The Gormenghast Trilogy Reviews

Titus Alone is the third and last volume of the Gormenghast trilogy (after Titus Groan, and Gormenghast).

In this book, we follow Titus, now almost twenty, as he escapes from the Castle, flees its oppressive Ritual, and becomes lost in a sandstorm. Helped by the owner of a travelling zoo, Muzzlehatch, and his ex-lover Juno, he ends up in a big city. Of course, no one there has ever heard of Gormenghast, and the general opinion is that the boy is deranged, and with no paper, he's soon arrested for vagrancy.

Hopefully, there are a few people who believe in his story, or at least who are intrigued by it, and they try to help him. And now Titus, the deserter, the traitor, longs for his home, and looks for it all the time to prove, if only to himself, that Gormenghast is truly real.

I don't know how closely Titus Alone actually follows Mervyn Peake's intentions before mental illness struck him, but this final volume is indeed chaotic. Its characters and style, its setting and atmosphere have little to do with both previous books. Or maybe it's just me who didn't understand anything, but nevertheless, all I felt was bitter frustration.

Gormenghast is the second part of the Gormenghast trilogy (after Titus Groan, and before Titus Alone).

After a somewhat slow beginning, in which Mervyn Peake first briefly summarizes Titus Grown by drawing up a list of which characters have died or gone missing, then introduces the reader with the plethora of new characters that are the teachers of Titus, the now seven-year-old seventy-seventh Earl of Gormenghast, the pace hopefully picks up again. And as the pages turn, the story becomes more and more exciting.

Irma Prunesquallor's party, and then her romance and the way the whole affair eventually backfires on Wellgrove, although it does not push the plot further, were fun to read. Titus's growing love for his sister Fuchsia, and at the same time his attempts at shunning both the physical prison that is Gormenghast castle and the mental cage that is its sacrosanct ritual, attempts that lead him into the mysterious forest where lurks the Thing, and to the grotto where Flay has taken shelter, were passionating. Finally, Steerpike's mischievious, murderous ambition, and the others' suspicions that gradually turn into evidences, and the memorable chases in the shadowy maze of the fortress that ensue, were purely mind-boggling.

Mervyn Peake's characters are so complex that in the end you like the ones you despised and hate the ones you loved in the first book. His words give life to such an amazing imagery, it vibrates and dazzles, it's intoxicating. This is magic.

Titus Groan is the first book of the Gormenghast trilogy (before Gormenghast and Titus Alone).

The castle of Gormenghast is a huge, maze-like fortress built on the side of a mountain. It's surrounded by a tall wall, that helps keep the noble "Castle" people and their menials inside, and the "Bright Carvers", a tribal people who live in mud dwellings, outside on the arid plain.

In this first volume, we're introduced to the castle's inhabitants, amidst the bustle of Titus the seventy-seventh Earl's birth, and a few days later, of his christening. There's the melancholic Lord Sepulchrave, the seventy-sixth and current Earl of Groan, his enormous wife Gertrude and her white cats, and their teenage daughter Fuchsia. And there is Mrs. Slagg, the frail old Nanny who's always complaning about her poor heart, and Mr. Flay, the Earl's tall first servant with the clicking knees. And also Mr. Rottcodd, curator of the Hall of Bright Carvings, and Sourdust the Librarian, guardian of the Protocol. Doctor Prunesquallor with his nervous laughter, and his spinsterly sister Irma, as well as Swelter the tyrannic cook and his kitchen boys, among which the young Steerpike. Then come Cora and Clarice, the Earl's asinine twin sisters, envious of his and Gertrude's power... and a few others.

As the story flows, we watch these numerous protagonists interact, as Steerpike slowly works his way up the ranks of the castle. Charming high-born ladies, plotting arson, nothing daunts him. And what was a so well-greased, fine-tuned machine of minutiae and protocol, the very essence of Gormenghast, is starting to crumble slowly and inexorably.

It's very hard to summarize Titus Groan in a couple of paragraphs. It's so brimming with court intrigue and mischief, interspaced with lush descriptions of this amazingly intricate fortress where I wanted to escape to, or play hide and seek in. As a whole, all I can say it that it was an enormous pleasure to read and that I can't wait to read the next book.