Mervyn Peake

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. Peake has created a world where all is like a dream--lush, fantastical, vivid, and yet symbolic of a dark struggle. At the center of everything is the seventy-seventh earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual whose origins are lost in history, and the castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. When Titus is crowned, he is called "Child-Inheritor of the rivers, of the Tower of Flints and the dark recesses beneath cold stairways...Child-Inheritor of the spring breezes that blow in from the jarl forests and of the autumn misery in petal, scale, and wing."

Titus Groan

Saima

By this time the hour was practically at hand for the gathering and from their various apartments the persons concerned were sallying forth. Each one with his or her particular stride. His or her particular eyes, nose, mouth, hair, thoughts and feelings. Self contained, carrying their whole selves with them as they moved, as a vessel that holds its own distinctive wine, bitter or sweet. These seven closed their doors behind them, terrifyingly themselves, as they set out for the Cool Room.

Great activity might have been observed in many ofthe rooms of Gormenghast as the hour of three approached, but the cool room waited in a serene silence. The only life in the room lay in the throats of the flowers.

Sarah Sammis

I've wanted to
read the Gormenghast trilogy since I saw the 6 hour (?)
miniseries a couple of years ago. The miniseries had the feel of
a movie made from a book (or books) in the same way that the
Harry Potter movies do. It seemed that a lot of details were being
left out to keep the pacing good on the assumption that people
interested in watching had read the book(s) and could fill in the
details from memory.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how good the book is. The focus is
on how strange and stilted culture can become when it is no
longer allowed to progress. So much of the plot is centered
around the description of the decaying castle.

There's a scene where the library is torched. The library had
been the one place where the 76th Earl of Gormenghast felt at
all at home and was at all human. I think any avid bookcrosser
would find meaning in this short passage.

Then there is the title character. Poor little Titus! I really feel sorry
for him in this first book. One comment though about Titus. By the end of the book he's just over a year old but he isn't depicted well. Perhaps the lack of love in his early life stunted him or perhaps the stilted dialogue style of the book is the reason for Titus remaining mum.

Michael Springer

I couldn't decide whether this should be a four-star book or a five-star book. Then, I realized that I got everything out of this book that I want out of a fantasy novel. I suppose that means it should get five stars, right?

This book has the utterly compelling and original setting of Groan Castle, a monstrous behemoth of a castle where whole sections have been forgotten and abandoned. It has many wonderful characters who are simultaneously outlandish and complex. And one of these characters is Steerpike, an upstart boy who is clever enough to turn all of Groan Castle on its head, and gradually maneuvers his way from a kitchen helper to a quite prestigious position (and one gets the sense his ascension is going to continue in the sequel). I don't want to spoil anything because I definitely recommend this book. The only flaw was the pacing is sometimes slow. Unfortunately, the first hundred pages or so are fairly slow as you gradually discover the environment of the castle. But, when the plot starts to thicken, it quickly becomes very hard to put down.

Prashanth Srivatsa

One of the most exquisitely crafted tales of fantasy, the first volume in the Gormenghast trilogy brings together deranged characters and their ambitions when a new son is born to the Earl of Groan. The beautiful, yet decadent stones of the castle, and the quiet mockery of the numerous rituals and traditions that undergo within those walls, themselves form the backdrop for a cunning plot of power and betrayal. In a place which stubbornly refuses to accommodate change, Peake questions the morality of his characters on the face of it. A classic, through and through.

As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born- he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.

Savannah Winchell

3,5 but mostly bc I barely listened to the end bc drunkkkkk

Cams Campbell

I just completed this for the second time and enjoyed it more than I did the first time around. This is the first of a trilogy, although it was never meant to be a trilogy, just that Mervyn Peake died too soon.

The imagery that this novel conjures up is simply wonderful. The descriptive writing is some of the best I have read and Peake's use of the English language is a joy to behold.

The story is about the 77th Earl of Groan, Lord Titus. He is born in Gormenghast, a place of strange rituals whose origins seem to have been forgotten, but which are rigorously adhered to nonetheless.

The calculating and devious Steerpike manages to escape from the kitchens and the abhorrent chef, Swelter and beings manipulating the characters of Gormenghast for his own personal gain. He throws the castle into turmoil with his antics and therein lies the tale.

I 'read' the audiobook, downloaded from Audible, and it was very well read indeed. I highly recommend this book.

The brilliant first novel in the legendary gothic fantasy trilogy As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone. As the ruling family grows, deep in the cavernous kitchens the ambitious scullery boy Steerpike plots his ascent, determined to subvert the archaic order and bring revolution to the ancient stasis of Gormenghast.

Fraser Simons

Wow, this book blew me away. Typically I get a bit annoyed with authors that don’t drive the plot forward much but I have to say the prose and the mastery of the English language, especially in giving the text a lyrical quality and flow, was just so entrancing I didn’t care much. It is a very slow book, maybe THE slowest book I’ve read, actually. But I’ve never seen something as well realized as this, at least not in fantasy literature. 

The characters and the world are fantastic, as is every facet of each. From mannerisms to crevasse of the castle! I’m not even really sure what to liken the fiction to though. It is fantasy but... like... what, baroque fantasy, I guess? I’ll definitely continue. I am all about it. 

As a side note, the audiobook edition I thought was quite good. Simon Vance aka Robert Whitfield does a great job and you really notice the lyrical qualities and flow when it is read aloud.

Simon Elliott Stegall

My opinion of this book exceeded my enjoyment of it. 

Peake's prose is in some ways amazing; as baroque as a Bach fugue or Durer etching and as limpid as the Grand Prismatic. His vocabulary and description is actually pretty astounding; neither of them are pretentious or overly erudite, they're just unusual and curious. I wish I had read this and not listened to it on audio, because some sentences were so curious that I lost them (plus Peake's illustrations, which I looked up periodically, are awesome and I'm sad I didn't get to experience them as the- story? no, panorama- unfolded). The characters are extremely British in their caricatured weirdness and silly melodrama, but they also have deeper sides, especially Fuchsia and Prunesquallor, who are very annoying at the beginning of the book but by the end have developed an actually quite touching friendship. The general aura of gothic saturnity is beyond compare in anything I've read, and sometimes really beautiful.

BUT. Despite all of this I found myself struggling to maintain curiosity about the world and the characters. At times I was brought back in- "I AM THE DEATH OWL!" hooked me for a few hours, and the duel between Mr. Flay and Swelter was magnificent- but overall there was something missing for me. 

Call it lack of an organizing principle. I couldn't understand what I was meant to be enjoying or looking forward to. Again, this may be remedied by reading the book and not listening to it. But I felt like there was no theme or central conflict. 

Am I just ruined by too many English classes? 

My conclusion is that Titus Groan is the most original fantasy (if you can call it that- it's certainly not anything else) I've ever read, and its appeal is more for its incredible verbal architecture and crumbling-castle-on-a-misty-lake-with-unplumbed-dungeons-and-frosty-towers aesthetic than for any progression of... I dunno, theme, genius, force, story, whatever. Read in the spirit that it was written, it might be fair to call it a masterpiece. But I'm a little torn on whether I'll move on to book 2.

Titus Groan

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