The Gormenghast Trilogy

[Gannon]

I have just finished reading the first book of the Gormenghast Trilogy, "Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake. This is one of the most bizarre books I have ever read. The writing is very descriptive and it is a very dark, gothic, macabre book.

The blurb on the back reads,

Gormenghast is the vast crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is Lord and heir. Gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old ritual, a world primed to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder in a world suggested in a tour de force that ranks as one of this century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing

It was published in 1946.

If anyone else has read this book or the whole series please let me know what you think. As I said it is a very bizarre, wierd book. I am dying to know what other people think of it.

[perusaphone]

Hello fellow Peake afficianado, I have read all his books, some weirder than others. The Gormenghast trilogy is a bit of a monster read, although he is well regarded here in good old England. The television people thought it almost impossible to make into a play/serial, but, with Christopher Lee's intervention, they came up with a good rendition of the first book. I imagine it is available on DVD by now.
The book Titus Groan, being the first one, tells us of his home being the Gormenghast palace of old. Barquentine, is the faithful keeper of the books, which foretell of day to day events that have to be strictly adhered to, with Titus getting in on the act, everything goes terribly wrong as he gets older and wiser. It has a certain pointlessness about all the pomp and ceremony, which Peake based as his interpretation of the ruling classes in Britain at the time, confined and regulated to the nnth degree until boredom takes over.
The place is frequented by an odd assortment of folk, if you have an illustrated version, you can see what I mean. It certainly builds a vivid picture in my mind of the sheer enormity of the place.
I have reread the set several times and they do get weirder as you go through, it comes over as a bit of an adventure, but with real events taking place, the character Steerpike is just a smarmy, wannabe who deserves the worst, but you can see Peake using him as a metaphor to highlight the greed and deviousness of some people.
As I say, they get stranger, but so did Peake. It's a big story, told in a rather brief way that could have gone on for ever, but I expect Peake became rather bored with each book so he started another one.
May I recommend you see if you can get the television version, just to add a bit of substance to the original concept, which is well known over here, but I fear not in the Antipodes..
Another book is Mr. Pye, based on the Channel Island of Sark, he arrives as a sort of angel character and it goes on from there, very weird but readable, I have been to Sark and the places are all there..
So...First Titus Groan, then Gormenghast followed by Titus Alone, they get harder as you go into them..enjoy.

[Gannon]

Hey there perusaphone. Thanks for the advice and I will try and track down the tv series. I am currently just about finished the second book. They are really a slog to read but very rewarding. I can see myself in the future gonig back and rereading them and finding things that I missed in the first reading. Some parts of the books are really bizarre. For example, in the first book where the earl goes mad and believes he is an owl and then is eaten by the owls. All of the rituals that they have to perform reminds me of ancient Rome where they performed old antiquated rituals and if there was one mistake made they had to start again from the beginning. All of the characters are so deep and real. I really like flay with his clicking knees. The fight between flay and swelter had me on the edge of my seat. I wonder why they hated each other so much? Steerpike is indeed very devious but he is probably my favourite character. Anyway I am off to finish the second and start on the third. I will let you know what I think when I finish.

[Gannon]

Well I have just finished the series. I must say without a doubt that this series is one of the strangest and wierd I have ever read. Peake builds this dark gothic world of ancient rituals. So much time is devoted to each of the major characters that you feel you know them. Of the whole series I was a little disappointed with the third book. However I believe that Peake died before it was published and it was put together from notebooks and typescript by a Mr Langdon Jones. To me the third book did feel a little bit "unfinished" and rushed but still does a nice job of finishing up the series. Overall a very rewarding read.

[perusaphone]

I am so pleased that you all find the books so weird, it makes you imagine it all, and that has to be a plus with everything in this world done for us...
The Flay character was played by Christopher Lee himself in the television adaptation ( the Hammer films Dracula). He is a strange hero indeed. In the television thingy, he dislikes Swelter because he is a rotund, rude, piglike man with an aversion to abuse, a drunken sot etc, Swelter also dislikes Flay, so conflict is inevitable.
My favorite character has to be Dr. Prunesquallor and his sister, although the Headmaster is a strange man as well, but there again I may be biased by the television portrayal.
These books are slowly becoming classics in their own right over here, and quite rightly so....