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Titus Awakes: The Lost Book of Gormenghast (Gormenghast #4)
When Peake died in 1968, he left behind the start of a fourth Gormenghast book, Titus Awakes. His wife, the writer and artist Maeve Gilmore, completed the manuscript.
The book continues the story of the Titus, the 77th Earl of Groan, as he wanders in the modern world and finds his final resting place in Sark.
The book continues the story of the Titus, the 77th Earl of Groan, as he wanders in the modern world and finds his final resting place in Sark.
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
June 23rd 2011
by Vintage
(first published 1972)
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NB I read this on paper, but the review is tied to the MP3 because that has the right cover (which I find helpful when skimming my shelves).
Peake's widow wrote this Titus story, based on a few short pages and a few very brief notes, initially as a homage to him, rather than with the intention of publishing it. It has the distinct air of making peace and laying ghosts. I hadn't expected (or wanted) to like this, but I read it for completeness.
But joy of joys, and to my great surprise, it is wond...more
Peake's widow wrote this Titus story, based on a few short pages and a few very brief notes, initially as a homage to him, rather than with the intention of publishing it. It has the distinct air of making peace and laying ghosts. I hadn't expected (or wanted) to like this, but I read it for completeness.
But joy of joys, and to my great surprise, it is wond...more
To appreciate 'Titus Awakes' it's not enough to have read the Gormenghast trilogy: you'll need to read 'A World Away', Gilmore's account of her relationship with Mervyn Peake and his tragic decline. Gilmore lacks her husband's knack for byzantine wordplay and eye for the grotesque, but her spare (if uneven) style and rambling plot reward the attentive reader with moments of real poignancy and gentle humour. The ending is just beautiful.
3 likes · like · see review
read this on holiday and finished it within a day. the first hundred pages were dull, i'm afraid. ms gilmore clearly had some trouble at first finding her own pace in the writing and i notice some people have referred to it as an imitation. i'm not so sure of that, tbh. the first hundred pages read nothing like mervyn's writing and the obsession with 'lust' got old pretty fast, although i was finding that quite tedious in mervyn's work anyway.
titus is not a likeable character. the dialogue for t...more
titus is not a likeable character. the dialogue for t...more
I was always wary of the idea of a sequel to some of my all-time favourite books, written by another writer, even if based on notes by the original author. And it turns out I was right. Titus Awakes continues the wanderings abroad started in Titus Alone, but whereas in the previous book Titus' discovery of the outside world was invigorating and involving, here it's tedious and astonishingly repetitive. Titus happens to meet someone who takes pity on him and offers him shelter, food, love, work o...more
Also published on my blog here
The Gormenghast trilogy, by far Mervyn Peake's best known work as a writer, has many fans, including myself. And fans always want more, so we were intrigued when the publication of Titus Awakes was announced last year. Maeve Gilmore was Peake's widow (and, like her husband, an artist), who edited the fascinating but uneven compilation of Peake's less well known work, Peake's Progress. One of the items included there was the sketchy plan which eventually became Titus...more
The Gormenghast trilogy, by far Mervyn Peake's best known work as a writer, has many fans, including myself. And fans always want more, so we were intrigued when the publication of Titus Awakes was announced last year. Maeve Gilmore was Peake's widow (and, like her husband, an artist), who edited the fascinating but uneven compilation of Peake's less well known work, Peake's Progress. One of the items included there was the sketchy plan which eventually became Titus...more
The final volume of the Gormenghast series was only begun by Mervyn Peake before his death; his wife, Maeve Gilmore, wrote the rest basing on his notes. It shows; the plot is even more episodic than in 'Titus Alone', the language is far simpler, almost sketchy at times. But it seems to be very fitting when one considers the stage of Titus' journey: he abhors being still and settling down, but because of that he cannot form any sort of attachment to people or things and therefore his freedom is m...more
I think Maeve Gilmore did a wonderful job with this book. While it certainly lacks Peake's sense for the grotesque (which anyway felt more at home in Gormenghast than outside of it) it certainly does read like a Gormenghast book and, in particular, is an excellent counterpoint and closure to the part of Titus' life that started in Titus Alone.
The story of Titus Awakes once again follows the episodic steps of the previous book but in a gentler way, following a change in sensibility that reflects...more
The story of Titus Awakes once again follows the episodic steps of the previous book but in a gentler way, following a change in sensibility that reflects...more
It makes me sad how bad this is. Better to think about re-reading the magisterial Gormenghast trilogy.
Totally fascinating, exquisite--yet not what you'll expect if you've read her husband's Gormenghast books. This "fourth" of the three he wrote, his wife created from a few fragments he left when Peake prematurely dissolved into debilitating illness… and this is largely her way of working through such a devastating tragedy. For me it was also a kind of closure on "what happened to Titus next?" I love it, perhaps out of loyalty to Peake and his legacy. I gave it a good review on Amazon where clear...more
Oh dear - some things should just be left alone. In the spirit of Titus Alone (rather than the first two books) but without most of its redeeming features. Bitty (a kinder word would be episodic)and rather pointless. The only real interest lies in the last few pages where Titus journeys to what is clearly Sark -Peake's home. Just as it starts to get interesting, it stops. Less than 24 hours after finishing reading I'd be hard pressed to remember any narrative details. Nice trybut it should have...more
One hates to complain about what was clearly a labor of love--Maeve's earnest attempt to write for Mervyn the book he couldn't write himself--but the book isn't very good. The episodic plot is all right, and sometimes the conversations are good. But the writing style is not good: sometimes ponderous in the way of a very young writer (which Maeve was not), sometimes simply cliched. This labor of love should have remained something for the family to treasure and kept away from the public.
An odd, sad book. It seems more like Gilmore's tribute to her husband than a real continuation of the story, and I think may be better read with that understanding. It's not without some common elements to Titus Alone, but it's quite different from the first two, and pretty difficult to evaluate on its own merits. Hence a 3, because that's just about the most neutral thing I can say.
A good follow up to Titus Alone, but I still feel that these.books are seperate to Titus Groan and Gormenghast. There are obvious stylistic changes between this book and the others that Peake had more of a hand in writing.
Still, I enjoyed this book, its references to the relationship between Peake and Titus, and the eventual ending was apt and very well written. A good read.
Still, I enjoyed this book, its references to the relationship between Peake and Titus, and the eventual ending was apt and very well written. A good read.
This book will come out next year and will apparently be based on notes Mervyn Peake's wife made.
Sebastian Peake's daughter is said to have found the notebook in the family attic early this year.
Intrigued and not a little ambivalent.
Sebastian Peake's daughter is said to have found the notebook in the family attic early this year.
Intrigued and not a little ambivalent.
Not a lot to say. I don't think I would have missed much by not reading it. Only a couple of pages by Mervyn Peake, the rest was pretty dull, with a couple of instances of reasonable writing. A shame, but I shouldn't have expected too much.
I loved Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. This did not disappoint. I found the tone lighter, and room for hope in a desperate world.
A nice coda to the series, though a bit stunted, it cannot function at all without knowledge of the Gormenghast trilogy and it lacks the wonderful strangeness of Peake's storytelling.
The last book of the Gormenghast series, by large written by Peake's wife, and at least since the middle of the book somehow autobiographic. It's clear by then, that Gormenghast was meant to be a coming-of-age novel about Titus, no fantasy novel, which it really isn't. It's a pity though that the first two books are so weak in comparison to number three and four.
In comparison to the earlier Gormenghast books, especially the first two, this is bland. It lacks the rich language of the first two books and doesn't even have the weirdness of the third. It was reading quickly, but I just don't care enough to continue.
I'm so disappointed I didn't get to preorder this.
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Maeve Patricia Mary Theresa Gilmore (1917-1983). Painter, sculpter and writer. Wife and biographer of Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast novels, and editor and continuer of her husband's works.
More about Maeve Gilmore...
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Mar 05, 2012 12:52am