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kenlaan 's review for:
Titus Groan
by 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.