Series
Publication
Vintage Classics (1998), Edition: Reprint, 496 pages
Original publication date
1946
Collections
Awards
Locus All-Time Best (Fantasy Novel — 12.1 — 1987)
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Description
As the novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle. Meanwhile, far away and in the kitchen, a servant named Steerpike escapes his drudgework and begins an auspicious ascent to power. Inside of Gormenghast, all events are predetermined by complex rituals, the origins of which are lost in time. The castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. Dreamlike and macabre, Peake's extraordinary novel is one of the most astonishing and fantastic works in modern fiction.
User reviews
LibraryThing member aaronbaron
The stars and planets conspire to make me like Titus Groan. It has everything I commonly ask for in a novel: unique prose style, vivid descriptions, memorable characters with fantastic names, a sharp sense of humor and an almost bottomless imagination. Yet as much as all these elements, which leap
I believe it may be in part due to the profoundly static nature of the book. Mervyn Peake (whose own name rivals those of his characters) was a painter and illustrator, and he writes like one. The book is laced with incredible descriptions of an almost Baroque power or accumulated detail. Yet nothing happens. You may as well tour a museum, with each description engraved on a canvas. Peake was no fool, and the story’s setting the crumbling fantasy kingdom of Gormenghast, plays to the static nature of the writing: it is place full or ancient rituals and little action. The only action in the book revolves around the arriviste Steerpike, but he is really a narrative device rather than a character, his function of creating something akin to a plot is baldly apparent. While a novel or prose-paintings may sound deliciously experimental, and in many ways it is, I began to miss the movement of time.
There is also a certain hermetic quality to Titus Groan that wore away at my interest. This is a common danger of any fantasy fiction; it risks completely shutting itself off from the real world. Some see this principle of absolute separatism as a virtue, and I cannot deny that it can produce works, like Titus Groan, of considerable beauty and intelligence. But these novels, for all their brilliance, are hot house flowers. Sooner or later you must close the book, rub your eyes, and step back into the actual world around you. And when you do, those fantastical flowers wither very quickly. And the best books, including fantasy books like the His Dark Materials trilogy and even the Harry Potter series, not only dazzle and delight, they also give you a little something, an idea, an observation, a value, or even a notion, that survives the inevitable transition back into the real world. Titus Groan presents an intricate, gorgeous, labyrinthine world that has no conduit into our own. It is a beautiful, airless vision that may entrance readers, but does not enrich them in any sustainable way.
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out on every page, delighted me, in the end I did not like Titus Groan. I did not even manage to finish it. There was some ineffable quality that prevented me from turning one more page. I believe it may be in part due to the profoundly static nature of the book. Mervyn Peake (whose own name rivals those of his characters) was a painter and illustrator, and he writes like one. The book is laced with incredible descriptions of an almost Baroque power or accumulated detail. Yet nothing happens. You may as well tour a museum, with each description engraved on a canvas. Peake was no fool, and the story’s setting the crumbling fantasy kingdom of Gormenghast, plays to the static nature of the writing: it is place full or ancient rituals and little action. The only action in the book revolves around the arriviste Steerpike, but he is really a narrative device rather than a character, his function of creating something akin to a plot is baldly apparent. While a novel or prose-paintings may sound deliciously experimental, and in many ways it is, I began to miss the movement of time.
There is also a certain hermetic quality to Titus Groan that wore away at my interest. This is a common danger of any fantasy fiction; it risks completely shutting itself off from the real world. Some see this principle of absolute separatism as a virtue, and I cannot deny that it can produce works, like Titus Groan, of considerable beauty and intelligence. But these novels, for all their brilliance, are hot house flowers. Sooner or later you must close the book, rub your eyes, and step back into the actual world around you. And when you do, those fantastical flowers wither very quickly. And the best books, including fantasy books like the His Dark Materials trilogy and even the Harry Potter series, not only dazzle and delight, they also give you a little something, an idea, an observation, a value, or even a notion, that survives the inevitable transition back into the real world. Titus Groan presents an intricate, gorgeous, labyrinthine world that has no conduit into our own. It is a beautiful, airless vision that may entrance readers, but does not enrich them in any sustainable way.
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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
This is a deeply weird book it is difficult to describe or categorize. In the introduction, Anthony Burgess, who calls it a "modern classic," comparable to other celebrated British works of the 1940s such as those by Orwell or Waugh, says there "is no really close relative to it in all our prose
The title character, Titus, destined to become 77th Earl of Groan and Lord of Gormenghast Castle, is only just born when the 500 plus page novel begins and when it ends he's not yet two-years-old. The characters have such Dickensian names as Sepulchrave, Steerpike, Sourdust and Prunesquallor and no one in the first hundred pages seemed likeable. Titus' mother tells the nanny to take away her newborn son and she'll see him when he's six--then calls her cats to her. The relationship between servants such as Manservant Flay and Chef Swelter and the machinations of kitchen boy Steerpike are positively Byzantine. Lady Fuchsia and Dr Prunesquallor did grow on me though--there was more to both of them than first met the eye and by the middle of the book I was hooked.
The language is baroque and the pace defines "leisurely" except that makes it sound too informal and light. Mind you, the prose is, if over-descriptive, aptly descriptive. Everything is vividly painted. And I mean everything from the glass grapes on Nannie Slagg's hat to the cutlery, plates and napkins "folded into the shapes of peacocks" set out for breakfast in Stone Hall. I get why a friend of mine abandoned the book before she reached 100 pages. There is a black humor threaded throughout, but the overall atmosphere is oppressive because all but a few of the characters are some combination of stupid, malignant or mad. I found the book more readable though as I got used to Peake's style and grew more fond of a few of the characters. I certainly will be reading the sequel, Gormenghast.
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literature." I actually bought the trilogy this is part of years ago because it was recommended on the "Seven-League Shelf" of "the cream" of modern fantasy works. But there's nothing supernatural in it. Only it's set in an imaginary world not quite ours, a Gothic Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs about a decrepit warren-like castle and its grotesque inhabitants bound by elaborate and arcane ritual. The era is hard to place historically and the feeling of the book very claustrophobic. There doesn't seem to be a world outside Gormenghast Castle for its inhabitants. The title character, Titus, destined to become 77th Earl of Groan and Lord of Gormenghast Castle, is only just born when the 500 plus page novel begins and when it ends he's not yet two-years-old. The characters have such Dickensian names as Sepulchrave, Steerpike, Sourdust and Prunesquallor and no one in the first hundred pages seemed likeable. Titus' mother tells the nanny to take away her newborn son and she'll see him when he's six--then calls her cats to her. The relationship between servants such as Manservant Flay and Chef Swelter and the machinations of kitchen boy Steerpike are positively Byzantine. Lady Fuchsia and Dr Prunesquallor did grow on me though--there was more to both of them than first met the eye and by the middle of the book I was hooked.
The language is baroque and the pace defines "leisurely" except that makes it sound too informal and light. Mind you, the prose is, if over-descriptive, aptly descriptive. Everything is vividly painted. And I mean everything from the glass grapes on Nannie Slagg's hat to the cutlery, plates and napkins "folded into the shapes of peacocks" set out for breakfast in Stone Hall. I get why a friend of mine abandoned the book before she reached 100 pages. There is a black humor threaded throughout, but the overall atmosphere is oppressive because all but a few of the characters are some combination of stupid, malignant or mad. I found the book more readable though as I got used to Peake's style and grew more fond of a few of the characters. I certainly will be reading the sequel, Gormenghast.
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LibraryThing member SamuelW
"Oh my God." Those were my initial thoughts when I opened Titus Groan and glanced at the first sentence – an extremely long and complex sentence with few words that I could actually understand. Luckily for me, the rest of the novel was a little more readable, but it was still quite a slog.
For those willing to grit their teeth and push through it, however, there is enjoyment to be had. The descriptive language flouts the very idea of pace in favour of utterly breathtaking detail, rendering the world of Gormenghast in phenomenal clarity. It is a bizarre and unique world of light and shadow, filled with mysteries, surprises and brilliant ideas. In fact, Gormenghast Castle is not too far removed from Hogwarts; they both share a wondrous, warren-like quality that fills readers with a desire to explore. The style is elaborate and quirky, with a dry, veiled humour lurking constantly in the wings.
At the very heart of this book are its delicious characters: a cast of vibrant, varied and vivid individuals who drive the novel along. All are exaggerated, but none are mere caricatures. Readers will love, hate, laugh at and pity them, from start to finish. Above all, they are really what makes this novel worth reading.
Unfortunately, it would be a blatant lie to say that the slowness and complexity of the writing does not detract from the reading experience. It does. The pace may pick up a little towards the middle of the novel, but it soon falls back again. Tense switching and time jumping, while they are interesting techniques, only exacerbate the problem. For most readers, enjoying this book on the same level that one might enjoy a mainstream novel will simply not be a possibility. The best they can hope for is a more sophisticated kind of enjoyment, quietly permeated by a lurking, peripheral impatience. If you're feeling brave, however, then I say 'go for it'. Rest assured, it will be unlike anything you've read before.
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Peake's novel may read like a masterpiece, but his target audience is clear – especially from the introduction, which is written by a fan even more verbose than the author! To read a novel like Titus Groan, a strong grasp of the English language is required. To fully enjoy a novel like Titus Groan, an exceptional grasp of the English language is required.For those willing to grit their teeth and push through it, however, there is enjoyment to be had. The descriptive language flouts the very idea of pace in favour of utterly breathtaking detail, rendering the world of Gormenghast in phenomenal clarity. It is a bizarre and unique world of light and shadow, filled with mysteries, surprises and brilliant ideas. In fact, Gormenghast Castle is not too far removed from Hogwarts; they both share a wondrous, warren-like quality that fills readers with a desire to explore. The style is elaborate and quirky, with a dry, veiled humour lurking constantly in the wings.
At the very heart of this book are its delicious characters: a cast of vibrant, varied and vivid individuals who drive the novel along. All are exaggerated, but none are mere caricatures. Readers will love, hate, laugh at and pity them, from start to finish. Above all, they are really what makes this novel worth reading.
Unfortunately, it would be a blatant lie to say that the slowness and complexity of the writing does not detract from the reading experience. It does. The pace may pick up a little towards the middle of the novel, but it soon falls back again. Tense switching and time jumping, while they are interesting techniques, only exacerbate the problem. For most readers, enjoying this book on the same level that one might enjoy a mainstream novel will simply not be a possibility. The best they can hope for is a more sophisticated kind of enjoyment, quietly permeated by a lurking, peripheral impatience. If you're feeling brave, however, then I say 'go for it'. Rest assured, it will be unlike anything you've read before.
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LibraryThing member xicanti
I expected TITUS GROAN, (in which we follow the seventy-seventh Earl of Groan through the first year and a bit of his life), to be dense, wordy and difficult. I'd read scads of reviews that emphasized Peake's verbosity, and a quick scan of the first page seemed to bear them out. I figured I was in
It is indeed wordy. I've heard it said that Peake never uses two words when eighteen will do, and this is very, very true. But for all that, it's surprisingly readable. The book is broken into segments, not chapters, and most of them are ten pages or less. I found it fairly easy to use these segments to plot my reading. I couldn't exactly read quickly, but I still managed a solid and satisfying hundred and fifty pages per day.
The whole thing is just so interesting! The moldering castle of Gormenghast is a world all its own, and Peake limns it with absolute conviction. The castle's rituals and traditions seem strange and grotesque to us, but the characters believe in them to the core. They navigate via a most peculiar moral and social compass; all their actions and interactions seem to have been twisted a quarter turn to the left of what we in the western world would do if faced with a similar situation. And these actions are unquestionably the focus here. Peake isn't interested in time so much as space. He's perfectly willing to use up a page or six on some small, inconsequential detail that is nevertheless vitally important to the characters or their setting. It makes for some fascinating reading.
And on top of that, it's occasionally quite funny. Many a time, Peake's ponderous sentences made me laugh aloud, and some of his imagery is just priceless. One of my favourite scenes involves a bizarre ritual in which the infant Titus is placed inside an open book, the pages of which are safety-pinned together at the top. It's such a strange, surreal image, and the characters treat the whole thing so seriously. I'm not sure it's meant to be funny, but I found it hilarious.
As much as I enjoyed the book as a whole, I must say that the last hundred and fifty pages didn't do quite so much for me as the first chunk. I took a break (read: slept) right before Titus's birthday Breakfast, a lengthy scene in which Peake abandons the past tense in favour of the present. Alas, he has some trouble sticking to his chosen tense; every few sentences or so, he slips back into the past in a most jarring fashion. It bugged the hell out of me, and I had a lot of trouble getting back in to the story.
But that issue aside, this was excellent. I really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to reading GORMENGHAST good and soon. I highly recommend it, but be forewarned: if you're expecting anything like a traditional fantasy story, you will be sorely disappointed.
(This review originally appeared in a somewhat lengthier form on my blog, Stella Matutina.
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for a slog, albeit an enjoyable one. I prepared myself for at least five days of reading; six or seven seemed more likely.It is indeed wordy. I've heard it said that Peake never uses two words when eighteen will do, and this is very, very true. But for all that, it's surprisingly readable. The book is broken into segments, not chapters, and most of them are ten pages or less. I found it fairly easy to use these segments to plot my reading. I couldn't exactly read quickly, but I still managed a solid and satisfying hundred and fifty pages per day.
The whole thing is just so interesting! The moldering castle of Gormenghast is a world all its own, and Peake limns it with absolute conviction. The castle's rituals and traditions seem strange and grotesque to us, but the characters believe in them to the core. They navigate via a most peculiar moral and social compass; all their actions and interactions seem to have been twisted a quarter turn to the left of what we in the western world would do if faced with a similar situation. And these actions are unquestionably the focus here. Peake isn't interested in time so much as space. He's perfectly willing to use up a page or six on some small, inconsequential detail that is nevertheless vitally important to the characters or their setting. It makes for some fascinating reading.
And on top of that, it's occasionally quite funny. Many a time, Peake's ponderous sentences made me laugh aloud, and some of his imagery is just priceless. One of my favourite scenes involves a bizarre ritual in which the infant Titus is placed inside an open book, the pages of which are safety-pinned together at the top. It's such a strange, surreal image, and the characters treat the whole thing so seriously. I'm not sure it's meant to be funny, but I found it hilarious.
As much as I enjoyed the book as a whole, I must say that the last hundred and fifty pages didn't do quite so much for me as the first chunk. I took a break (read: slept) right before Titus's birthday Breakfast, a lengthy scene in which Peake abandons the past tense in favour of the present. Alas, he has some trouble sticking to his chosen tense; every few sentences or so, he slips back into the past in a most jarring fashion. It bugged the hell out of me, and I had a lot of trouble getting back in to the story.
But that issue aside, this was excellent. I really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to reading GORMENGHAST good and soon. I highly recommend it, but be forewarned: if you're expecting anything like a traditional fantasy story, you will be sorely disappointed.
(This review originally appeared in a somewhat lengthier form on my blog, Stella Matutina.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
Here's what I see as the central dilemma of Titus Groan (perhaps the whole series?): What do you do when your life is a metaphor? The big themes of good and evil, human fulfillment and self-realization, and the pushmi-pullyu of the Freudian tripartite psyche are all there, all compelling. But the
None of which is bad, exactly--or certainly it takes talent, and a lot of scenes make for wonderful reading, either in a painterly way, in keeping with Peake's first career, or in a dramatic way, like the stunningly choreographed fight between Swelter and Flay, or Steerpike's climb to the attic. Here is one of the former:
"This is a love that equals in its power the love of man for woman and reaches inward as deeply. It is the love of a man or woman for their world--for the world of their centre where their loves burn genuinely and with a free flame.
"The love of the diver for his world of wavering light. His world of pearls and tendrils and his breath at his breast. Born as a plunger into the deeps, he is at one with every swarm of lime-green fish, with every coloured sponge. As he holds himself to the ocean's faery floor, one hand clasped to a bedded whale's rib, he is complete and infinite. Pulse, power, and universe sway in his body. He is in love.
"The love of the painter standing alone and staring, staring at the great coloured surface he is making. Standing with him in the room the rearing canvas stares back with tentative shapes haunted in their growth, moving in a new rhythm from floor to ceiling. The twisted tubes, the fresh paint squeezed and smeared across the dry upon his palette. The dust beneath the easel. The paint has edged along the brushes' handles. The white light in a northern sky is silent. The window gapes as he inhales his world. His world: a rented room, and turpentine. He moves toward his half-born. He is in love.
"The rich soil crumbles through the yeoman's fingers. As the pearl diver murmurs, 'I am home' as he moves dimly in strange water-lights, and as the painter mutters, 'I am me' on his lone raft of floor boards, so the slow landsman on his acre'd marl says with dark Fuchsia on her twisting staircase, 'I am home.'"
And here is one of the second, which might well be called painterly as well, but for some reason I imagine each of them standing up, presenting themselves to the audience in turn:
"Titus watched Keda's face with his violet eyes, his grotesque little features modified by the dull light at the corner of the passage. There was the history of man in his face. A fragment from the enormous rock of mankind. A leaf from the forest of man's passion and man's knowledge and man's pain. That was the ancientness in Titus.
"Nannie's head was old with lines and sunken skin, with the red rims of her eyes and the puckers of her mouth. A vacant anatomical ancientry.
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characters that are compelled to demonstrate them are problematic, because they're more than ciphers, but less than fully human. They're compelled to inhabit an allegory, and an ugly one, and inside they're suffering. And so when they each of them get frothed up into enacting their own little psychodrama (something which happens again and again in this book, and reminds me of Final Fantasy characters doing their little pose-and-theme-music routine when they come onstage or do something awesome), it's uncomfortable. Peake is unable to repress his evocative talent, it seems, and so Fuchsia's feelings of violation when she finds Steerpike in her attic, or Cora and Clarice's spinning resentful idiocy, or Irma's old-maid routine, feel real--we are a little too much with them in their suffering, but then we have to watch them suffer further as they are compelled by the author to enact that suffering for ludicrous reasons and in histrionic and one-dimensional ways. It's interesting that I picked all women--not to say it isn't true of the male characters too, but it's also interesting that the exception to this caricature problem, the Dweller wetnurse Keda, is so nobly and exhilaratingly alive. Going from the scene where the two dudes fight it out for her love in the clearing back to the castle and its gothytwee intrigues is more than uncomfortable, it's a bit depressing.None of which is bad, exactly--or certainly it takes talent, and a lot of scenes make for wonderful reading, either in a painterly way, in keeping with Peake's first career, or in a dramatic way, like the stunningly choreographed fight between Swelter and Flay, or Steerpike's climb to the attic. Here is one of the former:
"This is a love that equals in its power the love of man for woman and reaches inward as deeply. It is the love of a man or woman for their world--for the world of their centre where their loves burn genuinely and with a free flame.
"The love of the diver for his world of wavering light. His world of pearls and tendrils and his breath at his breast. Born as a plunger into the deeps, he is at one with every swarm of lime-green fish, with every coloured sponge. As he holds himself to the ocean's faery floor, one hand clasped to a bedded whale's rib, he is complete and infinite. Pulse, power, and universe sway in his body. He is in love.
"The love of the painter standing alone and staring, staring at the great coloured surface he is making. Standing with him in the room the rearing canvas stares back with tentative shapes haunted in their growth, moving in a new rhythm from floor to ceiling. The twisted tubes, the fresh paint squeezed and smeared across the dry upon his palette. The dust beneath the easel. The paint has edged along the brushes' handles. The white light in a northern sky is silent. The window gapes as he inhales his world. His world: a rented room, and turpentine. He moves toward his half-born. He is in love.
"The rich soil crumbles through the yeoman's fingers. As the pearl diver murmurs, 'I am home' as he moves dimly in strange water-lights, and as the painter mutters, 'I am me' on his lone raft of floor boards, so the slow landsman on his acre'd marl says with dark Fuchsia on her twisting staircase, 'I am home.'"
And here is one of the second, which might well be called painterly as well, but for some reason I imagine each of them standing up, presenting themselves to the audience in turn:
"Titus watched Keda's face with his violet eyes, his grotesque little features modified by the dull light at the corner of the passage. There was the history of man in his face. A fragment from the enormous rock of mankind. A leaf from the forest of man's passion and man's knowledge and man's pain. That was the ancientness in Titus.
"Nannie's head was old with lines and sunken skin, with the red rims of her eyes and the puckers of her mouth. A vacant anatomical ancientry.
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LibraryThing member aardvensis
This really is an exceedingly verbose book, woven from figured cloth, embroidered, beaded, appliqued, embroidered some more, resulting in a mad tapestry of convoluted, highly descriptive, poetic prose. It is not for the faint of heart. Do not try to read in short bursts, definitely keep this one
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for bedtime, rainy afternoons, long train journeys. It is an experience. Show Less
LibraryThing member clong
Definitely the most unusual book I have read in a long time. Every character is a bizarre combination of creepy, quirky, and likeable (although I don't suppose I can find anything to like about the gluttonous homicidal chef). They rarely interact with each other, and even when they do, they make no
Peake's use of English is frequently spellbinding. There are some very funny scenes to help lighten the mood. At times the story moves quickly, but at other times it is slow-paced.
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real attempt to communicate. I felt oddly ambivalent about Steerpike, the ambitious and deftly manipulative villain, who is in many ways as sympathetic as any of the characters. And the castle itself is a fascinating, barely-explored character, with entire wings that no one has entered in years. I suspect that there are plenty more odd characters and settings to be discovered in the second and third books. Peake's use of English is frequently spellbinding. There are some very funny scenes to help lighten the mood. At times the story moves quickly, but at other times it is slow-paced.
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LibraryThing member Equestrienne
I'm not going to attempt to give any synopsis or really critique this book. I'm just going to tell you why I loved it.
This book isn't for everyone. It especially isn't for the reader of typical mainstream popular fantasy.
There are no Mary Sue characters. All the characters are flawed and weird and
There are no teenage badass characters who save the world from ultimate evil in a spastic series of non-stop action scenes.
Best of all, no characters were involved in a love triangle with two super hot and lustful fae.
That's why I loved this book.
A slow and heavily atmospheric tale, this book is best read at a slow pace, so that it can be savored and appreciated for what it is.
This book isn't for everyone. It especially isn't for the reader of typical mainstream popular fantasy.
There are no Mary Sue characters. All the characters are flawed and weird and
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not easy to relate to. There is no formulaic plot; the plot itself is rather elusive, beyond symbolic commentary on ritual and dynastic rule in stasis. With a few exceptions, all the characters in Gormenghast are pretty old and not very attractive, charming or rational.There are no teenage badass characters who save the world from ultimate evil in a spastic series of non-stop action scenes.
Best of all, no characters were involved in a love triangle with two super hot and lustful fae.
That's why I loved this book.
A slow and heavily atmospheric tale, this book is best read at a slow pace, so that it can be savored and appreciated for what it is.
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LibraryThing member kronos999
Not a book for the impatient, Titus Groan is a novel to be savored in loving detail. In spite of the word 'FANTASY' stamped on the side, this novel has less to do with post-Tolkien heroic quests than with authors such as Dickens who in many ways it reminded me. It chronicles a year in the life of
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the inhabitants of castle Gormenghast, home to the Groan dynasty for 76 generations upon the birth of Titus, heir to the Earldom. The members have only rare contact with the outside world and are bound completely by tradition. Titus, however, is not the only newcomer. Steerpike, the ambitious kitchen-boy, brings with him the force of change and it is difficult to decide whether to love or hate him for it, especially as events spiral out of control. Either way, don't trust him. Show Less
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
Gormenghast - actually a trilogy - is one of those stories that I have heard about but never wanted to try, until Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange novel gave me the taste for 'fantastical' (what I would consider not strictly 'fantasy') and Sebastian Faulks discussed the trilogy in his Faulks on
For the first half of the novel, I was enchanted, both with Peake's word building and world building. The characters are wonderfully eccentric - my favourites being Flay the butler and the Countess ('I would like to see the boy when he is six') - and the setting of Gormenghast Castle is staggering in its detail. But then, right around the point of uppity kitchen boy Steerpike's great scheme to destroy the old regime, something changed, perhaps in the style - and I lost interest. Getting through the rest was a struggle. Peake's Dickensian language turned purple, and the characters, especially Fuchsia the miserable daughter, had a sort of personality transplant.
I'm sure that, after a break, I will go onto read the other two novels in the trilogy, but I can't say I enjoyed Titus Groan.
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Fiction essays. So I downloaded the first in the set, and gave Steerpike and the others a try.For the first half of the novel, I was enchanted, both with Peake's word building and world building. The characters are wonderfully eccentric - my favourites being Flay the butler and the Countess ('I would like to see the boy when he is six') - and the setting of Gormenghast Castle is staggering in its detail. But then, right around the point of uppity kitchen boy Steerpike's great scheme to destroy the old regime, something changed, perhaps in the style - and I lost interest. Getting through the rest was a struggle. Peake's Dickensian language turned purple, and the characters, especially Fuchsia the miserable daughter, had a sort of personality transplant.
I'm sure that, after a break, I will go onto read the other two novels in the trilogy, but I can't say I enjoyed Titus Groan.
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LibraryThing member sprainedbrain
This was not at all what I was expecting, but it was very good. Titus Groan is a wonderfully weird story about a giant castle (so big that some inhabitants are completely forgotten about by others) filled with delightfully weird, eccentric characters blindly following centuries of complicated
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rituals. Action unfolds slowly as we get to know richly drawn characters in this atmospheric, brilliantly written fantasy. Show Less
LibraryThing member wirkman
A great monstrosity of a novel. Great, twisted prose, folding back in time as the story covers the first year in the life of the title character. I read this book, first, in high school, and carried it around with me during the reading. And re-reading. I was teased for it, of course. The best jape?
The book is not diminished by such farcical parody. It is, indeed, a great work of imagination and storytelling. But it is not designed for those who like simple stories. It's for those who want to be "bowled over."
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"Tightest Groin." Yes, high school kids say the darndest things. The book is not diminished by such farcical parody. It is, indeed, a great work of imagination and storytelling. But it is not designed for those who like simple stories. It's for those who want to be "bowled over."
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LibraryThing member jayne_charles
I would be the frst to admit that this is a highly original fantasy novel. It creates a whole world, clearly not our own, but at the same time not relying on the elves/dwarfs/fairies that populate most traditional 'fantasy' novels. It is darkly humorous, all the characters larger than life. I
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particularly liked the aunts ('breastless as wallpaper'!!!). Having said all that, reading it was a bit of a slog at times. I think in fairness it's just not my genre Show Less
LibraryThing member DRFP
This novel is quite heavily overwritten but I suppose that's the point - the prose reflects the sprawling, crazed nature of Gormenghast itself. Although a bit verbose at times I don't think that stops Titus Groan being readable. Personally, I found it much more enjoyable than many overly
This novel and series definitely won't be for everyone, and don't expect much (if anything IMO) in the way of "fantasy", but it's a very good read if you've got some patience.
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descriptive 19th century novels. Peake takes his time but he does fashion a fantastic, large than life set of characters. True, they're a little flat, as they're essentially caricatures, and it would be nice to see some added depth to them. But, again, it's sort of the point of the novel that these characters remain as they are. They're wonderfully vivid and I'm glad there's another two books in which to read about them.This novel and series definitely won't be for everyone, and don't expect much (if anything IMO) in the way of "fantasy", but it's a very good read if you've got some patience.
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LibraryThing member MichaelFStewart
I'm not done this yet, but I must say it is marvelous. I've never read a book purely for the language used rather than the story. It's poetry without having to figure out what the author means.
LibraryThing member patience_crabstick
Fantasy is not my usual genre, but I enjoyed this novel, the first in the Gormenghast series. The ancient family of Groan live a life bound by ritual, in an ancient castle. An heir, (the Titus of the title) has just been born and a kitchen boy schemes to take control. This work is fantasy in that
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Gormenghast bears no relation to the world as we know it, although it is still reassuringly Earth. The characters, though somewhat grotesque, are human and have the same clocks, dresses, toys that we do. Sometimes funny, always gorgeous, I'm pleased with my discovery of this series. Show Less
LibraryThing member helenleech
Is Steerpike the symbol of revolutionarychange, sweeping away Gormenghast's inbred aristocrats and their decaying servants? Or a parable of the rise of the working class in post-war Britain? Or an allegory about the rise of Nazism, with Gormenghast representing Europe in the 30s? Whichever, I see
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Gormenghast everywhere in our culture, from Hogwarts to the the semi-worship of youth and beauty and the fear of old age and decay. Show Less
LibraryThing member Darla
OMG. This was completely different from my usual reading, and was one of those rare serendipitous finds. Nobody recommended it, I just picked it up to fill out my 3/$1 stack at the flea market. It's a slow-moving, lazy book. Over 500 pages, and dense prose at that, so it took me nearly 3 days to
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read. But the words...! You absolutely cannot rush this book. It's like the chocolate mousse of words, and not that sickeningly sweet Jello-pudding-like ersatz mousse with so little chocolate you might as well be eating sweetened cream, either. These words are rich and delicious, and you roll them around on your tongue, savoring the flavor. Not all that filling, but damn, it tastes so good you don't care. :) He uses big fat meaning-rich words, and never uses one word when three will do. Most writers I'd have been skimming by page 3. It takes some doing to make me enjoy slow, wordy prose. Show Less
LibraryThing member RobertDay
This novel, the first in the Gormenghast trilogy (though a fragment of a fourth volume has recently been completed), details the events of a year in the fantastic castle of Gormenghast, from the birth of Titus, 77th Earl, through to shortly after his first birthday. Gormenghast castle forms a
The events of the novel form a backdrop for the ambitious rise of the kitchen boy Steerpike. He is best described as an anti-hero; he plots and connives to exploit any advantage he can find for his own advancement; though not every misfortune that falls to other occupants of the castle can be laid at his feet.
If that was all there was to 'Titus Groan', then this wouldn't be such a tour de force. This is not a book to read for excitement or unexpected turns of the plot. But the language! Peake's powers of description make this book essential reading. The castle of Gormenghast becomes a character in itself, with halls, stairways, turrets, corridors, high windows, battlements, a Library, a Tower of Flints, a Hall of Spiders, a Great Kitchen, a Room of Cats and a Hall of Bright Carvings, to name but a few. And Peake has no less an apposite turn of phrase when describing his characters; though in case the words were not enough, he also prepared sketches of many of them.
(The edition I read, part of a 1992 omnibus volume, is plagued by misprints and some strange textual contractions: "along corridor" instead of "a long corridor" is a prime example of a common error, repeated so often throughout the novel that I began to wonder if it was a transcription error from manuscript to print. Other errors are also sprinkled liberally through the text.)
The setting is so resonant that I have coined the word 'Gormenghastly' to describe any excessively eccentric stately home, though there are none in real life that can come close to Peake's vision. Many have eccentric contents - a Cabinet of Stones here, a Corridor of Lizards there, perhaps a Courtyard of Dead Poets. But none combine all these things in one place, in one vast structure the size of a small town. because whatever you have seen in real life, it cannot compare with Gormenghast itself, "the main massing of the original stone".
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self-contained community, within which members of the Groan dynasty live, die, go mad, commune with birds and act out arcane rituals. They are attended by a retinue of servants and retainers, with their own agendas of ambition, revenge, hate and love. At best, these characters are a little fey, or what my mother would have called "affected"; the worst of them are seriously deranged, hideously deformed grotesques, or both.The events of the novel form a backdrop for the ambitious rise of the kitchen boy Steerpike. He is best described as an anti-hero; he plots and connives to exploit any advantage he can find for his own advancement; though not every misfortune that falls to other occupants of the castle can be laid at his feet.
If that was all there was to 'Titus Groan', then this wouldn't be such a tour de force. This is not a book to read for excitement or unexpected turns of the plot. But the language! Peake's powers of description make this book essential reading. The castle of Gormenghast becomes a character in itself, with halls, stairways, turrets, corridors, high windows, battlements, a Library, a Tower of Flints, a Hall of Spiders, a Great Kitchen, a Room of Cats and a Hall of Bright Carvings, to name but a few. And Peake has no less an apposite turn of phrase when describing his characters; though in case the words were not enough, he also prepared sketches of many of them.
(The edition I read, part of a 1992 omnibus volume, is plagued by misprints and some strange textual contractions: "along corridor" instead of "a long corridor" is a prime example of a common error, repeated so often throughout the novel that I began to wonder if it was a transcription error from manuscript to print. Other errors are also sprinkled liberally through the text.)
The setting is so resonant that I have coined the word 'Gormenghastly' to describe any excessively eccentric stately home, though there are none in real life that can come close to Peake's vision. Many have eccentric contents - a Cabinet of Stones here, a Corridor of Lizards there, perhaps a Courtyard of Dead Poets. But none combine all these things in one place, in one vast structure the size of a small town. because whatever you have seen in real life, it cannot compare with Gormenghast itself, "the main massing of the original stone".
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LibraryThing member DanielAlgara
Re-reading. I've been so polluted by shitty fantasy that I forgot what a good sentence looked like.
This should do it...
This should do it...
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Another book, like Sea of Poppies which is a set up for the rest of the trilogy. We meet the fascinating characters of Gormenghast whose lives revolve around ritual so much so that most seem to pull back from personal relationships into art or nature in order to sustain their concentration on the
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senseless ritual that keeps their society functioning. From the burning of artwork to the deaf Grey Scrubbers, to the Machiavellian Steerpike, the creaky Flay, the Countess with her white cats and wild birds, petulant Fuchsia, pitiful Nannie Slagg, owl-like Lord Sepulchrave, tittering Doctor Prunesquallor and the needlessly haughty sister Emma and twins Cora and Clarice culminating in the "Earling" of little Titus, Peake's characterization and world building keep the reader engrossed and delighted. Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
The birth of a son to the house of Groan is a momentous event for Gormenghast, but from that day on things start to go badly wrong. Apparently Mervyn Peake based Gormenghast on the palaces of Chinese nobles, and I can see similarities (with "The Story of the Stone" for example). Gormenghast is an
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enclosed world, ruled by tradition and ritual but it is strangely isolated; there are no visitors and no castle guard is ever mentioned so presumably it has no enemies. The writing is very descriptive; you can see in your mind's eye exactly what everything looks like, but it does slow your reading down. and I found it quite heavy-going. Show Less
LibraryThing member Karin7
I don't think I'd like it now, but I'd have given this a 5 when I read it.
LibraryThing member kettle666
Of all the lauded works of fantasy, and there are many, the Gormenghast trilogy of novels wins my vote by a light year. Peake creates an authentic mirror world of our own, but one that is also utterly unique, completely skewed and apart. Where Tolkien irritates with his sanctimonious cliche ridden
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moralizing, Peake shows us all the shades of everyone we know. I don't think anyone comes close. Show Less
LibraryThing member TadAD
I just couldn't read this. Too much language for language's sake and not enough plot.
Language
ISBN
0749394927 / 9780749394929
Physical description
496 p.; 7.8 inches
Pages
496