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kevinowenkelly 's review for:
Titus Groan
by Mervyn Peake
I stumbled onto this series reading about some of the influences that had gone into Gideon the Ninth, and the descriptions sounded promising; massive gothic castle, esoteric rituals and grotesque characters, and a Dickensian spin on high fantasy. And, yes, it did have all of those things.
But wow was it a slog to read. The language is admittedly gorgeous, with nearly every sentence reading like some finely crafted, multifaceted gem, glittering with clever wordplay and decadent, evocative phrases. But it's nearly every sentence, and it quickly becomes exhausting to slog through, like a plate piled too high with a rich dessert you'd otherwise only want a bite or two of.
In truth, most of the buzz I had read was tied to the sequel, Gormenghast, so I at least had in mind that I just had to make it through this book as an introduction to the next. But the problem is, Titus Groans spends seemingly half of its length just being an intro to itself before it gets around to working through a few key events that themselves only seem as setup for the next book. Like the issue above, the narrative just didn't have the drive to make me want to push forward, nor the payoff to make me glad that I did.
If I assumed Gormenghast would be a beautiful tapestry, I'd understand if Titus Alone were the gathering of the threads needed to weave it, but no, we have to first learn about a farm, and the lives of its inhabitants, before we can ever learn of the birth of the sheep, and forget actually getting to the shearing before having to learn of the lives of the other animals as well. Only then do we finally get to see what happens to the wool, and how it might be spun into yarn, and died the appropriate colors to setup the making of the tapestry in the subsequent book.
I'll still (at this point grudgingly) read Gormenghast, but it'll be a good while before I do.
But wow was it a slog to read. The language is admittedly gorgeous, with nearly every sentence reading like some finely crafted, multifaceted gem, glittering with clever wordplay and decadent, evocative phrases. But it's nearly every sentence, and it quickly becomes exhausting to slog through, like a plate piled too high with a rich dessert you'd otherwise only want a bite or two of.
In truth, most of the buzz I had read was tied to the sequel, Gormenghast, so I at least had in mind that I just had to make it through this book as an introduction to the next. But the problem is, Titus Groans spends seemingly half of its length just being an intro to itself before it gets around to working through a few key events that themselves only seem as setup for the next book. Like the issue above, the narrative just didn't have the drive to make me want to push forward, nor the payoff to make me glad that I did.
If I assumed Gormenghast would be a beautiful tapestry, I'd understand if Titus Alone were the gathering of the threads needed to weave it, but no, we have to first learn about a farm, and the lives of its inhabitants, before we can ever learn of the birth of the sheep, and forget actually getting to the shearing before having to learn of the lives of the other animals as well. Only then do we finally get to see what happens to the wool, and how it might be spun into yarn, and died the appropriate colors to setup the making of the tapestry in the subsequent book.
I'll still (at this point grudgingly) read Gormenghast, but it'll be a good while before I do.