Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars A “Supernaturally Outlandish” Masterpiece Gormenghast (1950), the second novel in Mervyn Peake’s classic fantasy trilogy, opens with seven-year-old Titus Groan, the 77th Earl of Gormenghast, already conflicted by rebellious desires to escape the meaningless rituals and dry duties of the castle and from his role as its figurehead: “His days were full of meaningless ceremonies whose sacredness appeared to be in inverse ratio to their comprehensibility or usefulness.” The novel depicts Titus’ maturing into a sensitive and self-aware young man scarred by violence, seasoned by loss, and attracted by the world outside. Into that plot Peake weaves the career of the amoral ex-kitchen boy Steerpike, ever scheming his way deeper into the heart of Gormenghast. And for comic relief, Peake spends (almost too) much time with Professor Bellgrove, his bachelor colleagues, and Irma Prunesquallor, who wants a husband. There are many memorable set pieces in the novel, like the moment when Titus and his sister Fuchsia discover that they love each other, the funeral of the bird-tiny Nannie Slag, the “Bachelorette” soiree at the Prunesquallors, the demise of an anile headmaster, the game of marbles in the Lichen Fort, the life or death struggle between an athletic malevolent youth and a septuagenarian crippled dwarf, the tracking of a satanic outlaw, the aborted ceremony of the Bright Carvings, the encounter with the wild Thing in the forest cave, the Biblical flooding of the castle, and the schoolboy game featuring a classroom window 100 feet above the ground, a giant plane tree, a pair of polished floor boards, and a gauntlet of slingshots. Audiobook reader Simon Vance’s narrator is clear, refined, and sympathetic, and his character voices varied and on target (especially Dr. Prunesquallor, Irma, Bellgrove, Barquentine, Steerpike, and Flay). But his Fuchsia needs more raw passion and less nasal whine and his Countess Gertrude more gravitas and less dowager quaver. Gormenghast resembles the first novel in the trilogy, Titus Groan. Both books are set in a vividly realized castle world populated by grotesque denizens. Both intoxicate the reader with rich language, baroque detail, painterly description, and blended humor and pathos. Both leave images etched upon the mind’s eye. Both feature long passages of conversation or description punctuated by unpredictable scenes of suspenseful action. Both express themes about the primacy of passion and imagination over reason and calculation and the comforting and stultifying influence of tradition on human lives. However, although both novels are “fantasies of manners,” Gormenghast is also a romantic comedy, a British school story, a gothic thriller, and a bildungsroman. And it highlights new themes: the conflict between duty and freedom and the transformations, wonders, and absurdities of love and aging. The focus on Titus and his desire to be free shifts the novel away from the more leisurely pace and adult themes of the first one. While the first book covers about a year in the life of the castle and is mainly about the effect of Titus’ birth on other people, this book covers about ten years in the life of Titus and is primarily about his maturing. In a way the titles of the first and second novels should be switched! This book is more funny, moving, and terrible than the first. I kind of prefer the first, though, because I’m uneasy about how much attention Peake gives to the professors and Irma. Gormenghast is a great work full of dense and poetic writing, grotesque and human characters, and humorous, moving, and epic stories set in an exaggerated fantasy world that recalls our own. Finally, Gormenghast, like Titus Groan, is a unique masterpiece that offers a satisfying conclusion to the story arc of the first two novels that almost renders the third book, Titus Alone, unnecessary. View all my reviews
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