The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

by Mervyn Peake

There was a sound of something spreading as an area of seven flagstones became hidden from view beneath a catalyptic mass of wine-drenched blubber.

This is the phrase that really sticks in my head from tge bbc radio adaptation of Gormenghast in the early 80s, with Sting as Steerpike, that made me realise the descriptive power of language .

A carpet filled the floor with blue pasture. Thereon were seated in a hundred decorative attitudes, or stood immobile like carvings, or walked superbly across their sapphire setting, interweaving with each other like a living arabesque, a swarm of snow-white cats.