he must to become himself. He cannot honestly accept or reject Gormenghast and its tradition unless he can see it objectively, which requires that he develop a more worldly point of view. Like anyone progressing from childhood to adulthood, he questions the fundamental assumptions of his parents and teachers, and by extension, their whole world, and so he sets out on his own. Also, like any of us on the brink of adulthood, he learns that the world the adults promised doesn't really exist.
The real world is stranger, more daunting, and far more vast than the 'right and wrong' of parental morality, or the far-flung imaginings of the child. Even though his readers have been through this shift themselves, and should know to expect it from a changing young man, new to the world, Peake still manages to catch us off guard. Like Titus, the reader expects the world to be different and challenging, but like Titus, they cannot imagine how truly different it will be when it arrives.
Titus Alone has a self-contained plot. It has its own allies and antagonists, its own places, its own conflict, and its own climax. They all add to Peake's running themes of change, growth, beauty, and meaning, but they are their own. However, the climax in Titus Alone is only a dress rehearsal for the true climax, which comes only at the very end, and which remains unsure until then, as pivotal and sudden as the twelfth book of the Aeneid.
This resolution is the culmination of Titus' childhood, of all his former conflicts, of his life and purpose and individuality. It is the thematic culmination of the bildungsroman. It is the philosophical conclusion of Peake's exploration of the role of the hero, the self, and of tradition. It is also the fulfillment of his vision, his unyielding artistic drive. It is the final offering to the reader, his companion and rival on this journey.
He ends with beauty, with questions, with verve, and with a wink.
It still confuses me that many readers seemed to expect Peake to follow works notable for their strangeness and unpredictability with something familiar and indistinguishable. There are many who do this, it is true. There is the revolutionary who topples the regime only to supplant it with his own. There is the mountain climber who tops Everest, and then imagines that the greatest challenge is to do so twice.
You get no higher no matter how many times you climb the mountain. The true visionary adventurer climbs the mountain, and then, as an encore, paints the ceiling of a cathedral. It may not be expected, it may not please those fans who only wanted more of the same, but anything less is an admission of defeat. Peake earned his laurels in the first two books, and while we could hardly blame him for resting on them, he refused to.
Perhaps many readers became comfortable with his rebellion, his iconoclasm. They sympathized with his rejection of tradition, and then happily accepted that rebellion as their new tradition. Like Aeneas, they left crumbling Troy, trusting in their patron deity to carry them through. However, Peake was not content simply to add a new wing to his masterwork. He showed his authorial humility and his commitment to art by razing his own cathedral simply because it was more interesting than leaving it up.
As Nietzsche said: push everything, and abandon whatever topples, no matter how familiar it had become. He who can apply this to himself and to his own works is the only artist deserving of the title--and such is Peake.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
His life and his vision were singular, from his birth in China to his years on the channel island Sark, and finally, his slow deterioration, until he was unable to speak, and drew only clowns in profile, capped as dunces. Though many suggest this deterioration marks the perceived failing of Titus Alone, Peake would complete his final illustrations more than a year later, and did not succumb to death for another decade.
There were some editorial problems with Titus Alone, and though they have been mostly repaired, there are still dissatisfied grumblings about the final form. The ultimate Titus book is not easy to come to terms with, and indeed it took me long thought and consideration. However, I will not coax or argue mitigating circumstances: this book is Peake's vision, and while not as expansive or exacting as the others, it stands as its own work, and completes Peake's philosophical and literary journey as well as we might wish.
Peake was never one to pander. He did not write for any crowd, and he certainly did not write to facilitate escapism. He may have fashioned his work by an aesthetic, so as to mesmerize or mystify the ear, tug at the mind, and certainly to tickle the eye, but he did not give comfortable or simple answers.
The first two books are rather congruous, despite the subtle shifts, the advances and retreats, the many skirmishes Peake engages the reader in, only to return the veil before any clear victory or defeat can be claimed. It was not Peake's intention to stroke and comfort his readers, but to take them from high to low, to present them with wonder and with a vast, unconquerable world of wretched beauty.
Over the long stretch of the first two books, the reader becomes accustomed to the castle Gormengast, to identify with Titus' everyday struggles against plodding tradition. Characters die, others take their place, filling out the ranks, buttressing the ancient walls with their very breath.
There is a safety in tradition, in the comfort we slowly gain from it, as we do in Gormenghast itself: always separate from the world without, unknown and forbidden. Like Titus, we imagine that the outside world must be like the inside one: it cannot be so different, after all, from this crumbling castle, this place which has become another home to legions of awestruck readers.
But any reader content to watch it all play out so familiarly has not been paying attention—has not been listening to Peake. Though there is always the susurrant coo of that comfort, that tradition, we must not forget that, for young Titus, tradition is death, is rot, is black and stagnant waters.
Many readers find themselves utterly thrown when they first begin to encounter the world outside Gormenghast, and realize that it is not what they expected. However, it is difficult for me to imagine how such readers could at once praise Peake for the the singular, spectacular world of the first two books, and then become upset when he continues to expand his vision. They find themselves well-seated by yesterday's revolution, and resent such an unwelcome start.
Peake continues a thread of literary exploration which draws through the great epics, from Homer to Virgil, Tasso, Ariosto, and Milton, to Byron, to Eliot. Like these great works, Peake explores the role and nature of the hero: his connection to tradition, and the purpose chosen for him.
Originally, the epic hero was governed by his own mind, like Odysseus, a mind devious beyond measure, it proved. Then Virgil created his hero of Piety, of submission. Aeneas grasped hold of tradition, trusting in it to lead him. This was a message to the populace: trust in our ways, our traditions, and our Emperor to provide all that you might need. While this message is useful to an empire, it can be rather destructive to the individual, asking that he give up himself to the greater good.
Milton eventually continues this tradition, except he promotes subservience to Church instead of Empire (though there was little enough difference at the time). However, Milton included the old, violent, self-serving hero as a cautionary tale: humility and piety are Adam's strengths, while Satan has the 'false' strengths of warlike might and Odyssean skepticism.
Many later writers, including Byron, found that the Satanic mode of heroism was more appealing to the individual, especially to the iconoclast and artist who was tired of being told to 'pipe down' and 'follow orders'. Nietzsche would carry this sense of heroic individualism to the cusp, when he stated that mankind would have to demolish all tradition, and each individual would have to create a whole philosophy of meaning for himself, and thus become a philosopher of the future known famously as the Ubermensch.
Of course, there is a point when we all must question the whole of tradition, and just as we did when we first learned the art of speech, test what happens when we respond to all questions and demands with a resounding 'no!' These later rebellions, these existential crises can happen at any time, whenever we find ourselves struggling to make a place for ourselves.
Titus leaves home--as he must to become himself. He cannot honestly accept or reject Gormenghast and its tradition unless he can see it objectively, which requires that he develop a more worldly point of view. Like anyone progressing from childhood to adulthood, he questions the fundamental assumptions of his parents and teachers, and by extension, their whole world, and so he sets out on his own. Also, like any of us on the brink of adulthood, he learns that the world the adults promised doesn't really exist.
The real world is stranger, more daunting, and far more vast than the 'right and wrong' of parental morality, or the far-flung imaginings of the child. Even though his readers have been through this shift themselves, and should know to expect it from a changing young man, new to the world, Peake still manages to catch us off guard. Like Titus, the reader expects the world to be different and challenging, but like Titus, they cannot imagine how truly different it will be when it arrives.
Titus Alone has a self-contained plot. It has its own allies and antagonists, its own places, its own conflict, and its own climax. They all add to Peake's running themes of change, growth, beauty, and meaning, but they are their own. However, the climax in Titus Alone is only a dress rehearsal for the true climax, which comes only at the very end, and which remains unsure until then, as pivotal and sudden as the twelfth book of the Aeneid.
This resolution is the culmination of Titus' childhood, of all his former conflicts, of his life and purpose and individuality. It is the thematic culmination of the bildungsroman. It is the philosophical conclusion of Peake's exploration of the role of the hero, the self, and of tradition. It is also the fulfillment of his vision, his unyielding artistic drive. It is the final offering to the reader, his companion and rival on this journey.
He ends with beauty, with questions, with verve, and with a wink.
It still confuses me that many readers seemed to expect Peake to follow works notable for their strangeness and unpredictability with something familiar and indistinguishable. There are many who do this, it is true. There is the revolutionary who topples the regime only to supplant it with his own. There is the mountain climber who tops Everest, and then imagines that the greatest challenge is to do so twice.
You get no higher no matter how many times you climb the mountain. The true visionary adventurer climbs the mountain, and then, as an encore, paints the ceiling of a cathedral. It may not be expected, it may not please those fans who only wanted more of the same, but anything less is an admission of defeat. Peake earned his laurels in the first two books, and while we could hardly blame him for resting on them, he refused to.
Perhaps many readers became comfortable with his rebellion, his iconoclasm. They sympathized with his rejection of tradition, and then happily accepted that rebellion as their new tradition. Like Aeneas, they left crumbling Troy, trusting in their patron deity to carry them through. However, Peake was not content simply to add a new wing to his masterwork. He showed his authorial humility and his commitment to art by razing his own cathedral simply because it was more interesting than leaving it up.
As Nietzsche said: push everything, and abandon whatever topples, no matter how familiar it had become. He who can apply this to himself and to his own works is the only artist deserving of the title--and such is Peake.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
