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Summary: One of the most amazing books ever
Review: Admittedly i had never heard of the gormenghast trilogy until the BBC made it into their millenium drama this year. As i throughly enjoyed that i felt i should read the books, albeit with the images of the BBCs version in my head so i was never quite able to imagine Steerpike as Peake wrote him for some reason. However i finished the first two amazed at the power of that kind of imagination. It is not fantasy in the goblins etc way but more real humans in a weird world. It is very dark (the second being far darker than the first) but oddly at the same time manages to combine some humour too, particularly in the Prunesquallors parts in Gormenghast. Of the two i preferred Titus Groan, i found it slightly easier to read and more interesting in its descriptions as you were being introduced in Titus Groan to this weird world.
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Summary: Master of imagination and the English language
Review: This is the greatest work of fiction I have ever read, and I have read many. Not only does Peake surpass the word-wielding and sentence-spinning legerdemain of geniuses like O. Henry and Shakespeare, his imagination paints pictures of stunning originality and depth of rumination about what it means to grow and be human. The characters are unforgettable and as unique as the scenes they spin. THIS IS WHAT FANTASY SHOULD BE, not that assembly-line, swords-sorcery, elves-dragons trash that weigh down the sighing bookshelves in our bookstores. Only Donaldson comes close with the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Read it.
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Summary: Steer Clear Of Pike
Review: It is inconceivable how Peake's brooding, beguiling and breathtaking visionary epic, Titus Groan, has managed to be overlooked as one of the most complete works of fiction this century. This novel has a scale that is perhaps only surpassed by the enormity of Gormenghast castle itself; it has sumptuously detailed prose that is microscopic in its examination of events; it has a lavish tapestry of characters woven from the various threads of human emotion; it is comical, unpredictable, delectable and disturbing. It is quite simply a masterpiece.If you have found yourself bound to the One Ring, then the ritual of Gormenghast will almost certainly contain your name in its dusty pages of lore.
Rating: 
Summary: It's like something out of a dream
Review: If you are looking for a challenging read, something very original that has stood the test of time very well. Do yourself a favor and read Mervyn Peakes' Gormengast novels. With all the detailed description this book gives you, you almost could come up with an archetechtural drawing of this gigantic castle. And yet there are very few moments that bog down. He gives life to some spectacularly original characters, and then couples them with almost absurd names which do help to lighten the over all atmosphere of the novels. This book is full of complex rituals, and complicated people. Everyone is on the verge of madness, or would that be a generous assessment? This book, though, has a peculiar affect on the imagination. It makes you feel like your in some sort of dream, because even though you understand everything, nothing really makes sense. Which mirrors that hazy dreamlike state where nothing seems real, but you know that it is. The gormengast novels, are like a hallucination, this book truly takes you away to another place. If you are looking for a breath of fresh air, and want a book that is a real escape, read these books, and enter the Groan world.
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Summary: Gormenghast Rules!
Review: Of all the 20th Century novels I've read, this stands as the greatest work of fiction I've ever seen. As a thing of beauty alone it is unmatched even by the works of Lovecraft. As an allegory of recent history it rivals Orwell's 1984. Peake has created a world that surpasses Tolkien's Middle Earth, a story that rivals Melville's Moby Dick, and an experience that you should not miss!
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Summary: It is all.
Review: where to begin? It is quite simply the greatest work of fiction ever; though I concede it has its faults, they are overshadowed by its greatness. It ranges from utter darkness to greatest light and back. It leaves you with images (see, e.g., Steerpike's journey across the roof-tops) that will be with you always: images that are meaningless and have value only because of their beauty. Steerpike makes Iago look like a Sunday School teacher; Titus makes Hamlet look like a vegetable. Go to Gormenghast. Be there always.
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Summary: Magnificent!
Review: I read Titus Groan upon the recommendation of an English instructor in high school nearly 15 years ago. I still find that many of the images have remained and haunted me all those years. There is a description in the beginning of the towers of Gormengast rising from the ground like black fingers. Incredible! I also will never forget the image of Titus's mother followed by a "sea" of white cats like "foam" with birds nesting in her hair. Or the most amazingly funny twin sisters. The language and imaginative creations in this book are so personal and beautiful and grotesque all at the same time. This is fantastic gothic fiction. It almost refuses to be called fantasy in a genre that has been filled with so many cliches that anything actually fantastic is ignored. I am glad after spending all those years looking through dusty used book bins that this great book has been reprinted.
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Summary: If ever you cry at beauty, at a world that never will be...
Review: Let me be categorically clear on this point: this is, far and away, the best book I have ever read. Let me try to convince you of the same. Peake challenges, assaults and titilates the senses, and harnessses a gargantuan imagination and an immense vocabulary to give birth to a million detailed portraits, interconnected and intertwined in a thick, dense, dark world of crumbling, decrepit, moss-eaten stone of Gormenghast. The words that Peake strings together to deliver his masterpiece drip with unrivaled poetic beauty, and a vividness that makes you tremble and try to reach out and caress just one block of stone that makes up the sprawling haven of static tradition that is Gormenghast. Gormenghast is not a fantasy, but fantastical literature. There are no elves, no magic, no scocery, no mystic religion, and yet Peake renders a dark, complex world that knows no comparison (I resent any comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien and his drab, dull trilogy). Peake's Gormenghast books are, as another reviewer aptly put it, "experienced," not read. They are not plot-driven or dialogue/character-driven (I may catch flack from Peake fans for this) but are merely experienced - Gormenghast the castle, its intangible qualities, and all the unique characters that revolve around it. And as much description that Peake pours into his depictions of this wondrous place, it is the information that he omits that makes his portraits all the more perplexing and wonderful. Is Gormenghast on Earth? Is there no religion? No military? What is beyond Gormenghast Mountain? Who wrote all those books in the library and from where was the information culled? Where the hell did Steerpike come from? This is the only book that ever made me cry (information which, as a guy, I impart with reluctance). Not because it was sorrowful (which it is, at times) but because it is so beautiful. And also because its hilarious (the gaggle of bumbling, inept professors had me in tears). Gormenghast was never meant to be a trilogy - Peake succumbed to Parkinson's during Titus Alone - and the thought that the world of Gormenghast followed Peake into the depths of the Earth leaves me feeling as empty as the forgotten halls of Gormenghast castle. Trivia: The Cure wrote a song based on the novel's character Fuschia called "Drowning Man," on their album "Faith."
Rating:
Summary: Bloody amazing!
Review: These three volumes are incredible! Titus Groan and his subjects are the result of the fervid imaginings of a dark subconscious and thus be aware that they will connect only too well with the darknesses of your own mind. These books should be read aloud to all young people [except the very sensitive] since their images, the vocabulary, rhythmn and characterisation are superb in every detail. Mervyn Peake makes you glad to be alive and happy in the world you have and relieved to realise, upon lifing your head from the pages, that you are not Titus Groan.
Rating:
Summary: superb, absolutely beyond description: must be read!
Review: superb, absolutely beyond description: must be read! the power of this author's language, his ability to make real this vision of a nightmare cosmos, must be experienced to be understood. get this now, and read it! you will not forget any of it, ever.
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