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Fiction. Science Fiction & Fantasy. HTML: A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast trilogy, which reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is Titus Groan, the seventy-seventh Earl, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom. In this second volume, Titus comes of age within the walls of Gormenghast Castle and discovers various family intrigues. Having been "exiled" to grow up with the common children until the age of fifteen, Titus has discovered secret hiding places in the castle from where he can watch and learn unobserved. Disconnected from his future responsibilities, Titus drifts back and forth between the complicated social world he will grow up to govern and a world of fantasy and daydream..… (more)
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So, having been won over to the style and gained favorites among the characters, I expected to fall right into the sequel. I didn't find that to be the case, I think because the very characters I was most attached to weren't featured much in the first 100 pages--one of them didn't appear until well after that mark. Instead a whole new cast of characters appeared. Titus was barely over a year old at the end of the first book--at the start of this book he's now he's seven-years-old--a schoolboy--and we get to meet his professors. It was amusingly Hogwartesque, especially as we get in one chapter a game with boys flying in the air (sans magic) with the star player sporting black hair and a birthmark on his forehead. And the outcome of that game... well, it produced a rather macabre giggle. Then there was this moment with Titus and his sister Lady Fuchsia bonding... And well, by the time we get to the scene with Titus playing marbles with the elderly headmaster and Dr Prune, I was once again enthralled. In fact, I'd say I liked this book a tad more than the first volume.
And I have to say, while I wouldn't precisely say I was fond of him, I increasingly found Steerpike one of the most fascinating villains in fantasy literature. He'd be admirable were he not so evil--brilliant, cunning, brave, athletic and ambitious--he makes Rowling's Lord Voldemort look like a crude amateur. And he and Titus were interesting foils for each other.
So, now on to Titus Alone, the last part of the trilogy. It's about half of the size of the first two books, and I have it on good authority it's even weirder!
‘Words are millstones’ – too true, and Peake’s Gormenghast, being a masterpiece, presents one with an equally weighty task when trying to review it. The second book in
Like Titus Groan, the first book in the cycle, Gormenghast is mainly concerned with an exploration of character: it has even been called a ‘fantasy of manners’. You will find neither magic in the novel, nor such pseudo-medieval accoutrements as knights or wizards. There is no map at the beginning of the book. You will search in vain for elves, dwarves or dragons. Peake writes more in the tradition of Dickens than Tolkien, although to say he writes in a tradition is misleading. Nothing quite resembles Gormenghast, not even the other two books in the series. Whereas Titus Groan was a much more contained novel, relating only about a year’s action, Gormenghast stretches the bounds of the Bildungsroman, while Titus Alone will go off on a whole other tangent, with its theme of the stranger in a strange land. Gormenghast is hard to describe, except as the emanation of a truly original mind.
Peake writes with the eye of an artist, which he was. But he is more than merely a good setter of scenes. He is equally adept at creating tension, eliciting emotion, and plotting his novel. The book can also be unexpectedly funny – Peake likes to tease the reader with his wordplay, but also with straight-faced asides that can be hilarious. For instance, in this passage, the young students of Gormenghast are playing an illicit game with hand-held catapults:
'There had been a time when clay – and even glass marbles were used; but after the third death and a deal of confusion in the hiding of the bodies, it was decided to be content with paper bullets.'
This is so unexpected, and delivered with such deadpan seriousness, that I could not help but roar with laughter. The image of seven-year olds nonchalantly disposing of the bodies of their classmates – with a ‘deal of confusion’, at that – tickles the sadist in me, I guess. But Peake can also be heart-achingly sombre and serious. The fate of Fuchsia, Titus’ dreamy, awkward sister, had me in tears near the end of the book. This is thanks to Peake’s amazing skill at characterisation: he draws out the peculiarities of each of his cast, forming fully-rounded personalities. My favourite character has to be Dr. Prunesquallor. Not only is he a hilariously verbose dandy, but he is also a man of discerning tastes and extreme intelligence, with a compassionate heart to boot.
The two main characters, according to my interpretation of the book, are Titus and Steerpike. They represent opposites who are, however, subtly intertwined. Titus, the privileged golden boy, seems a far cry from Steerpike, the former kitchen boy who, through deceit and skulduggery, scaled his way to a position of rank in the Gormenghast hierarchy. They are both, however, rebels at heart, willing to subvert the ancient laws of Gormenghast to reach their goals. Yet there are differences between them even on this front, differences of method and scale. Whereas Steerpike is willing to do anything to gain stature, with rebellion serving only as a means to an end, Titus only wishes to escape the deadening influence of Gormenghast and its superfluous rituals. Steerpike is brilliant, but, to take an image from Terry Pratchett, he is brilliant like the shards of a smashed mirror, all twinkling with bright points of light, but irrevocably broken. Titus is humane and caring, if somewhat confused and powerless throughout much of the novel. By the end of the story, he will have gained his independence from Gormenghast, but not without paying the cost of innocence lost.
As I said at the beginning of the review, Gormenghast is a masterpiece. It has minor flaws – Peake can stray into some seemingly pointless plotlines, and he is not immune to the odd bit of purple prose – but these flaws are really part of the charm of the work. They highlight the risk of absurdity and irrelevance that Peake walked in writing such an original work. The fact that he manages to pull off this tightrope act with the barest hints of overbalancing only emphasises what a brilliant fantasist he was.
This book continues the adventures of the survivors from the
I found it a bit of a slow read, although there are several amazingly compelling scenes, ranging from the magical pageantry of Titus' birthday masque to the pulse-pounding pursuit of Steerpike through the labyrinthine passages of the castle. The Prunesquallors' soiree and subsequent love scene in the garden provided one of the funniest interludes I can remember reading.
On the other hand, some parts of the story seemed to go on much too long (in particularly the will-he-or-won't-he-drown section, which lasted so long I almost lost the will to live). I haven't yet read the last in the series but may well do so one day.
But Peake doesn't seem to know if he wants allegory, high satire, or low parody, and all to often settles for the last in a grimy ramshackle way that the "Fantasy of Manners" label I see applied to this book does only so much to excuse. I'll give fantasy of manners to Fuchsia, and maybe (maybe) Irma Prunesquallor and Bellgrove, although Peake all too often seems to be looking down his nose Britishly at their marriage with sneery vignettes, rather than the good-humoured touch they demand. But the schoolmasters and pupils, the way they intrude like broken-record trash knockoffs of the sort of just-over-the-top public-school parody you might see in e.g. Waugh, the way you're constantly invited to take this book seriously and then get your nose pushed into turgid slapstick comedy, is demoralizing.
And it saps the book's might to an extent. Too much of the time you feel like they could all be called Prunesquallor. Peake should have decided whether he wanted a Jungian fable or credit for preemptively writing Pink Floyd's The Wall, and then stuck with it.
And Titus is a cipher, grimmer than Prince Hal or Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime and that's all. He has another chance to shine, though, in book 3, and by the end of this one I was starting to care a little. But I think Peake wants me to think "Can he be free?", when I really just think "Will he turn out to be damaged goods?"
In this second novel by Peake the author becomes more detailed and numbers his chapters instead of titling as he did in his last novel. The story closely follows the movie it end with the Death of Steerpike and Titus leaving on horseback to seek his destiny. Oddly there is another
6-2005
The thing that made me impatient to start reading it,
Another thing I loved about the writing style was the rich, lengthy descriptions. Some people might find this tedious, I'm guessing (just from reading the other reviews on here) but description - preferably focussing on minute details - is one of my favorite things in writing, both as a reader and author.
I can't wait to read the other volumes.
The good:
There are shining bits of artist's prose that stay with you forever. The flight of herons, the forgotten halls under the
By the final fight between Titus and Steerpike, I couldn't put the book down.
There are characters I love in it. The mighty countess, fighting danger, saving Gormanghast from the flood. The kind Doctor. Fuchsia, oh Fuchsia, naive and romantic and passionate.
The bad:
If as a feminist you want to talk about how annoying it is when horrible things happen to women just because it's convenient for character growth in some male protagonist, this is an excellent book which will give you more examples than you ever really wanted.
The oscillation between the schoolroom farce and courtship of Irma and the main plot of dark murders and angst has some rapid lurches in tone.
Steerpike is clearly the Evil Villain, but also clearly the most interesting character in the book, far more so than Titus. When your reader's sympathies find themselves straying towards the youth who burns people alive and leaves elderly women starving to death you know you have a problem with likable characters.
The hormone levels in this novel are low enough to be fatal to any Sarah J Maas heroine; they'd just wither and crumble (((((((((((in an elegant, luxurious and opulent way, of course!))))))))). For some reason Peake forgot to add the
That's right, in the past, authors were capable of writing books that weren't complete formulaic, egregious shit. Publishers actually paid professionals to edit the books for quality control and the best reading experience. Not that the publishing industry needs to worry, I stopped eating at McDonalds in 1985 and they're still in business. So continue to produce those fine, high quality McBooks to meet the demands of the masses for easy, nutrition-free, fast, fast, fast consumption!
I'll be fine. I have two shelves of books ready for me to read. Second-hand books purchased from small sellers who understand the obscure tastes of discriminating readers. I prefer to spend my big, fat, middle-aged discretionary income with those types of businesses. As a result, I get five to ten used books for the same price as a new book. The quality of the material I receive is far greater in proportion than the quantity.
Plus, I plan to re-read this book.........multiple times........because it's complex........and beautifully written..........full of bizarre and wonderful characters. I loved this book.
I definitely enjoyed it more than the first book but I may have read the first
I can see why something like this never goes out of print. It truly is a classic in a niche of its own.
A powerful, and truly odd and inventive book.