humdrum_ts 's review for:

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

3.0

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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It's clear reading Titus Groan that Peake was a visual artist. There is a constant, exacting attention to detail in every scene, and, alternating between the audiobook and the illustrated hardcover, it was remarkable how closely Peake's sketches resembled the text. He has created and detailed a particular space and filled it with a particular collection of grotesques, and much of the book exists to showcase these above all else. This is a book for wandering and meandering, a chance for Peake to show his stylistic chops for better (a glimpse into the reveries of bored breakfasters) and for worse (the overwrought excursions outside of the castle walls). All this is, of course, a polite way of saying that it's often as dull as it is gripping. In a castle where nothing changes, change arrives...in fits and starts. It's both an experience like no other and also a story that feels like 400 pages of groundwork for Part 2.