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Titus Groan (Gormenghast Trilogy, Vol 1)

Titus Groan (Gormenghast Trilogy, Vol 1)

List Price: $30.00
Your Price: $30.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
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: 4 stars
Summary: once visited Peake's world will never leave you
Review: This book has been visited by me three times in my life, once in my teens, again in my late twenties and now in my early 40's. Each reading has put me back in touch with one of the most startling, darkly humorous imaginations I have encountered in my reading life. It's labyrinthine in more than the sense that the castle of Gormenghast is, the language is crystalline,lucid and yet almost leisurely in its haunting descriptions. There's a sense of futility in the final volume that suggested to me Peake's own disillusionment with the way things had progressed with his own life. I hope he was proud of Titus as I've loved his world and wish I could tell him.

Rating: 5 stars
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: 5 stars
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: 4 stars
Summary: Flawed, but genius
Review: I found the first 2 volumes very absorbing. There's something indefinably readable and addictive about the writing style, despite the oppresive, grotesque air around the whole novel. The flaw is that I found volume 3 very disappointing. But how else could the story continue, given that virtually EVERY character had been killed off by the end of the 2nd volume? Having recently seen a documentary about Peakes life, I found some insight into why Gormenghast was as it was. The stifling Victorian upbringing with it's obsessive ideas of 'proper behaviour' casts it's shadow over Gormenghast. As does the grotesqueness of Peakes work as a war artist in the death camps at the end of world war two. It's not surprising that Gormenghast is not a story with a clean, happy ending. Good doesn't triumph over evil or any other such Tolkein-esque nonsense. Real life is just not like that.

It's interesting that Peake often gets compared with Tolkein. Apart from that one word 'fantasy' there works are as different as Mozart and U2 (both 'music'). There are no mythical beings in Gormenghast, no hobbits, elves, no wizards. All are creatures recognisable in our everyday world. There is absolutely no magic in Gormenghast, no spells, no objects of power. Yet Gormenghast is ultimately far more alien to me than Middle Earth.

It's a shame that he appeared to have written himself into a cul-de-sac with the startling death rate of the major characters.

For me, though, the first two volumes contain some of the finest writing ever. Many have tried to emulate, but Gormenghast remains unique in it's achievement.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Groan is the word
Review: Well, after 115 pages of this literary equivalent of heavy molasses , with the odd glimmer of style thrown in once in a while, I had to quit. You wait for the tale to pick up, to get you interested, but you just end up not giving a damn about Gormenghast and its inhabitants. Detail is not enough to make a good story. Keep clear from this one, and spare yourself a bored *groan* upon putting it down. There is one positive aspect : you will expand your 1940's english.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Perhaps my expectations were too high.
Review: I began this book eagerly, after reading several reviews. Ultimately, it was a disappointment. One blurb described the castle as full of "Dickensian grotesques". I just don't think they were interesting enough to deserve even the label "grotesque". I found I was disdaining any scene involving Irma and the twins, and the "reveries" during the Breakfast were just plain tedious. Peake's attempts at creating a brooding intensity too often fell flat. The battle between Swelter and Flay was the most interesting part of the book, but it wasn't enough to save it. I have seen so many comparisons with "The Lord of the Rings", yet it is ludicrous to compare the two. They may both be classed as fantasy, but they are very different. Tolkien may be a bit lighter, but he is also a much more interesting read. As for me, I found myself comparing Peake's often over-the-top descriptive style with Eco's in "The Island of the Day Before". Although the latter took a while to get going, it ended up being, in my opinion, satisfying and enjoyable. Peake, unfortunately, can never quite seem to wrench his feet from the quagmire of his own creation. Individual patches of vivid lyricism, even in great number, do not make for a successful novel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Haunting Lyrical and Nearly Completely Mad
Review: I stumbled across this truly unique book in a used book store and by true serendipity decided to read it. The pace of it may turn some people off, give it a chance, to me it read it not so much as story but as an experiment in language and imagery. A true and deserved classic.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Superb Fantasy
Review: This book, and it's follow up, "Gormenghast", constitute a towering achievement in the field of fantastic literature. Peake creates an utterly engrossing and complex alternate world with these books. Most fantasy novels on the market today seem pedestrian by comparison.

Rating: 5 stars
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!


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