Book Journeys: Gormenghast

The adjective 'Gormenghastian' has been used by writers to allude to things "Resembling or pertaining to the fictional Gormenghast, an enormous sprawling Gothic castle mired in inexplicable traditions" (Wiktionary)

The Gormenghast trilogy is both peerless and tragically underrated. The writing style alone is enough to recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading and/or writing in general. The author Mervyn Peake was a British poet, artist, illustrator, writer. In other words, he was a bit of a modern renaissance man, and the Gormenghast trilogy is his magnum opus. Conceived as a chronicle of the life of the fictitious character Titus Groan, the three books that make up this trilogy follow Titus from birth to young adulthood. It was Peake's intention to follow his hero from birth to death but unfortunately his own death from dementia prevented this and so we are instead left with just the trilogy; Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950), and Titus Alone (1959).

It's probably somewhat false to refer to it as 'The Gormenghast Trilogy' as it's neither precisely about Gormenghast castle (where the first two books take place), nor was the overall story intended to end with the third book. In fact, whilst Titus Groan and Titus Alone link directly with the second book, Gormenghast, there is little in common between the first and third books themselves. And whilst this trilogy will most likely be found in the fantasy section of your local bookstore (though it's more likely you'd have to order it in), it doesn't really involve any of the usual elements of the fantasy genre... there is no magic, no monsters, etc.

Titus Groan introduces us to the Groan family - a decaying dynasty of ruling nobles who reside in the sprawling and near-endless castle of Gormenghast. The story starts with the birth of Titus Groan, heir to the Earlship, and ends with his first birthday. Curiously, despite sharing the novel's name, Titus is not really a major character here - the protagonist is instead Steerpike, a runaway Cook's Apprentice who slowly ingratiates himself with the Groans in his hungry quest for power.

The second novel, Gormenghast, picks up the story a few years down the track and follows Titus Groan through his adolescence as he grows both physically and mentally in preparation for facing off against the Machiavellian Steerpike. This book is on par with the first one.

Titus Alone, the most idiosyncratic of the three novels, doesn't even take place in Gormenghast castle. It's about half the length of the other novels and is about Titus' travels throughout the world outside of Gormenghast - a world that is strangely futuristic and seems to have very little in common with the medieval world Titus has come from. This book is pretty much only about Titus (hence the title) and is, sadly, of inferior quality due to the health problems experienced by the author while he was writing it.

The previous three paragraphs are only very brief synopses of the books. It would actually be unfair to judge these books via any synopsis you find on them as they are about much, much more than just plot. The mechanics of the narrative seem to be ultimately secondary as far as Peake is concerned as he primarily concentrates instead on atmosphere and characterisation. He draws on surrealism, the Gothic, and an almost Dickensian-tradition of the macabre, bizarre, and grotesque. Each character is a ruffling delight of descriptive language and eccentricity - each is written as if they are the protagonist of the story, and it makes for surprising reading as you're never sure where Peake is taking these characters (indeed - it is said that Peake had no real concerns for plotting when he wrote these books, his only rule was to write whatever he felt like writing, and not to get bogged down in silly things like story outlines!)

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy would have to go down as one of the true classics of the fantasy genre and of literature in general.

I would recommend the first two novels but maybe not the third... it's all too apparent that Peake was losing his faculties when he wrote it if you compare the level of description, characterisation, and length of the book to the previous two. The tone of Titus Alone feels all wrong, everything from the first two books disappears and it all moves in a different direction. I'm not saying it's not interesting or unwarranted, but it's only because of Titus Alone that the series feels very much unfinished - Peake wanted to continue the story of Titus with books called Titus Awake and Gormenghast Revisited but he never got there, so it leaves Titus Alone as a proto-steampunk oddity.

Read Titus Groan and Gormenghast as a self-contained pair of linked novels and you won't be disappointed. They form two halves of a great narrative regarding Steerpike's journey to villainy under the reign of the Groans and there's an amazing host of interesting supporting characters. Get it and get lost in the prose, it's wonderful, and experience firsthand a master of language's love for world-building.