Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Overlook Books (1988), Edition: Reprint, 1032 pages
Description
Titus is expected to rule this extraordinary kingdom and his eccentric and wayward subjects. But with the arrival of an ambitious kitchen boy, Steerpike, the established order is thrown into disarray. Over the course of these three novels-Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone- Titus must contend with a kingdom about to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation, and murder. Intoxicating, rich, and unique, The Gormenghast Trilogy is a tour de force that ranks as one of the twentieth century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing. This special edition, published for the centenary of Mervyn Peake's birth, is accompanied by over one hundred of Peake's dazzling drawings.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
The Gormenghast trilogy is the brilliant invention of Mervyn Peake, who created a unique, imaginative, bizarre and compelling world in the form of an enormous decaying castle called Gormenghast. It's titular head is the Earl of Gormenghast, but the place is really ruled by the arcane and stringent
The story begins with the birth of Titus Groan, heir to the seventy-sixth Earl of Gormenghast, Lord Sepulchrave. The Earl hides in his massive library, but can't help being drawn to his only son. His wife retreated years ago into her own mind, and into her love of animals, specifically the birds that visit her room through an ivy-covered window and her hoard of white cats. And Fuchsia, the odd and temperamental daughter of the house who finds that she loves Titus, in spite of herself.
As Lord Sepulchrave descends into madness, a lowly kitchen boy seizes his chance to better himself. Steerpike may have come from nothing, but he's more than a match for the moribund members of the royal family.
Peake named two of the books, Titus Groan and Titus Alone, after the seventy-seventh Earl of Gormenghast, but the real linchpin of the story is the castle itself, even as it moulders, decays, burns and floods. It's a strange, almost indescribable place, which Peake somehow manages to make real, writing in an over-blown style that suits the place, characters and events beautifully.
I'm surprised these books aren't better known than they are. Peake's Gormenghast is an imaginative tour de force that puts places like Narnia to shame. And his characters veer wildly toward caricature, but he never loses control of them. The best of the lot are the sullen and impulsive Fuchsia, the affected and silly Doctor Prunesquallor, who is nonetheless the glue holding a fraying family together, Steerpike, the kitchen boy who will do what he has to do to get what he wants and the imposing Muzzlehatch, with his nose like a rudder and his amazing menangerie.
Show More
rituals that define and dictate daily life for everyone from the Earl to the lowliest kitchen boy. The story begins with the birth of Titus Groan, heir to the seventy-sixth Earl of Gormenghast, Lord Sepulchrave. The Earl hides in his massive library, but can't help being drawn to his only son. His wife retreated years ago into her own mind, and into her love of animals, specifically the birds that visit her room through an ivy-covered window and her hoard of white cats. And Fuchsia, the odd and temperamental daughter of the house who finds that she loves Titus, in spite of herself.
As Lord Sepulchrave descends into madness, a lowly kitchen boy seizes his chance to better himself. Steerpike may have come from nothing, but he's more than a match for the moribund members of the royal family.
Peake named two of the books, Titus Groan and Titus Alone, after the seventy-seventh Earl of Gormenghast, but the real linchpin of the story is the castle itself, even as it moulders, decays, burns and floods. It's a strange, almost indescribable place, which Peake somehow manages to make real, writing in an over-blown style that suits the place, characters and events beautifully.
I'm surprised these books aren't better known than they are. Peake's Gormenghast is an imaginative tour de force that puts places like Narnia to shame. And his characters veer wildly toward caricature, but he never loses control of them. The best of the lot are the sullen and impulsive Fuchsia, the affected and silly Doctor Prunesquallor, who is nonetheless the glue holding a fraying family together, Steerpike, the kitchen boy who will do what he has to do to get what he wants and the imposing Muzzlehatch, with his nose like a rudder and his amazing menangerie.
Show Less
LibraryThing member psutto
Good
Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of
A dusty tome languished on the shelves for many years, once dipped into but abandoned like an unwanted child, guiltily, stealthily. Then a chorus of voices called for it to return to the light, called for it to be given voice once more, demanded it be read. So read it he most assuredly did, studiously, laboriously, willingly, eventually. Such words, descriptions built upon description like a house made from massive blocks of granite like the abandoned building blocks of long dead gods. But wait, this tome is in three parts, three months assigned to its investigation. Three months were needed, as like a barium meal it is difficult to ingest but illuminating in effect. Part the first sees Titus Groan born into a family of such old and bizarre ritual that the very walls of his home and the life of the castle itself in its daily minutiae is the main character. Doctor and twins, sister and parents, servants of all stripes, and all physical types, thin and fat, old and young, and carvers of bright carvings are lesser characters, small actors upon a grand stage. All lovingly, minutely, richly, sometimes tediously detailed. A plot you ask, why yes there is the barest one but it is subsumed, servant to the description, kept in dark places and fed on worms and scraps. Part the second sees the child grown and the birds come home to roost, such birds, all manner of feathered kind, like unto the birds the countess Groan can call to her despite her carpet of cats. There is a flood, a biblical, catastrophic, all-encompassing flood which moves the second part to its denouement. This second part was the one most avidly consumed. Part the third sees Titus leave the castle and become lost in the larger world and is the weakest of the three, a product of sick bed and inadvisably abandoning the looming, brooding, ubiquitous castle. Young Groan comes close to losing his mind, is Gormenghast real? Taken together the three are less than excellent yet more than merely good but require a concerted effort to consume. The third is terribly flawed and the runt of the litter, one perhaps best left in the dark. Now that it sleeps once more upon the shelf would he recommend it, or leave it to slumber? Could he envisage another adventure within the dusty parchment in the future. All is unsure.
Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet bears away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs...
And darkness winds between the characters.
Overall – Like a whisper in a dream, disturbing, portentous, absorbing, infuriating, incomparable…
Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of
Show More
knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.A dusty tome languished on the shelves for many years, once dipped into but abandoned like an unwanted child, guiltily, stealthily. Then a chorus of voices called for it to return to the light, called for it to be given voice once more, demanded it be read. So read it he most assuredly did, studiously, laboriously, willingly, eventually. Such words, descriptions built upon description like a house made from massive blocks of granite like the abandoned building blocks of long dead gods. But wait, this tome is in three parts, three months assigned to its investigation. Three months were needed, as like a barium meal it is difficult to ingest but illuminating in effect. Part the first sees Titus Groan born into a family of such old and bizarre ritual that the very walls of his home and the life of the castle itself in its daily minutiae is the main character. Doctor and twins, sister and parents, servants of all stripes, and all physical types, thin and fat, old and young, and carvers of bright carvings are lesser characters, small actors upon a grand stage. All lovingly, minutely, richly, sometimes tediously detailed. A plot you ask, why yes there is the barest one but it is subsumed, servant to the description, kept in dark places and fed on worms and scraps. Part the second sees the child grown and the birds come home to roost, such birds, all manner of feathered kind, like unto the birds the countess Groan can call to her despite her carpet of cats. There is a flood, a biblical, catastrophic, all-encompassing flood which moves the second part to its denouement. This second part was the one most avidly consumed. Part the third sees Titus leave the castle and become lost in the larger world and is the weakest of the three, a product of sick bed and inadvisably abandoning the looming, brooding, ubiquitous castle. Young Groan comes close to losing his mind, is Gormenghast real? Taken together the three are less than excellent yet more than merely good but require a concerted effort to consume. The third is terribly flawed and the runt of the litter, one perhaps best left in the dark. Now that it sleeps once more upon the shelf would he recommend it, or leave it to slumber? Could he envisage another adventure within the dusty parchment in the future. All is unsure.
Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet bears away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs...
And darkness winds between the characters.
Overall – Like a whisper in a dream, disturbing, portentous, absorbing, infuriating, incomparable…
Show Less
LibraryThing member Terpsichoreus
The Gormenghast books are considered to be the beginning of the 'mannerpunk' genre, and along with Tolkien, Moorecock, and Howard, Peake is one of the fathers of the modern Fantasy genre. Mannerpunk is a genre typified by complex psychology, plots driven by character interaction, and a strong sense
The genre is based upon the works of authors like Jane Austen, the Brontes, Baroness Orczy, Swift, de Cervantes, and Dumas pere.
Peake himself was a polymath, excelling not only as an author, but a poet and artist. In fact, he has works hanging in Britain's National Portrait Gallery. As a poet, he has a mastery of language and conceit that places him above popular 'jingle man' Poe.
This makes him quite unlike Tolkien, whose long stretches of verse tend to be stilted and unfeeling. Then again, Peake is more passionate than than Tory Tolkien.
Despite his mastery of language and evocative characterization, Peake is not an easy read. Indeed, his thick prose and slow pace can quickly tire the mind. Like a skillful chess opponent, Peake demands much of his reader. He is not content to let the reader be a passive escapist, so his work engages and challenges. It would take a great and knowledgeable mind to meet each of these challenges on equal footing, but even we lesser minds may find amusement, shock, and beauty.
Peake's original idea was to chronicle the life of a character from birth to death. The first book deals with infancy. The second takes him into adulthood in a sort of bildungsroman. The third involves the adventures of young adulthood. Unfortunately, Peake's slide into dementia prevented any furthering of this vast and witty trove.
In literature, Peake may have come the closest to completing a book which balances complex psychology, deep character, poetic style, exploration of reality, and a surreal mixture reality and fancy. Peake's books were very audacious, and though he sometimes fails to reach his own lofty ideals, the really remarkable thing is that sometimes, he doesn't.
Show More
of mood. It is also notable for the characters rather than the world being fantastical. In this sense, mannerpunk, and certainly the Gormenghast books, work in the vein of surrealism (meaning not 'unreal', but 'more than the real'); not unlike the Russian Gogol.The genre is based upon the works of authors like Jane Austen, the Brontes, Baroness Orczy, Swift, de Cervantes, and Dumas pere.
Peake himself was a polymath, excelling not only as an author, but a poet and artist. In fact, he has works hanging in Britain's National Portrait Gallery. As a poet, he has a mastery of language and conceit that places him above popular 'jingle man' Poe.
This makes him quite unlike Tolkien, whose long stretches of verse tend to be stilted and unfeeling. Then again, Peake is more passionate than than Tory Tolkien.
Despite his mastery of language and evocative characterization, Peake is not an easy read. Indeed, his thick prose and slow pace can quickly tire the mind. Like a skillful chess opponent, Peake demands much of his reader. He is not content to let the reader be a passive escapist, so his work engages and challenges. It would take a great and knowledgeable mind to meet each of these challenges on equal footing, but even we lesser minds may find amusement, shock, and beauty.
Peake's original idea was to chronicle the life of a character from birth to death. The first book deals with infancy. The second takes him into adulthood in a sort of bildungsroman. The third involves the adventures of young adulthood. Unfortunately, Peake's slide into dementia prevented any furthering of this vast and witty trove.
In literature, Peake may have come the closest to completing a book which balances complex psychology, deep character, poetic style, exploration of reality, and a surreal mixture reality and fancy. Peake's books were very audacious, and though he sometimes fails to reach his own lofty ideals, the really remarkable thing is that sometimes, he doesn't.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Ganeshaka
One little known fact about Alaska is that you can actually see Gormenghast from here.
The first Lord Groan, Lividus the Redd Headd, was a Russian fur trader. His line died out, due to an accidental poisoning involving a crowberry allergy and lascivious pie eating contest in 1763. But the
Therein lies a tale, a virgin, and a lying sailor. To be told, when the time comes for telling, as, truthfully, only limeys can...
In any event, the castle, and its many outbuildings, still stand, though in disrepair. An offer was made for the property in the 1980's by the Disney Corporation, along with a generous tender to relocate its citizens to L.A., but the 91st Earl Supperblade rejected it for "obvious reasons - we are not cartoon characters, sirrah!".
The Alaska ferry system for a time provided service to the community, although it was observed few visitors came and none left. But then the A.V. Fuchsia ran aground in 1989, not not long after the Exxon Valdez disaster. A cousin of Lord Sepulchrave was piloting the vessel. Several harbor seals, and a herd of white cats were lost in the incident. The affair was hushed up by the crew, service discontinued, and Gormenghast's ambassador to the Alaska legislature was recalled within the fortnight..
I visited the Main Feasting Hall in 1993, more or less by chance, as I set out on a day hike to Mt. Edgecrumble, and developed hypothermia, and then hyperthermia (hot springs, you see),and then lost my way. Things were NOT much as Titus left them. There was a new Lord named "Tis' Stu". It seems the office of Master of Ritual had devolved to the practice of leaving yellow sticky notes on a communal fridge when there was a "List of things to do! Stu". No one seemed to be mowing the lawn. No cats anywhere.
When the sun sets in the Arctic, there is an hour or two of serenity - a blue period - when the sky and sea exchange identities. Birds swim, fish fly, the rain falls from underground, and clouds mill about like crowds, dreaming of the peaceful world below. At such a time, it is a good thing to be a walrus. And so, I think Titus was correct in his decision to -.Spoiler Alert - ...what was I saying?
The Gormenghast trilogy is a profound metaphor, poetically put, which will be appreciated by only a few, and should be shared by that elite only on an as needed basis with blood relatives, and only with the best of them. That said, I feel I must reveal to you all that I dearly, dearly loved the novels, if in fact they were novels FOR - as I've said earlier - you can actually see Gormenghast from Alaska!
The first Lord Groan, Lividus the Redd Headd, was a Russian fur trader. His line died out, due to an accidental poisoning involving a crowberry allergy and lascivious pie eating contest in 1763. But the
Show More
aristocracy was restored by a Brit usurper, Captain Tits, who comandeered a frigate from Cook's fleet, replete with a cargo of breadfruit, and escaped to the remote fjord island of Gormen, north of Ketchikan - arriving, fortuitously, on the eve of Lividus's funeral. Therein lies a tale, a virgin, and a lying sailor. To be told, when the time comes for telling, as, truthfully, only limeys can...
In any event, the castle, and its many outbuildings, still stand, though in disrepair. An offer was made for the property in the 1980's by the Disney Corporation, along with a generous tender to relocate its citizens to L.A., but the 91st Earl Supperblade rejected it for "obvious reasons - we are not cartoon characters, sirrah!".
The Alaska ferry system for a time provided service to the community, although it was observed few visitors came and none left. But then the A.V. Fuchsia ran aground in 1989, not not long after the Exxon Valdez disaster. A cousin of Lord Sepulchrave was piloting the vessel. Several harbor seals, and a herd of white cats were lost in the incident. The affair was hushed up by the crew, service discontinued, and Gormenghast's ambassador to the Alaska legislature was recalled within the fortnight..
I visited the Main Feasting Hall in 1993, more or less by chance, as I set out on a day hike to Mt. Edgecrumble, and developed hypothermia, and then hyperthermia (hot springs, you see),and then lost my way. Things were NOT much as Titus left them. There was a new Lord named "Tis' Stu". It seems the office of Master of Ritual had devolved to the practice of leaving yellow sticky notes on a communal fridge when there was a "List of things to do! Stu". No one seemed to be mowing the lawn. No cats anywhere.
When the sun sets in the Arctic, there is an hour or two of serenity - a blue period - when the sky and sea exchange identities. Birds swim, fish fly, the rain falls from underground, and clouds mill about like crowds, dreaming of the peaceful world below. At such a time, it is a good thing to be a walrus. And so, I think Titus was correct in his decision to -.Spoiler Alert - ...what was I saying?
The Gormenghast trilogy is a profound metaphor, poetically put, which will be appreciated by only a few, and should be shared by that elite only on an as needed basis with blood relatives, and only with the best of them. That said, I feel I must reveal to you all that I dearly, dearly loved the novels, if in fact they were novels FOR - as I've said earlier - you can actually see Gormenghast from Alaska!
Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
I consider it pointless to compare Tolkien and Peake; you might as well argue whether Raymond Chandler is better than Ivy Compton-Burnett. I would only point out, since I believe no one has so far, that in Gormenghast, unlike Middle Earth, Sex exists. I also think Peake fits into the Gothic
I discovered Gormenghast at age 14, picking up the books after reading a brief but tantalizing description in Lin Carter’s “Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings.” I was living in a big city built on and surrounded by 7 hills, with its share of eccentric characters, large public buildings and a street of decaying mansions signifying a departed importance and opulence, and many narrow lanes, supplemented by iron staircases, climbing up and down its slopes. For me Gormenghast was at first a strange and exotic place in which I gradually recognized so many parallels with my home city that, by the time I was into the second volume, I almost felt I was living simultaneously in both my familiar town and the increasingly familiar environs of Gormenghast. Sitting in a late spring study hall with warm mote filled sunlight streaming through the dusty windows, reading about Titus daydreaming adventures in a similar situation, I experienced almost an identity of reader and subject.
There's one obvious difference between the Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast, and that is that Tolkien's book contains fantasy in the sense of magic and the supernatural, and Peake's doesn't. So if people like "fantasy" as a genre, they're going to be disappointed in Gormenghast. The other difference is that Tolkien gives his readers a hard-earned victory, whereas the first volume of Peake's trilogy ends with evil triumphant, and the second includes the murder and defeat of good characters, and the suicide of another. Gormenghast as a world and characters is really quite unpleasant, so it's not surprising that it hasn't caught on to the same extent. A more pronounced difference is that Tolkien gives us hobbits as a device to enter the world of Middle Earth, figures who are just smaller versions of ourselves; Peake makes no concessions to his readers, and the figure you start out identifying with, Steerpike, the kitchen boy who escapes his caste to realise his potential, turns out to be an amoral murderer who is willing to use rape as a means to an end. Who is the hero in Titus Groan?
But the main difference has got largely to do with language - Tolkien went to great length to construct 'ancient' languages to give an extra level of authenticity to his vision of Middle Earth, but his actual language, the language his novels are written in, is distinctly workaday, filled with olde-english tweeness. When Moorcock wrote about "Epic Pooh" he was criticizing Tolkein's cozy world-view, but he could also have been describing Tolkien's language. Peake didn't try and create a language, but his actual language is so dense, pungent,and bizarre, so unexpected and "outré", that reading it feels like walking through a strange, alien swamp. That language, and the equally unsettling names he gives his characters, is what gives his vision its power.
The thing that makes it seductive and special is what works against it for many readers: it's a painting in text rather than a story. Sequential logical connections between one event in one place and another on a different place are secondary (at best) to a dream-like elision between set-pieces. It's not a trilogy because the third book, like the fourth, is what's left of Peake's notes for a set of images-in-words that accreted organically rather than having novelistic plotting. Nothing of any more consequence than anything else happens but it's all happening all the time. Anyone who enters this with expectations of an ordinary mundane 'resolution' is barking up the wrong tree. It's about the journey, not some destination that didn't interest Peake. It's not that kind of work.
Peake's books are perhaps the last glorious outburst of Gothic romance in English fiction. Freud and surrealism provide considerable impetus as well. In that respect Titus Groan is so different from Gormenghast as to make it a very difficult opening volume: it meanders, it glories in static tableaux, it immerses itself in ritual and gloom. By contrast, the second book is full of action and drama. The rivalry of Flay and Swelter in the first book is a slow dance of death, whereas that between the adolescent Titus and the upstart Steerpike is energised by their youthful vigour and imagination.
Worth mentioning (as my edition of Titus Alone points out) that Peake was a war artist who entered Belsen and was profoundly affected by what he saw. Titus Alone appears to reference some of this in the horrors of the factory. But it has to be read for what it is - a fragmentary work which the author was unable to bring to completion. Each made an honourable attempt to work through some of those experiences in their fiction, in their different ways.
NB: Just look at the illustrations - Tolkien and Peake were both accomplished artists, but Tolkien tends towards the whimsical, while Peake tends towards the grotesque.
Show More
tradition in literature – it is surprising that a book containing no magic or mythological creatures or supernatural events is so reflexively categorized as “fantasy”, but perhaps, without that classification, one would have to consider it “sui generis”. I agree too with the comment about Peake’s writing being pictorial; at times when reading Titus Groan or Gormenghast, it is like allowing ones eye to wander into a large detailed canvas by Bosch or Breughel, filled with grotesque and amusing details scattered throughout a fantastic landscape.I discovered Gormenghast at age 14, picking up the books after reading a brief but tantalizing description in Lin Carter’s “Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings.” I was living in a big city built on and surrounded by 7 hills, with its share of eccentric characters, large public buildings and a street of decaying mansions signifying a departed importance and opulence, and many narrow lanes, supplemented by iron staircases, climbing up and down its slopes. For me Gormenghast was at first a strange and exotic place in which I gradually recognized so many parallels with my home city that, by the time I was into the second volume, I almost felt I was living simultaneously in both my familiar town and the increasingly familiar environs of Gormenghast. Sitting in a late spring study hall with warm mote filled sunlight streaming through the dusty windows, reading about Titus daydreaming adventures in a similar situation, I experienced almost an identity of reader and subject.
There's one obvious difference between the Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast, and that is that Tolkien's book contains fantasy in the sense of magic and the supernatural, and Peake's doesn't. So if people like "fantasy" as a genre, they're going to be disappointed in Gormenghast. The other difference is that Tolkien gives his readers a hard-earned victory, whereas the first volume of Peake's trilogy ends with evil triumphant, and the second includes the murder and defeat of good characters, and the suicide of another. Gormenghast as a world and characters is really quite unpleasant, so it's not surprising that it hasn't caught on to the same extent. A more pronounced difference is that Tolkien gives us hobbits as a device to enter the world of Middle Earth, figures who are just smaller versions of ourselves; Peake makes no concessions to his readers, and the figure you start out identifying with, Steerpike, the kitchen boy who escapes his caste to realise his potential, turns out to be an amoral murderer who is willing to use rape as a means to an end. Who is the hero in Titus Groan?
But the main difference has got largely to do with language - Tolkien went to great length to construct 'ancient' languages to give an extra level of authenticity to his vision of Middle Earth, but his actual language, the language his novels are written in, is distinctly workaday, filled with olde-english tweeness. When Moorcock wrote about "Epic Pooh" he was criticizing Tolkein's cozy world-view, but he could also have been describing Tolkien's language. Peake didn't try and create a language, but his actual language is so dense, pungent,and bizarre, so unexpected and "outré", that reading it feels like walking through a strange, alien swamp. That language, and the equally unsettling names he gives his characters, is what gives his vision its power.
The thing that makes it seductive and special is what works against it for many readers: it's a painting in text rather than a story. Sequential logical connections between one event in one place and another on a different place are secondary (at best) to a dream-like elision between set-pieces. It's not a trilogy because the third book, like the fourth, is what's left of Peake's notes for a set of images-in-words that accreted organically rather than having novelistic plotting. Nothing of any more consequence than anything else happens but it's all happening all the time. Anyone who enters this with expectations of an ordinary mundane 'resolution' is barking up the wrong tree. It's about the journey, not some destination that didn't interest Peake. It's not that kind of work.
Peake's books are perhaps the last glorious outburst of Gothic romance in English fiction. Freud and surrealism provide considerable impetus as well. In that respect Titus Groan is so different from Gormenghast as to make it a very difficult opening volume: it meanders, it glories in static tableaux, it immerses itself in ritual and gloom. By contrast, the second book is full of action and drama. The rivalry of Flay and Swelter in the first book is a slow dance of death, whereas that between the adolescent Titus and the upstart Steerpike is energised by their youthful vigour and imagination.
Worth mentioning (as my edition of Titus Alone points out) that Peake was a war artist who entered Belsen and was profoundly affected by what he saw. Titus Alone appears to reference some of this in the horrors of the factory. But it has to be read for what it is - a fragmentary work which the author was unable to bring to completion. Each made an honourable attempt to work through some of those experiences in their fiction, in their different ways.
NB: Just look at the illustrations - Tolkien and Peake were both accomplished artists, but Tolkien tends towards the whimsical, while Peake tends towards the grotesque.
Show Less
LibraryThing member John5918
I last read this more than 30 years ago, and I seem to remember I didn't finish it then. It's well written, dark fantasy, very descriptive, with complicated characters, some of whom are very intriguing.
I find I have to put it down often and come back to it, reading it in short bursts. This is
Descriptive, surreal, imaginative, but always dark, dark and hopeless...
I find I have to put it down often and come back to it, reading it in short bursts. This is
Show More
partly due to the complexity and the level of detail, which are just overwhelming at times, but some passages are a bit dull too.Descriptive, surreal, imaginative, but always dark, dark and hopeless...
Show Less
LibraryThing member bromeliad_water
This is an incredible, mind-expanding acid-trip of a poetic, wordy book in three parts, the first two of which are a must-read for any fantasy fan. It's one of the most impressive, most timeless masterpieces of fantasy I have ever read, certainly matching the likes of Beagle's The Last Unicorn. If
Show More
I could only take one book with me to a deserted island for a year, this would easily be it. The dark, gothic overtones might drive me crazy, though -- it's a grand but terribly gothic epic, and though it's quite difficult to crack open the first time, it is utterly impossible to put down thereafter. This book has a soul which has a quality of stickiness so that it remains inside of you forever. And, this copy has a number of substantial, enlightening essays in the back of it, so never fear! Even after you finish the trilogy, you'll still be able to read about it -- and trust me, you'll want to. I desperately wanted Gormenghast to never end, and at a whopping 1172 pages total, that's saying something. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
These are deeply weird books that are 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
The title character, Titus, destined to become 77th Earl of Groan and Lord of Gormenghast Castle, is only just born when first 500 plus page novel begins and when that book 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 first 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 was warned that Titus Alone, the third and last part, "gets even... weirder," and I'd say that's the case, and it feels very different than the other two. The Publisher's Note says that Peake was already suffering from the illness that killed him when he was writing the story, and that the text had to be pieced together from a manuscript and notes--it was essentially a draft, not a polished, finished novel, and I think you can see that in reading this book. It's a lot sketchier than the other two books, with a third of the chapters less than a page, and some merely a few paragraphs, as if what he wrote was a mere outline he intended to flesh out later, and the third book is half the length of the other two. Ironically I think that did pick up the pace--this was a faster read than the first two books, but not I think a better read, even if the prose was still vivid and and the imagination still prodigious as seen in creations like the Under-River. The plot and characters, the style even, of the first two books for all their strangeness had their own internal logic, which I felt the last one lacked. Which is not to say this book didn't have its fascinations and flashes of the prior brilliance. So not a strong close, but as a whole I found the trilogy worth the read: unique.
Show More
prose 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 first 500 plus page novel begins and when that book 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 first 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 was warned that Titus Alone, the third and last part, "gets even... weirder," and I'd say that's the case, and it feels very different than the other two. The Publisher's Note says that Peake was already suffering from the illness that killed him when he was writing the story, and that the text had to be pieced together from a manuscript and notes--it was essentially a draft, not a polished, finished novel, and I think you can see that in reading this book. It's a lot sketchier than the other two books, with a third of the chapters less than a page, and some merely a few paragraphs, as if what he wrote was a mere outline he intended to flesh out later, and the third book is half the length of the other two. Ironically I think that did pick up the pace--this was a faster read than the first two books, but not I think a better read, even if the prose was still vivid and and the imagination still prodigious as seen in creations like the Under-River. The plot and characters, the style even, of the first two books for all their strangeness had their own internal logic, which I felt the last one lacked. Which is not to say this book didn't have its fascinations and flashes of the prior brilliance. So not a strong close, but as a whole I found the trilogy worth the read: unique.
Show Less
LibraryThing member japaul22
Set in the enormous castle of Gormenghast and its surroundings, this novel is a fantasy of an odd assortment of characters who come together as Titus Groan, the heir to Gormenghast, is finally born. It's richly drawn with great language and great imagination, but even so, it just isn't my cup of
Definitely recommended for classic fantasy lovers (although you've probably already read this) and I'm glad I tried it, but the first novel was enough for me to get the gist.
Show More
tea. I liked the beginning, but got bored by the end and I don't think I'll bother to continue with the rest of the trilogy. Definitely recommended for classic fantasy lovers (although you've probably already read this) and I'm glad I tried it, but the first novel was enough for me to get the gist.
Show Less
LibraryThing member tomcatMurr
An utterly incredible masterpiece of the first rank. Haunting, moving, tragic, very funny in parts, and completely original. Comparisons to Tolkien are inevitable, I suppose, but not really appropriate, as Tolkien comes nowhere near Peak's linguistic genius.
LibraryThing member comfypants
Titus Groan (the first book) is amazing. I couldn't begin to describe it; it's completely different from anything I've read before. There's an almost absurd attention to detail, but at the same time it never fails to be fascinating and page-turning.
Much of Gormenghast (the second book) continues
I had very mixed reactions while reading Titus Alone (the thrid book). At times it was engaging and had me sucked in as much as the first two books. At other times it seemed sloppy and a little confusing, like he just didn't take the time to flesh things out clearly. Then I read a little history-of-critical-reception essay in the back of the book, and it informed me why it seems almost unfinished. It's because it's unfinished. Peake had Parkinson's and couldn't hold a pen or speak clearly enough to finish it, but it had a beginning middle and end so they published it anyway. Thanks, dudes, thanks for telling me that before I read the "book."
Much of Gormenghast (the second book) continues
Show More
with that writing style, but at the same time it's an adventure story, so more traditional writing is used to move the plot forward.I had very mixed reactions while reading Titus Alone (the thrid book). At times it was engaging and had me sucked in as much as the first two books. At other times it seemed sloppy and a little confusing, like he just didn't take the time to flesh things out clearly. Then I read a little history-of-critical-reception essay in the back of the book, and it informed me why it seems almost unfinished. It's because it's unfinished. Peake had Parkinson's and couldn't hold a pen or speak clearly enough to finish it, but it had a beginning middle and end so they published it anyway. Thanks, dudes, thanks for telling me that before I read the "book."
Show Less
LibraryThing member JonArnold
It seems churlish to fault the Gormenghast trilogy as flawless; that it isn’t is only partially the author’s fault. The first two books are extraordinary, a triumph of atmosphere and sense of place. Peake captures the claustrophobia of Gormenghast, a place of inertia hidebound by tradition and
Much as the third book makes thematic sense – Titus going out into the big wide world and discovering he’s not as special as he thinks – it comes across as an appendage to those first two books, lacking a sense of place or the languidly explored grotesque characters of the first two volumes. It also lacks the backbone, the compelling story that Steerpike’s ambitious treachery gives the previous volumes. It’s bitty and episodic, a sketch as opposed to the fully realised art that preceded it. It doesn’t help that Titus is such an unsympathetic lead character, though it could be argued that it’s not an inaccurate portrayal of a youthful man, particularly one with Titus’ strange upbringing. But the bitty, episodic nature of the narrative feels a touch unsatisfying compared to what’s gone before. Well worth reading for the glorious mannered madness of the first two volumes though.
Show More
archaic rules populated almost solely by grotesques. Every character, every action is saturated in symbolism, Peake’s writing is often so dense in conveying what’s going on it approaches poetry – given how often he describes colour and texture, you can see how strongly his skills as an artist influence his prose. This means that the pacing of events is often glacial, despite the timescale covered, so those first two books are best savoured rather than zoomed through.Much as the third book makes thematic sense – Titus going out into the big wide world and discovering he’s not as special as he thinks – it comes across as an appendage to those first two books, lacking a sense of place or the languidly explored grotesque characters of the first two volumes. It also lacks the backbone, the compelling story that Steerpike’s ambitious treachery gives the previous volumes. It’s bitty and episodic, a sketch as opposed to the fully realised art that preceded it. It doesn’t help that Titus is such an unsympathetic lead character, though it could be argued that it’s not an inaccurate portrayal of a youthful man, particularly one with Titus’ strange upbringing. But the bitty, episodic nature of the narrative feels a touch unsatisfying compared to what’s gone before. Well worth reading for the glorious mannered madness of the first two volumes though.
Show Less
LibraryThing member cpg
A review of the physical book only
I postponed buying this new hardcover illustrated edition of the Gormenghast Trilogy for several weeks, hoping that someone would post an Amazon review describing it physically, or that Amazon would allow us to look inside it, or that the publisher would be a
1) The binding is (wine and white) paper over board.
2) Signatures are clearly visible, but I can't see any stitching.
3) In a few spots in my copy, the binding appears to be on the verge of breaking. I will be surprised if it survives unbroken through one reading. It's hard to glue together a book this thick and have it hold, I think.
4) The printing is crisp and clear, and the paper is acceptable: Probably a little below what you'd expect from Everyman's or the Library of America, but above the quality of the current Penguin's hardcover classics, for example. It's clearly superior to what's in Overlook's paperback edition.
5) The artwork is fairly sparse and idiosyncratic, but it's by the author, so what can you say?
I'm glad I went ahead and bought this edition.
I postponed buying this new hardcover illustrated edition of the Gormenghast Trilogy for several weeks, hoping that someone would post an Amazon review describing it physically, or that Amazon would allow us to look inside it, or that the publisher would be a
Show More
little more descriptive on its website, but no one came through, so I took the plunge and bought it anyway, and I just unwrapped it. Here's a review telling you what I had hoped someone else would tell me:1) The binding is (wine and white) paper over board.
2) Signatures are clearly visible, but I can't see any stitching.
3) In a few spots in my copy, the binding appears to be on the verge of breaking. I will be surprised if it survives unbroken through one reading. It's hard to glue together a book this thick and have it hold, I think.
4) The printing is crisp and clear, and the paper is acceptable: Probably a little below what you'd expect from Everyman's or the Library of America, but above the quality of the current Penguin's hardcover classics, for example. It's clearly superior to what's in Overlook's paperback edition.
5) The artwork is fairly sparse and idiosyncratic, but it's by the author, so what can you say?
I'm glad I went ahead and bought this edition.
Show Less
LibraryThing member penwing
The first two books in this series are beautiful. Expansively claustrophobic, brilliantly realised, the occasional chapter of pure thought-stream.
The third and final book is disappointing. Leaving behind all that he, and we, know, Titus leaves Gormenghast to explore a new world which doesn't match
Don't let the last book put you off. The humour, characters, plot in the first two books are well worth the read.
The third and final book is disappointing. Leaving behind all that he, and we, know, Titus leaves Gormenghast to explore a new world which doesn't match
Show More
anything. The Characters aren't as... real. The world makes little sense, and Gormenghast's place in it even less. Don't let the last book put you off. The humour, characters, plot in the first two books are well worth the read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Lisuebie
Truly wierd. Slow. Great imagery, depressing story line.
LibraryThing member angharad_reads
Coincidentally inherited a copy from a friend, during the same trip that I wolfed down Perdido Street Stn. Finding this a harder slog. I'm a speed-reader, but Peake requires one to read every word.
LibraryThing member ParadoxicalRae
One of my most favorite books of all time. The story begins with the birth of the 77th Earl of Groan, Titus. On the same day, a very determined kitchen boy, Steerpike, begins his ruthless climb up the social ladder of the castle. The first two books are incredibly good but the third is heavily
Show More
edited and seems unfinished--from what I gather, it's because Peake died before he could finish the novel. However, the first two are well worth it. Show Less
LibraryThing member BeeQuiet
I give this trilogy a five star rating in spite of the fact that the third book, Titus Alone, is poor when viewed in contrast with the first two. What must be taken into account is that Peake was in failing health when he wrote the third, so I shall speak no more on that one.
The first two books are
The first two books are
Show More
a journey through a realm dictated by a strict bureaucracy in the form of the archaic institutions of the Gormanghast dynasty. The imagery is second to none, and gives such a richly textured account of the place and the people as to take the reader's breath away. The descent into chaos is in the same moment both triumphantly and painfully detailed. We can see many parallels with society today if we look for them. This is a stunning tour de force. Show Less
LibraryThing member MarshaKT
I actuallly ddnt't get through this book - like the several Dickens books I idn't get through - and Gormenghast has a decidedly Dickensian feel about it. I love the densithy of the writing, but can't read as many pages of it as he has written. The tone is wonderfully vile, the characters reek and
Show More
it's a rollicking good read. Show Less
LibraryThing member li33ieg
Seriously gothic! I enjoyed this so much more than I liked [The Lord of the Rings] and have been a huge fan of [[Mervin Peake]]'s ever since! At the time, [[Peake]] was less known and far less popular, and I never could understand why. The Gormanghast Trilogy unveils a plot that is no less
Show More
thrilling than [[Tolkein]]'s and, perhaps because the characters are essentially human even if they are quite seriously weird, I found it a lot easier to stick with. Maybe that's just me though. There's no corresponding trilogy of movies that I'm aware of, which makes it harder to persuade teenagers it's worth the effort. Individualists will love it, however. Show Less
LibraryThing member BobNolin
Titus Groan was barely readable, but I'm glad I got through it so I could read Gormenghast and understand the backstory. That was a pretty good story. I skipped Titus Alone, since the story really seemed to have ended by the second book, and he was in failing health when he wrote TA. 800 pages is
Show More
enough, I figure. Not sure I understand why the Fantasy Encyclopedia calls this sui generis and a masterpiece. It seemed a bit odd, not very much in the fantasy mode, and often way too long. Peake developed quite a lot after writing the first book. It's a shame he wasn't able to write more. I needed to check this one off my life list, and now it's done. Show Less
LibraryThing member PamelaDLloyd
I've finished the first novel in this omnibus edition and I really enjoyed it. Even so, I'm currently taking a break before moving on to the next one.
LibraryThing member annerell
One of my All Time Favorite Book Series. A must read, tho can be difficult to get into. Detailed description make the world of Gormenghast come alive
LibraryThing member markalanlaidlaw
perfect for late teenagers......first two books are mind-blowing 'his eyeball a corroded musket ball...!!!
LibraryThing member MerricMaker
Bleech! Peake must have been a single most unwelcome guest at the Inkling's table at the Eagle and Child. Lewis and Tolkien probably just learned to tune him out.
Subjects
Awards
Locus All-Time Best (Fantasy Novel — 6 — 1998)
Waterstones Books of the Century (55 — 1997)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1967
Physical description
1032 p.; 8.2 inches
ISBN
0879519746 / 9780879519742