Rating: 
Summary: A beautifully written, plotless excercise in narrative.
Review: It was with some anticipation that I began Titus Groan as it came highly recommended. As you read the first three pages you are struck by the wonderful, baroque prose. It is beautiful writing but Peake never gives us a story to hang our expectations on. I must confess that I only read to page 230. The book went nowhere. This is an example of a man who loved to write and posessed a talent for description but had no interest in telling a story. Two hundred pages of description and minimal character development left me exhausted. If you are around 100 pages in and are feeling frustrated, I suggest moving on. It never picks up. It's the first two thirds of "The Dragonbone Chair" with not a hint of story.
Rating: 
Summary: A haunting read
Review: My mother told me that the book was worth reading a few years ago, but she had never finished it herself. I have never been able to understand how she put it down and forgot about it - to me that seems impossible. From the start I was transfixed by the twisted, stagnant air that arose from the book, with the characters immersed in their strange lives and rituals. It was totally engulfing, and I immediently placed it with my favourite books of all time. Through all the perverse reason and decided weirdness about the characters you cannot help feeing a strange empathy for them, and Peake's take on humanity cracks through. The Gormenghast trilogy are those sort of books that grab you somewhere inside and pull you through the chapters. Then, when you are finished, they don't let you go, but stay with you. I have always judged whether I truly enjoyed a book by the effect it has on me afterwards. If I continue to think about it a few books on, I know that I loved it. And these books have continued to haunt my mind ever since I picked the first one up.
Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding!
Review: One of the best works of fiction in the English
language I have ever had the good fortune to read.
(and I got my copy for free!) It often gets lumped
in with Tolkien, which it just does not deserve at
all; Peake is a refreshing original. It tells the
tale of the events following the birth of Titus,
the heir to the throne of the ancient castle Gormenghast.
Unlike other works of fantasy I have read, this book
does not romanticize. Most of the denizens of Gormenghast
are weird, often downright creepy, and none is described
as being particularly handsome. But considering the
isolation caused by living in such a place, compounded
by the seemingly pointless and endless ritual, one
can understand why characters are the way they are
(e.g.: Titus' bizarre aunts, his morose sister Fuchsia,
villainous Steerpike, etc.) All right, my description
is pretty poor, but believe me, this is an outstanding
novel you won't want to reach the end of. Also excellent
is the sequel "Gormenghast"; which, while it adds
too many new characters (you'll find yourself asking
"Which one's Perch-Prism again?), caps off the Titus
story dramatically (I've been told to avoid "Titus
Alone"). One of my all-time favourites!
Rating:
Summary: The book that converted me to the fantasy genre..
Review: Spectacularly imaginative! I loved the dark world of Gormenghast. Peopled with larger than life characters it's among the most vividly written books I've ever read in any genre. Until I read this book I was admittedly skeptical about the fantasy genre as a whole, but after reading this stunning book I realized there was a whole world of writing out there I'd overlooked. A stunning, stunning book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: The characters are ugly and almost inhuman. The castle itself is a brooding, decaying symbol of how the house of Groan has declined. Most of the characters have nothing likeable about them. It's hard to sympathize with their plights, except for in brief moments of understanding. There are no wars, no vast worlds to save, no grand epic feel to the book. The action is steady and sometimes subtle. You have to be willing to carefully read the dialogue and observe the interplay between characters. I read this book slowly, to savor it. I had just read several books much fatter and much more action-packed that left me empty and cold. This book, which is loaded with darkness and chills, left me fired up and eager to read the next one. I love the characters for their madness, the plot for its thickness, and especially the prose for its exquisite richness. This is my favorite book, and my favorite author, period. And yes, I've read Tolkien.
Rating: 
Summary: Before Goths there was Mervyn Peake
Review: The Gormenghast Trilogy consists of two wonderful books, Titus Groan and Gormenghast, and one dreadfully confused book Titus Alone. I recommend the reader work through all three but really, the first two can be read alone perfectly satisfactorily.
Mr Peake invokes an ancient castle set in no particular time where ritual has become as much part of the fabric of life as food. For Titus, young heir to the kingdom, there is no escaping the drudgery of court life. Every day of the year his movements are proscribed by the ancient tomes that are cared for and interpreted first by Sourdust, then Barquentine and finally the arch villain, Steerpike. The atmosphere is Gothic, surreal, as menacing and slow as a quicksand. The characters are bizarre freaks moving against the dark, grim backdrop of the castle. Overwhelmed by all this tradition, Titus rebels and quickly finds himself at odds with the very fabric of his ancient home. His allies and his enemies take their sides and begin their macabre dance and, to use Mr Peake's phrase, 'Titus is wading through his childhood.' Fantastic.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for the imaginative
Review: The power went out at my house yesterday, and I picked up Titus Groan to read by candlelight. Peake reminds some of Dickens, but he is much more eccentric than Dickens and the humor is darker. I would instead associate Titus Groan with strange and fantastic books like A Voyage to Arcturus, The King in Yellow, Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, House on the Borderlands, some of the Zothique stories, perhaps Ligotti, maybe Brian Aldiss's Malacia Tapestry, and maybe even some Richard Adams (Girl in a Swing?, Shardik?). But I only associate it with those books because they also took me to some very very odd places soaking with strange atmosphere, but maybe they wouldn't work for you, and it is perhaps best to say that Peake is unique. Peake has an almost feverish view of his odd castle and its self-absorbed inhabitants. His descriptive technique is exceedingly different, for instance, there are birds and bird imagery on every page, and nearly everyone seems to be birdlike with Sepulchrave taking this to the marvelous extreme. While unique and marvelous, his prose is not perfect--he often overuses certain metaphors and gets a bit repetitious with his "paper" sun and moon, "sepia"-colored everything, inky shadows, towers as perpindicular rulers, pearls and strings of water, reflections in droplets and pools, "pricks" of light, and he certainly is fond of "sucking" metaphors (feet, swamps, ghost-cats, etc.), he even has "sighing" flagstones at one point. Maybe floorboards can sigh, but surely not flagstones. The twins dialog is tiresome, but I love the characters, all as lavishly and precisely drawn as, well, drawings. Making them a bit 2 dimensional. The prose goes positively delirious in Blood at Midnight and other places, but I rather like the sometimes awkward, raucous and jumbled imagery. I certainly recommend this book to anyone who wants oceans of atmosphere and absolutely vivid character archetypes that will accompany you forever through life, and jump readily to mind the next time you think you observe a bloated and perverted chef perhaps tip-toeing while whispering to a monstrous cleaver, or a totally mad king perched on a mantle hooting like an owl, or an enormous and serene earth mother with birds in her unkempt hair and a sea of cats swirling at her feet, or a mincing tittering winking yet charming doctor. Who is more marvelous than Mrs. Slagg or Mr. Flay? Anyway, I can't do justice to this book. I recommend it to anyone with a hungry imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, wow... what a fantastic world Peake creates.
Review: There is not one author who can write like Mervyn Peake. This man had such a command of the english language that when he writes, he creates vivid images and pictures in your mind that no other author can do.People told me Anne Rice and Tolkien would compete, but by far and away Mervyn Peake is just a master at story telling and imagery. Titus Groan is just one heck of a read - it's thoroughly enjoyable and definately worth the time to read. When reading, read slow and take it all in. It's worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing compares.
Review: These are three wonderful novels. I admit at times they are heavy going but they are worth the effort. Also the second book Gormenghast has real excitement and plot drive. The third book was a surpirise but not a dissapointment, if you stopped at the second go on. The imagery of the third novel is some of the most beautiful and haunting. Comaprison with Tolkein or fantsay novels is not valid, there is no magic here and no unpronouncable words with only one vowel. I was once asked what my favourite novel was and replied the Gornmenghast trilogy, the questioners reply was oh fantasy lots of wizards, yuk. This prevented him from reading one of the English languages major works of fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Forgotten Masterpiece
Review: This begins Mervyn Peake's epic trilogy. The trilogy can stand with anything in Western Literature (By the way is there really an Eastern Literature?). I could talk about the depth of the characterizations, the energy and effort invested in the prose, and solid (if somewhat tedious) ploting. Instead I'd like to mention despite everything that happens this is merely Act 1 of the play. It set's up the world in which Titus is born the events that will shape his soul even while he is an infant. It gives us something that no other book (play, movie, etc) does. An understanding of how events around us effect even the events we do not participate in.
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