Titus Groan (Gormenghast, #1) in Around the Year in 52 Books

Mar 22, 2017 Nathalie rated it really liked it

Shelves: from-1001-list-i-have-read, 2017-read

…and Titus has entered his stronghold.

And that’s how this magnificently intriguing but difficult novel ends. Titus Groan, the heir of gormenghast who begins this novel with being born and ends this novel by becoming the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. That’s as much of a role he is playing so far.

The rest of this novel is being carried by his family and their servants. We meet such peculiar characters, that cannot exist outside this dystopian world where Castle Gormenghast plays the central role.

I di …and Titus has entered his stronghold.

And that’s how this magnificently intriguing but difficult novel ends. Titus Groan, the heir of gormenghast who begins this novel with being born and ends this novel by becoming the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. That’s as much of a role he is playing so far.

The rest of this novel is being carried by his family and their servants. We meet such peculiar characters, that cannot exist outside this dystopian world where Castle Gormenghast plays the central role.

I didn’t get much information of how and when and why the situation is as it is and maybe this is explained in the following novels, but in a way it’s part of its charm. Believe it or not, but even without knowing why or having means to compare it with, Titus Groan creates a world that feels nightmarish, even hellish in certain ways and which doesn’t let go until you’ve read the final words. Imagine a world where there are men whose sole purpose in life is scrubbing the filth of the walls in the kitchen, and have this task passed on them through birth right.

“ It had been their privilige on reaching adolescence to discover that, being the sons of their fathers, their careers had been arranged for them and that stretching ahead of them lay their identical lives consisting of an unimaginative if praiseworthy duty.”
The way it is mentioned gives me the idea that however drab their circumstances, they are in fact lucky. That there is even worse.

Forget what you know about logic, because Titus Groan needs its readers to expand their imagination beyond what you thought possible AND believe it could happen. In its pages it has created a dystopian, ritualistic and organized world where impulses from the outside are cut off. Its inhabitants, obligated or not, feel the weight of the castle and its ancestry and are each in their own way affected by the demure nature of having no other purpose than doing what has been told ages ago. And for me, the reader, it has a dreamlike quality because it is not explained why they go through the motions. Why is it important that every day has to be written down to such detail and that these instructions need to be carefully followed?

The novel seems very precarious in its subject and it’s definitely not a book to read when I’m going to bed, but when it’s quiet and when I can concentrate it’s actually quite a good book. Not like anything I’ve read so far and for me that’s kind of unusual.

Beside its setting, its characters and its story, Titus Groan is a very beautifully written novel which amazed me with how well it used the English language. It’s a trifle more difficult than other books I’ve written and a decade ago I wouldn’t have been able to continue reading, but even though progress is going slower, it gave me the opportunity to savor the way in which something was said, as much as what it entailed. It’s not a bad thing to be forced to take it slow, instead of rushing through chapters as I tend to do.

With all that I know now, I’m quite sure that it won’t be long before I’ll start in the next Gormenghast novel. ...more

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Oct 31, 2025 Maggie rated it liked it

Shelves: boxall-1001, fiction, fantasy, guardian-1000, series, british

In the majestic, crumbling castle of Gormenghast, Titus Groan is born, and his mother immediately commands his nurse Mrs Slagg to find a wet nurse for him and return him to her when he is 6. In this book titled Titus Groan, we see very little of Titus himself, and more of the eccentric characters. There is Lord Sepulchrave, Titus’ father, the 76th Earl of Gormenghast, who quietly obeys the rituals of the castle and finds solace in his library. Countess Gertrude, his wife, is a large lady who car In the majestic, crumbling castle of Gormenghast, Titus Groan is born, and his mother immediately commands his nurse Mrs Slagg to find a wet nurse for him and return him to her when he is 6. In this book titled Titus Groan, we see very little of Titus himself, and more of the eccentric characters. There is Lord Sepulchrave, Titus’ father, the 76th Earl of Gormenghast, who quietly obeys the rituals of the castle and finds solace in his library. Countess Gertrude, his wife, is a large lady who cares for her birds and cats and barely notices humans. His sister, Fuchsia, spends much of her time in the sanctuary of her attic. Fuchsia was raised largely by Mrs Slagg, a self-pitying but generally loving nurse. There is a doctor, Pruneswallor, with a booming and rather inappropriate laugh, and his sister, Irma, who affects herself to be a lady. The Earl’s twin sisters, Cora and Clarice, are practically brainless and consumed with giving themselves airs and resenting Gertrude. Sourdust, the librarian, is a man who knows all the rituals of Gormenghast, but the common and the obscure, that are written in its immense books. Flay, the Earl’s first servant, is a stick-like man of monosyllables, and is enemies with Swelter, the head chef, who seeks to kill Flay.

In the midst of all the castle’s traditions comes Steerpike, a teenage boy of uncertain origins who starts of as an outcast in Swelter’s kitchens and manoeuvres to climb the social ladder of the castle through nefarious means. His crowning achievement is instigating the twins to burn Sepulchrave’s beloved library, while he rescues the family within it, thereby cementing himself in the castle’s social hierarchy. Yet why does he do this? In a castle where everything follows time-honoured rituals, where the earl has no followers, and where the family members are all half-crazed, it is difficult to see what Steerpike hopes to gain through his ambition. But his actions wreak havoc in the castle, and the burning of the library gradually leads to a crumbling of the social structure and traditions within this close group of people.

Integral to the book is the almost sentient castle of Gormenghast. The castle is huge, with endless corridors, turrets, and rooms which people rarely visit. It is also crumbling and run-down, and, with its countless traditions and ancient customs, is a satire of royalty and its rigid, time-worn rules.

Peake’s writing is unlikely any other. It is incredibly dense, every word means something, and I found I had to read it slowly, and often multiple times, to grasp the meanings of words. The gothicism is not only in the descriptions, but also in the archaic words. It is slow-moving, with paragraphs, and sometimes pages, describing a specific vignette. I would imagine the writing style is polarising - you either love it or hate it. Personally I didn’t like it, as I found the style to be confusing, obscuring rather than helping communication. But I respect the exceptional use of language, and my dislike of the book was possibly due to my lacking the intelligence to understand it. ...more

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Mar 28, 2009 Ketutar Jensen rated it really liked it

Finally, after some 20 years, I managed to re-read it, and this time I liked it. I don't know why...
I mean, I don't know why I found it so horrible 20 years ago. Yes, it is slow, it's cruel, it's incomprehensible, but the story is so... fascinating.
...more

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Jan 22, 2009 Anjanette marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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Nov 07, 2009 Betty marked it as to-read

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Oct 21, 2010 Deedee marked it as to-read

Shelves: epic-fantasy, rws-canon-bonus-points, 1940-1949, series-1st, p, slipstream, two-word-title, guardian-list-unread, gothic, rws-10-10-group-reads-unread

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