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Titus Groan (Gormenghast #1)

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 4,979 ratings · 410 reviews

Mervyn Peake's gothic masterpiece, the Gormenghast trilogy, begins with the superlative Titus Groan, a darkly humorous, stunningly complex tale of the first two years in the life of the heir to an ancient, rambling castle. The Gormenghast royal family, the castle's decidedly eccentric staff, and the peasant artisans living around the dreary, crumbling structure make up the...more

Paperback, 396 pages

Published November 1st 1991 by Overlook Press (first published January 19th 1946)

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Jan 30, 2013 Megha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviews

“This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.”

There stands the Gormenghast - as if sealed inside a crystal ball - looming in all its grotesque wonder. The old, musty smell. The susurrus of narrow passages. The torches casting an eerie circle of light. The hustle and bustle of the castle dwe...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Cecily rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, fantasy, favourites, gormenghast-peake

How to review this weird and wonderful book? The setting, characters and plot etc are extraordinary, but it is the language that is utterly bewitching. The fact Peake was also an artist is evident in the special care with which he describes light (or absence of), skin and textures.

It is usually classed as fantasy, but it is more like historical fiction, with an occasional dash of the supernatural - magical realism set in the past. Or is it? This first volume has a profound sense of place (Gormen...more

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May 28, 2009 Keely rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humor, novel, reviewed, urban-fantasy, uk-and-ireland, favorites

I know of no author in all of the English language who is like Peake, or who could aspire to be like him. His voice is as unique as that of Milton, Bierce, Conrad, Blake, Donne, or Eliot, and as fully-realized. I am a hard and critical man, cynical and not easily moved, but there are passages in the Gormenghast series which so shocked me by the force of their beauty that I would close my eyes and snap the book shut, overwhelmed with wonderment, and take a moment to catch my breath.

I would drop m...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Suna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, all-time-favourites

When I first read Titus Groan years ago, I disliked it intensely.

I couldn't connect with the world and its inhabitants at all, although I was instantly drawn to Fuchsia even then.

This time round, I read it with a constant pulse of barely contained excitement: My mind was awash with the language, the thick, thick tension that the snail-like pace of the narrative evoked and the mindsets that made up the passions and motives of the characters.
Such characters!

Some of my favourites:

Steerpike, Hanniba...more

19 likes · like · see review

Mar 04, 2012 Bill Kerwin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: gothic, fantasy

What an odd fantasy! No swords, no sorcery, no elves, no thieves, no imaginary beasts, no multiple planes of existence . . . nothing but a cavernous castle peopled by eccentrics with Dickensian names (Sepulchrave, Prunesquallor, Swelter, Flay) whose lives are determined by centuries--perhaps millenia--of complex rituals. Although the people themselves seem to be British, the enormous burden of tradition under which they labor seems Asiatic in its detailed intensity, and it is instructive to lear...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, classic-literature, classic-challenge, fantasy, fantasy-sci-fi-challenge, quirky-fiction, humorous, personal-favourites

Titus Groan is a novel that defies classification yet it is one hundred percent powerfully written and one hundred percent a classic. It is however not for those who don't like to patiently sit through a long, description driven narrative. But for those who appreciate those elements in a work of fiction or perhaps those who found the unique ideas of The Trial interesting I strongly recommend this novel.

The best genre that I could possibly associate this with is fantasy. However it is also a nove...more

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Aug 30, 2010 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

Mervyn Peake was one of those gifted people you burningly resent, he was a brilliant artist and then he thought oh I need something else to occupy my time when I'm not doing brilliant drawings and paintings, hmm what can I do, ah yes I'll write one of the century's greatest fantasies in one of the most individual and beautiful prose styles, and create about a dozen of the most memorable and delightful characters in all of fiction, including a real heartbreaker of a heroine called Fuchsia, yes, h...more

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Sep 04, 2011 Frank rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: the-great-unfinished

More and more often I don't finish books because I just don't have the time for bad or boring books, and besides I find it's actually depressing to get bogged down in them. Unfortunately this was one of them. I didn't get past page 150 or so, definitely feeling it wouldn't get much better or even different. I so would have liked to like this better. I recently saw a small exhibition about his life and work at the British Library, and this is what made me finally start this novel. The drawings on...more More and more often I don't finish books because I just don't have the time for bad or boring books, and besides I find it's actually depressing to get bogged down in them. Unfortunately this was one of them. I didn't get past page 150 or so, definitely feeling it wouldn't get much better or even different. I so would have liked to like this better. I recently saw a small exhibition about his life and work at the British Library, and this is what made me finally start this novel. The drawings on display there were delightful, the light verse quoted was entertaining and his concept version for an animated film for the BBC was charming. But this 'novel' just doesn't cut it.

In a way, his creativity reminds me of Terry Gilliam's. His also seems to be an imagination run wild, and multidisciplinary to boot. (Look at the delightful cartoonish drawings of Don Quixote he dashes off in the enthralling documentary about his failed film project, Lost in La Manch, reminding you that he was an animation artist for Monty Python before he became a 'real' film director.) But I assume his imagination, although always threatening to fly off the rails, is held in check by the fact that films are a commercial undertaking, and he has to satisfy investors. This is all for the good, he's turned out some glorious (even if sometimes gloriously flawed) films that I wouldn't have wanted to miss for all the world.

Peake's imagination in this novel doesn't seem to be held in check by anyone or anything, least of all the average reader's need for narrative tension and pace. There is none of that that I can find. On the internet I see fans defending his expansiveness by praising his lavish prose. But I didn't find his prose all that wonderful, and I *did* find his expansiveness tedious. And it wouldn't be so bad, if only it were embedded in a strong narrative structure. Lacking that, it lacks tension. The narrative seems adrift. It's like a child on an endless Sunday afternoon who keeps dreaming about this dream castle containing myriads of characters – Peake bouncing them off against each other like a preteen playing with his Lego figures.

Even the unrelenting 'darkness' of both the castle and its inhabitants gets to be repetitive. It's as though he's all the time warning himself not to make any character too attractive or it will smack of Hollywood cliché.

It's such a pity, but I'm afraid this is the novel of a potentially major artist who just happened to choose the wrong medium for his art.

The fans are welcome to keep enjoying this, but I can't help being puzzled (and a little bit worried too) at the high reputation this work still seems to garner.(less)

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Apr 22, 2010 Yngvild rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gothic

Writers who are also artists have a distinctive writing style. You can see it in Lewis Carroll and William Blake but Mervyn Peake, who was primarily an illustrator and artist, is exceptional in using written drawing. Every sentence describes a scene and I suspect that, rather than the content of the Gormenghast novels, is why Peake is compared so often to Carroll or even J R Tolkien.

Gormenghast is a dilapidated castle, a labyrinth of towers, staircases, hallways and rooms, populated by a cast o...more

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Apr 23, 2009 maricar rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, favorites, series

Lose yourself in this teaser of a story…

*damn, it feels so good to discover another favorite...*

It’s been a while since an author was able to paint a wholly different world across his pages that, before I knew it, I was hooked. And certainly even before the last page, I was more than eager for the next installment.

As Burgess mentioned in the introduction, Peake’s creation would hardly be given justice with so simple a category as a “gothic”—certainly it is that—but there is a whimsical quality...more

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Sep 01, 2010 Chas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, 1001-books-you-must-read, fiction, favorites

I've championed Mervyn Peake for a long time, but really, if you've not read him, you should. This, the first of three novels set around the massive, rotting castle Gormenghast focuses on the events surrounding the birth of the 77th earl of said castle, Titus. It's equal parts Poe, Dickens, and Shakespeare. For some reason, it's often compared to Tolkien, if only because it was published around the same time (eight years before, actually) and was probably incredibly hard to classify at the time....more

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Dec 03, 2009 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I began reading this series because it was referenced in a song by The Cure. Really glad I did. This first book is very good, though sometimes overly descriptive. Very colorful and quirky characers make it worth wading through a few minorly boring bits. These books are grouped with the fantasy genre but the only real fantasy elements are that it takes place in an imaginary kingdom and there is a caslte in it.
This story is about a giant castle, called Gormenghast, which is big as a city. The Cou...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Pallavi rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In the words of Mrs. Slagg, "Oh my poor heart!" This book is definitely not an easy read! Part humorous, dull, convoluted and yet enticing, lets just say I am glad this book wasn't spoiled for me as a high school read, like say *cough* 'Great Expectations'.
The detail that an artist puts into paintings is what you get when that artist decides to write a book. I read another book by a contemporary artist, the highly publicized ' The Night Circus' and while in that case the story was dull, the w...more In the words of Mrs. Slagg, "Oh my poor heart!" This book is definitely not an easy read! Part humorous, dull, convoluted and yet enticing, lets just say I am glad this book wasn't spoiled for me as a high school read, like say *cough* 'Great Expectations'.
The detail that an artist puts into paintings is what you get when that artist decides to write a book. I read another book by a contemporary artist, the highly publicized ' The Night Circus' and while in that case the story was dull, the writing pretentious, in 'Titus Groan' you get such intimate details of each and every scene, that you might be fooled into thinking the story is dull. I can assure you it is not! While not exactly your fast paced thriller of a fantasy, ' Titus Groan' (which dwells on expanding on every caricature of a character) is a wonderful stage setting to the protagonist whose name is the title of this novel. However, that means, you do not get to see him as much as the surroundings in which he is destined to thrive. I say thrive, because Gormenghast Castle at its best is a mad-house. A place full of strange characters. How did Peake even come up with them?
Each character is so well etched, that the next time I find someone named Cora, or Clarice, I am going to assume they are as batty as the twins in the book. The vocabulary is amazing and the names of the characters roll off your tongue. Soon, you'll love the many eccentricities, be it the stolidity of Mr Flay, the moroseness of the bibliophilic Lord Sepulchrave (I loved that name!), the frostiness of his wife, Gertrude, the batty helplessness of the twins Cora and Clarice, the dreaminess of Lady Fuchsia, the reverent love of the old Nannie Slagg, the jolly, nerdy Dr Prunesquallor (again, love it!), his intolerable sister, Irma with a tendency to repeat her words forcefully when making a point, the homicidal Abiatha Swelter and the cold, calculative ambitious Steerpike. Against all of these, the castle of Gormenghast forms its own character, the expansive, crumbling walls holding fort for these many weirdos without falling apart altogether. The second book is called Gormenghast and I wondered many a times if these two books should have had their titles swapped.
The book was exhausting, and at many points I felt tired and did not want to read another word. But then some of the wonderful, comic lines would pop up in my mind and I wanted to see if there were more. Hell, the book was about to end and Titus was not even a boy! I wanted to know what was up with that. And then right towards the end there was a morbid twist, that despite the sluggish pace of the narrative kept me hooked.

Anyways, I'd not recommend this book to readers who prefer somewhat of a pace in their book. I fear they might end up ruining the rating of this weird yet likable ( for people like me) book. (less)

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Dec 15, 2012 Kyle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

In very broad terms, writers have to deal with two main issues when putting their stories to paper: the 'macro' issue (i.e., the overall plot, theme(s), and desired character development), and the 'micro' issue (wordsmithing, prose, and style). The greatest writers, in their greatest works, manage to nail one issue, while successfully covering their shortcomings on the other. Mervyn Peake not only managed to nail both issues in toto, he is left with plenty of literary "hammer power" to spare.

Lik...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Jim McDonnell rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's 1979, and a feckless, lazy youth is doggedly refusing to read any of the tedious, old-fashioned and uninteresting 'classic' literature required by 'A' Level teachers, preferring a diet of fantasy and science fiction. One of the teachers, 'Violent' George Spencer, noting the lack of interest, claims confidently that he will recommend a book (two, in fact) that, he promises, will grip from the first page and will be much better than the fiction the pupil is currently reading. The student was...more It's 1979, and a feckless, lazy youth is doggedly refusing to read any of the tedious, old-fashioned and uninteresting 'classic' literature required by 'A' Level teachers, preferring a diet of fantasy and science fiction. One of the teachers, 'Violent' George Spencer, noting the lack of interest, claims confidently that he will recommend a book (two, in fact) that, he promises, will grip from the first page and will be much better than the fiction the pupil is currently reading. The student was me, 'Violent' George Spencer was real, and the books were 'Titus Groan' (and Gormenghast, by necessity), and 'Germinal' by Emile Zola.

'Titus Groan' is the first of the Gormenghast trilogy (followed by 'Gormenghast' and the dreadful (IMHO) 'Titus Alone'), and is a wonder of British literature.

A strange beast, it's a fantastical fantasy novel but set in a very real world - at least, a world like the real world but turned slightly sideways, or distorted slightly as in a fairground mirror. The characters are caricaturish, the settings are baroque, dark, labyrinthine, evocative; the plot is twisted, dark, gripping and funny by turns.

This book is a great Autumn or winter read (though I've just read it at high summer and it was still as good as it was the first time I read it), as the atmosphere and the setting of Gormenghast castle with its dark, dank passages, crumbling mossy ruins and rain seems to fit that season. It's a tremendous book to read on a wet grey Sunday afternoon around October or November.

Peake's prose is wonderful - dense but not unreadably so; very, very descriptive - it makes the experience of spending time in the world of Titus so involving - but not overblown, unneccesarily complex or difficult to read. It's more as it his language is just very fine-grained; each paragraph is easy to comprehend but is full of detail.

The best reasons to read this book: the experience of spending time in this richly imagined and described world, the castle - Gormenghast - and the unfolding of the wandering, gripping, odd plot as Titus grows from birth to teenage. The very few things to dislike? The third volume, where Titus leaves the castle and the cast of characters established in the first 2 books, and so removes all of the enjoyment and expectations the reader has built up (although it makes perfect sense in dramatic terms, and as a very visceral communication of what Titus is experiencing), and the odd supernatural interludes involving Titus' wet-nurse Keda and her sub-plot involving the inhabitants of the castle's outer walls, the Bright Carvers. I'm already looking forward to starting the next book, 'Gormenghast' again.(less)

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Jun 10, 2007 Mark Kreider rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Verbose, poetic Gothic fantasy with splashes of dark humor. Amazing use of language. Unforgettable characters.

This is the first volume of a trilogy. Follow up with Gormenghast but skip the third book, Titus Alone.

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Sep 28, 2012 Mosca rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Wow! Wow!

This is some of the most impressive prose I've experienced in a while. And the book itself is unlike any other I've read. The use of the language kept me hooked throughout. The plot is enigmatic and entangling. The characters are numerous and, frequently, described in hilarious detail.

The language consistently moves the reader along with a poetic rhythm that is often humorous, satiric, loving, mystical, evocative, lyrical, terrifying, seductive and always intoxicating.

There is no other...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Everything else I read seems flat and thin compared to Titus Groan. I didn't think I would enjoy a book so densely described, and peopled with such unlikeable characters, and yet I love it madly.

I agree with another reviewer who calls it "continually oppressive". It feels like it is always raining heavily in Gormenghast, and the intrigues and conspiracies are the fruit of a long confinement indoors. None of the characters are at all pleasant, and yet they are wildly interesting and complicated....more

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Oct 01, 2008 Isil rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantastique, angleterre, xxe

Titus d’Enfer ne pouvait être écrit que par un anglais. Cette folie, ce côté « over-the-top » (la bataille épique entre Lenflure, le gros cuisinier, et Craclosse, le serviteur squelettique est un grand moment) se situent dans la tradition britannique et parfois, les personnages m’ont eu l’air tout droit sortis de l’univers de Dickens. En effet, il faut peu de mots à l’auteur pour arriver à décrire un personnage, au-delà de son physique, par son attitude, sa façon de parler… C’est parfois délira...more Titus d’Enfer ne pouvait être écrit que par un anglais. Cette folie, ce côté « over-the-top » (la bataille épique entre Lenflure, le gros cuisinier, et Craclosse, le serviteur squelettique est un grand moment) se situent dans la tradition britannique et parfois, les personnages m’ont eu l’air tout droit sortis de l’univers de Dickens. En effet, il faut peu de mots à l’auteur pour arriver à décrire un personnage, au-delà de son physique, par son attitude, sa façon de parler… C’est parfois délirant mais si délicieux, fascinant même. Il faut être capable de se laisser glisser dans cet autre monde, à la fois irréel (l’ordre de grandeur est chamboulé avec ce château gigantesque qui semble vivant, qui est le personnage principal de cette histoire) et tellement ancré dans le réel (les personnages sont si humains). Parce que en fin de compte, c’est bien de l’humain que parle ce roman, à travers une galerie de personnages archétypaux : Tombal, le 76è comte d’Enfer, mélancolique se raccrochant à des rituels immémoriaux dont la signification est perdue, Gertrude, sa femme, insensible à tout sauf à ses oiseaux et ses chats, leur fille Fuschia, solitaire qui se réfugie dans un vieux grenier, le docteur Salprune, sa sœur Irma (tellement « lady ») et tous les autres. C’est un monde clos, qui ne s’ouvre au monde qu’en de rares occasions. Et même à l’intérieur du château, seuls les cérémonials poussent les gens à se réunir. Tous vivent assez isolés finalement.

Il ne faudrait pas croire pour autant que ce roman soit difficile d’accès, hermétique ou ennuyeux. Ce n’est pas le cas du tout. Au contraire, le roman parvient même à nous faire ressentir l'ennui des personnages sans que cela ne le soit pour le lecteur. L’écriture en est belle et semble couler de source. Le fantastique et l’outrance sont assez légers finalement, même s’ils sont marquants et l’humour est bien présent. Mais surtout, l’intrigue, quoique simple, est tout à fait passionnante à suivre. Le machiavélique Finelame parviendra-t-il à atteindre son but? La fin laisse en suspens certains aspects de l’histoire qui se poursuivra dans « Gormenghast ».

J’ai l’impression de ne pas posséder l’art de pouvoir exprimer toute la fascination que ce roman a exercée sur moi. Il faut le lire pour comprendre.(less)

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Jul 13, 2008 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

Well, that took forever. When someone (don't ask me who) said that this was a giant of the fantasy genre, I thought "Well, I should give this a try." Freaking A. Talk about boring. And dull. And excessively long.
Plot? Sure there was one. I just didn't seem to care all that much about it.
Fantastical locations? Also present, just explained in a way that was reminiscent of 10th grade English class. I felt I should be taking notes in the margins on the metaphoric use of color.
So, it all comes down...more

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Feb 24, 2008 Phil Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Certain books have got me through various phases of my life. My first year at high school, fraught with all its just-pre-pubescent worries? 1984. The fourth and fifth years, replete with exams and adolescent frustration? Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Michael Moorcock saw me through the wilderness years of sixth form.

As for university? The only books I really remember reading during those wasted years were by Peake. Although I didn't plan to do so, I read Titus Groan in my first year, Gormen

...more

As for university? The only books I really remember reading during those wasted years were by Peake. Although I didn't plan to do so, I read Titus Groan in my first year, Gormenghast in the second and Titus Alone in the third. I wish I'd read them sooner.

Anyone who found C.S. Lewis preachy or Tolkien ponderous could do far worse than look to the Gormenghast trilogy. His castle is populated with grotesques, from the obese Swelter to the skeletal Flay. Each has his own role to play in the ritualised and ordered realm of Gormenghast, and few dare question it, even though their quirks have catapulted them from being merely eccentric to a state of damn near instability. With a few skillful sentences, Peake puts together a wonderful landscape, which for all its lack of wizards and goblins, is a million times superior to and more fantastic than any bog-standard fantasy world you could care to name. I may be resorting to hyperbole here, but it's the truth and I'll spank anyone who says different.

Still, into this world come two outsiders: the first is a baby, the titular Titus Groan, heir to the castle, title and everything else; and the scheming Steerpike. Condemned to work in the kitchens, Steerpike contrives to escape from the role fate has assigned him. He ingratiates himself with Fuchsia, Titus's older sister, becomes the assistant to Doctor Prunesquallor, but there is no limit to his ambition. He has bigger plans in store.

Steerpike is very much the star of this book. A cold, calculating sociopath, the sort we all love to hate. A magnificent bastard of the highest water. He quickly works out a plot to depose the current Earl of Gormenghast, influencing the Earl's vacant and greedy sisters to set fire to the Earl's library and drive him insane. This gives Steerpike a chance to play the hero and thus gain more power and influence.

By the end of the book the Earl goes mad and offers himself to the castle's vicious owls, his servant Flay is banished, Sourdust the secretary is burnt to death and young Titus has been made Earl, even though he is still a toddler. Steerpike's star is very much in ascendance...

I fail to do the plot justice. The descriptive text is first rate, the characters engaging and weird, the dialogue scintillating and the whole one of the greatest works of an author snatched from us well before his time. Read it now!

(less)

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Jul 06, 2007 Aaron rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lovers of description

This is at heart, a ridiculous book. Most of the reviews you read about it refer to it as some kind of quintessential Gothic novel. It's hard for me to classify it as such when the action takes place in a world that is so obviously not our own. It seems to me that although he was following many of the tropes of Gothic literature, he was in fact pressing them towards their extreme, in many cases with humorous results.
For instance, the atmosphere is continually oppressive, no matter what the sit...more

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Nov 02, 2008 Siria rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, british-fiction, fantasy

This is such a weird and wonderful tale, so extravagant and bizarre and funny and upsetting, that it's hard to know how to approach it. It's a twentieth century novel whose plot is full of Gothic exuberances; its characters are slyly-observed caricatures; the universe in which its events take place must surely exist in a kind of hermetically-sealed bubble, because that existence would otherwise be impossible. This beginning to the Gormenghast trilogy is so outlandish that it would be difficult t...more

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Mar 21, 2009 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, sf-fantasy

Like Moby Dick - or even Lolita - Titus Groan uses a poetic, highly personalized, almost extravagant and over the top prose style to depict grotesque, extreme people going about dark, absurd things. Peake’s characters and the world they live in seem like Gorey or Kubin drawings brought to life, and, what’s extraordinary is that they don’t just seem that way in description, they actually talk that way – the dialogue is some of the most bizarre yet fitting and purposeful of any I’ve read. Peake’s...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Audrey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Audrey by: Grandma

Shelves: books-i-own, trade-n-books

How do I even begin to describe this sprawling epic? Mervyn Peake was a master of words, plain and simple. Funny that I should use the expression "plain and simple" of Peake, for in this book, there is nothing of either term about his prose. Not at all.

The plot is slow and centers around the strange characters and goings-on of the very eccentric castle Gormenghast. Certainly not a book you can breeze through in a week-end, but I definitely recommend it...to whom, I'm not sure. Once I finally mad...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Jocelyn marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Recommended to Jocelyn by: Keely, Jonathan, and Kyle (and Alex?)

Shelves: alex-likes-this-hmmm, can-t-wait, jonathan-demands-it, keely-s-favorite-so-it-must-be-good, yay-kyle-likes-it

I have now decided that I'm poorly read until I've read this book.

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Feb 26, 2009 lowercase rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-almost-love

i have a kind of love/hate relationship with this series; it's sort of like reading an extended gahan wilson cartoon, and i adore gahan wilson but part of his brilliance is in his brevity. the gormenghast novels go on and on and on (and on, and on): an excercise in outrageousness, where nothing much happens, but when what takes place actually DOES happen it's with jerks and twitches and involuntary exclamations, and murder, and much furtiveness, until it all resolves, from a distance, into a pre...more

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May 13, 2013 Ashley Newell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, book-club

Could I love a book any more deeply than "Titus Groan"?
From the very first sentence Mervyn Peake's narration is a rich savoury dessert that demands to be shared. Upon reading the first page I immediately desired to reread it all again, only this time aloud, in front of an open fire, preferably in a large stone mead hall. The world of Gormenghast is beautiful in it's ominous spirit, and the characters grotesque and lovely. It is a fantastical world, dreary and almost lifeless - but in these rich...more

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Feb 28, 2013 Lucinda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Deeply complex and well-crafted, this haunting gothic masterpiece is a work of sheer brilliance and inspired vision.

Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy is a work of literary genius, containing such exquisitely detailed and stunningly beautiful narrative. Unlike anything within current contemporary fiction, Mervyn Peake revels in our beautiful language and brings such atmospheric nuance to the page. Experimenting with language and description (in the vein of classic literature within the 18th cen...more Deeply complex and well-crafted, this haunting gothic masterpiece is a work of sheer brilliance and inspired vision.

Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy is a work of literary genius, containing such exquisitely detailed and stunningly beautiful narrative. Unlike anything within current contemporary fiction, Mervyn Peake revels in our beautiful language and brings such atmospheric nuance to the page. Experimenting with language and description (in the vein of classic literature within the 18th century and before), this ultimately paints a clear picture of the setting, characters and remarkable world that one delights in. Darkly humorous and creepy, one encounters the world of Titus Groan for the first time – heir to an ancient, rambling castle in a magical land. The Gormenghast royal family, the castle's decidedly eccentric staff, and the peasant artisans living around the dreary, crumbling structure make up the cast of characters in this engrossing story. Peake's command of language and unique style set the tone and shape of an intricate, slow-moving world of ritual and stasis…

Superlative Titus Groan is unusual and quite a bewitching piece of literature, which doesn’t seem to conform to any specific genre in particular and yet, would be regarded as more than mere fictitious frivolity. Peculiar, weird and highly memorable characters add to the colorful writing which can be admired as simply a great piece of prose. The storyline is so outlandish, so otherworldly that you know you have encountered something quite special as soon as you begin to read the first page. Portrayed as exaggerated caricatures, bizarre and comical this ensemble of interesting characters is one of the most loveable and striking within literature. Professing the author’s uniquely identifiable style that oozes originality and delicate fluidity this is a book that will mesmerize and astonish.

“This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

Book 1 in the Gormenghast trilogy has to be one of the most recognizable original works of sheer magnitude, containing such substance as to stand-out on the bookshelf. Linguists, bibliophiles, English literature students along with readers who are seeking something noteworthy will adore ‘Titus Groan’ and so I do highly recommend this.

“Years on end, and swords on end - where will it end, if our ears unbend - what shall I spend on a wrinkled friend in a pair of tights like a bunch of lights?”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

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Feb 23, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Titus Groan and Gormenghast are one (rather two) of my desert island books. The prose is so dense, the landscape so vast, the emotions, the madness, the ambitions so shocking and perfect that this work can be read over and over and still move and entertain. More like any great work of art as time passes it means different things to me.
I first read it when I was quite young and then the entity that is Castle Gormenghast itself became a part of my life. I could smell the dry dusty places while I w...more

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About Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English modernist writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books, though the Titus books would be more accurate: the three works that exist were the beginning of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, following his protagonist Titus Groan from cradle to grave, but Peake's untimely death prevented compl...more

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The Gormenghast Novels (Gormenghast, #1-3)

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Quotes from Titus Groan

“Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.” — 67 people liked it

“We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.” — 43 people liked it

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Titus Groan (Gormenghast #1)

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