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heathergstl's review
1.0
This book, despite being a genre I normally love, just did NOT speak to me at all! I actually bailed on it.
daja57's review against another edition
5.0
An heir, Titus,is born to Lord Supulchrave, the seventy-sixth Earl of Groan, in the castle of Gormenghast, a place in which every day is governed by tradition and ritual. An ambitious, ruthless and clever seventeen-year-old scullion, Steerpike, leaves his place in the kitchen determined to disrupt and destroy so that he can gain power. Despite the title of the book, it is Steerpike who is the protagonist-villain, who encapsualtes “The hatred of the young for the authority vested in age.” (The Un-Earthing of Barquentine)
It is difficult to find parallels for this work. It has been described as Gothic but I think this is on account of the setting (a castle) and the consequent feeling of claustrophobia. Classic Gothic literature involves the present being haunted by the past and in many ways this novel is its inversion: the present, in the shape of Steerpike, is destroying the present-as-shaped-by-the-past. It has been described as fantasy but there is no magic and very little in the way of supernatural happenings. There is a strong feeling of Lewis Carroll about it (among Peake's most critically acclaimed illustrations were those for Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark) and the characters are classic Dickensian grotesques. The creation of such a complete world is reminiscent of science fiction (and Peake's novella about Titus was published together with science fiction stories by William Golding and John Wyndham).
It is a masterpiece of description. Peake's day job was as an artist and he describes things so that they can be seen. A member of my U3A group who read this book said that Peake often describes a scene in detail and then homes in upon the character in the scene who will carry that part of the story; this is a little like the way a camera sometimes zooms in upon a character in an establishing shot. The descriptions are detailed and rich and wonderful (and they reminded me, again, of Dickens, but they're better). “This is the most painterly form of literature imaginable" although it is true, in the beginning, before the story gets going properly, that the book seems "to move from set tableau to set tableau, more like a series of paintings than like a fluid narrative” (reference here) But I think it is because of these descriptions that Peake convinces us, reading a story about an impossible place, to suspend our disbelief. Anthony Burgess, writing in the introduction to the Penguin edition, says “It is difficult, in post-war English writing, to get away with big, rhetorical gestures. Peake manages it because, with him, grandiloquence never means diffuseness; there is no musical emptiness in the most romantic of his descriptions; he is always exact.” It is that precision of description that creates verisimilitude, even while you know that what is being described is unreal. (Kafka achieves the same in a very different fashion, by being utterly matter-of-fact about the madness he is describing.)
Written during the second world war, I imagine that the writer, a talented artist and illustrator with a taste for the grotesque, would have seen how Hitler had come from obscurity to smash traditional Germany; he might have seen the battle between the old and the new reflected in the Spanish Civil War, in the consequences of an overthrown Empire in the China where he grew up, in social changes in England following the First World War, and in the impact of Futurism and Vorticism in art.
It is followed by the sequels Gormenghast, which is perhaps even better, and Titus Alone, which is rather different (perhaps because it was being written while Peake, still in his forties, was struggling with early onset dementia). A fourth novel, written by Maeve Gilmore, Peake's widow, based on the notes he left, has recently been published.
It is difficult to find parallels for this work. It has been described as Gothic but I think this is on account of the setting (a castle) and the consequent feeling of claustrophobia. Classic Gothic literature involves the present being haunted by the past and in many ways this novel is its inversion: the present, in the shape of Steerpike, is destroying the present-as-shaped-by-the-past. It has been described as fantasy but there is no magic and very little in the way of supernatural happenings. There is a strong feeling of Lewis Carroll about it (among Peake's most critically acclaimed illustrations were those for Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark) and the characters are classic Dickensian grotesques. The creation of such a complete world is reminiscent of science fiction (and Peake's novella about Titus was published together with science fiction stories by William Golding and John Wyndham).
It is a masterpiece of description. Peake's day job was as an artist and he describes things so that they can be seen. A member of my U3A group who read this book said that Peake often describes a scene in detail and then homes in upon the character in the scene who will carry that part of the story; this is a little like the way a camera sometimes zooms in upon a character in an establishing shot. The descriptions are detailed and rich and wonderful (and they reminded me, again, of Dickens, but they're better). “This is the most painterly form of literature imaginable" although it is true, in the beginning, before the story gets going properly, that the book seems "to move from set tableau to set tableau, more like a series of paintings than like a fluid narrative” (reference here) But I think it is because of these descriptions that Peake convinces us, reading a story about an impossible place, to suspend our disbelief. Anthony Burgess, writing in the introduction to the Penguin edition, says “It is difficult, in post-war English writing, to get away with big, rhetorical gestures. Peake manages it because, with him, grandiloquence never means diffuseness; there is no musical emptiness in the most romantic of his descriptions; he is always exact.” It is that precision of description that creates verisimilitude, even while you know that what is being described is unreal. (Kafka achieves the same in a very different fashion, by being utterly matter-of-fact about the madness he is describing.)
Written during the second world war, I imagine that the writer, a talented artist and illustrator with a taste for the grotesque, would have seen how Hitler had come from obscurity to smash traditional Germany; he might have seen the battle between the old and the new reflected in the Spanish Civil War, in the consequences of an overthrown Empire in the China where he grew up, in social changes in England following the First World War, and in the impact of Futurism and Vorticism in art.
It is followed by the sequels Gormenghast, which is perhaps even better, and Titus Alone, which is rather different (perhaps because it was being written while Peake, still in his forties, was struggling with early onset dementia). A fourth novel, written by Maeve Gilmore, Peake's widow, based on the notes he left, has recently been published.
casstheman's review
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
outcolder's review against another edition
5.0
I read a page or two of this a day for the last half-year or so. Peake is a poet and an illustrator and this book is like one long prose-poem. I think if you like the Charles Addams, Edward Gorey, some of the weirder Aubrey Beardsley stuff, you are going to dig this. Not that it is like those guys, this book isn't like anything but itself. I think I will read this again some day. Some of the descriptions were so delicious, I read them several times over before moving on. I guess you could say I savored this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough, even though I would readily admit that most people probably wouldn't like it. I am not trying to be like, "ooh, I am in the cult and that makes me special," it's just that this book is weird. Loved it.
shashanks's review
4.0
Spell binding writing which will transport you to Gormenghast,as though you were witness to every event in the book.Deciding to proceed with the next book in trilogy.
badbadwolf's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Death of parent, Violence, Mental illness, Grief, Murder, Fatphobia, Body shaming, Gore, Confinement, Classism, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Stalking, Miscarriage, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Blood
milostothemax's review
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
What a ride, beautifully imaginative and at times wildly absorbing. However, at times it also creaks and groans (heh) under the weight of it's metaphor and word play.
Your tolerance for long winded diversions and the use of the word "gibbous" will entirely define your mileage with this book. But it is worth it.
Your tolerance for long winded diversions and the use of the word "gibbous" will entirely define your mileage with this book. But it is worth it.
steel_aurora's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
apas's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
I read this book for the second time (first time was around 20 years ago), because I never complete the trilogiy and want to do it now (plus the fourth "lost" book). I still enjoyed it very much. Maybe even better than the first time. That may also be because on my first read the parts about Keda and the mud dwellers seemed so out of place and boring, so I just skimmed those pages this time around. I love this strange world and Steerpike is a wonderful villain. Also this time around I had a lot of sympathy for Fuchsia, a girl who has not known a parents' love or ever had any friends her own age. The reading goes slow and there is a lot of descriptions, but I personally like that style of writing.