Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by nwhyte
Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake
1.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1629691.html
I'm afraid I was simply not convinced by Titus Alone. In fact, I was bored and confused by it. Titus, having run away from his home, finds himself in the neighbouring industrialised countryside (where people have never actually heard of Gormenghast, despite its absolute domination of its own hinterland). He becomes the object of obsession - in particular of the two women, Juno, with whom he has a love affair, and Cheeta, who rejects him and then develops a bizarrely elaborate plan to humiliate him by throwing a party at which various aspects of Gormenghast are satirically brought to life, but also of the self-appointed guardians from the Under-River. The imagery was intense, and I suppose it is in some way a spiritual and allegorical journey for Titus growing up, but in the end he ends back exactly where he started, and it did not work for me.
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3652211.html
Where the first two books had some pretty improbable events, at least things seemed to happen for a reason. Here it's one bizarre scene after another, with plot developments that are never resolved - who are the two stalkers in helmets, for instance?
I really recommend skipping this and ending your reading of the trilogy with the second book, with Titus' departure from Gormenghast as the ending. Titus Alone is much shorter than either of the other two, but you will wonder why you bothered.
One last thing - Peake's concept of hydrogeology is a bit counterfactual. Gormenghast Castle is almost drowned in a great flood - where did the water come from? Is Gormenghast not on elevated ground anyway? And in Titus Alone, you have the network of caverns under the river. Normally caves are created by rivers which then drop down to lower levels. There is so much else wrong with Titus Alone that I won't dwell on it, but it struck me as a curiously consistent blind spot.
I'm afraid I was simply not convinced by Titus Alone. In fact, I was bored and confused by it. Titus, having run away from his home, finds himself in the neighbouring industrialised countryside (where people have never actually heard of Gormenghast, despite its absolute domination of its own hinterland). He becomes the object of obsession - in particular of the two women, Juno, with whom he has a love affair, and Cheeta, who rejects him and then develops a bizarrely elaborate plan to humiliate him by throwing a party at which various aspects of Gormenghast are satirically brought to life, but also of the self-appointed guardians from the Under-River. The imagery was intense, and I suppose it is in some way a spiritual and allegorical journey for Titus growing up, but in the end he ends back exactly where he started, and it did not work for me.
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3652211.html
Where the first two books had some pretty improbable events, at least things seemed to happen for a reason. Here it's one bizarre scene after another, with plot developments that are never resolved - who are the two stalkers in helmets, for instance?
I really recommend skipping this and ending your reading of the trilogy with the second book, with Titus' departure from Gormenghast as the ending. Titus Alone is much shorter than either of the other two, but you will wonder why you bothered.
One last thing - Peake's concept of hydrogeology is a bit counterfactual. Gormenghast Castle is almost drowned in a great flood - where did the water come from? Is Gormenghast not on elevated ground anyway? And in Titus Alone, you have the network of caverns under the river. Normally caves are created by rivers which then drop down to lower levels. There is so much else wrong with Titus Alone that I won't dwell on it, but it struck me as a curiously consistent blind spot.