Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bcxcx 's review for:
Titus Alone
by Mervyn Peake
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.