The Gormenghast Trilogy
The Gormenghast Trilogy — (1946-1959, 2011) The first three books contain the original trilogy. In January 2010, Peake¹s granddaughter found four composition books in her attic which contained the fabled fourth volume Titus Awakes in its entirety. Peake had outlined the novel for his wife, Maeve Gilmore, who had at last finished Peake’s masterpiece. It was published in 2011. Publisher: An undisputed classic of epic fantasy, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels represent one of the most brilliantly sustained flights of Gothic imagination. For the first time in years, Titus Groan, the first book in this timeless series, is available in an individual paperback volume, complete with striking new packaging. As the novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual whose origins are lost in history and the castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. Dreamlike and macabre, Peake’s extraordinary novel is one of the most astonishing and fantastic works in modern English fiction.
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Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books are a difficult series to categorize in terms of genre, as they really are in a league of their own. Whenever the subject of Peake has arisen in conversation and I've been called upon to describe them to the uninitiated, my efforts are always rewarded with baffled looks. The books defy most attempts at classification; and although they're usually put in the "fantasy" section of libraries and bookstores, the trilogy is bereft of the usual Tolkienesque fantasy trappings (mystical creatures, heroic journeys, magical quests). There are however, a few throwbacks to fairytales: a youthful hero who grows into manhood, a distressed — and sexually frustrated — damsel, a series of helpful or hin... Read More
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Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake's magnum opus began in Titus Groan, and continued in Gormenghast, two brilliant (though door-stopping) books that explored the lives of those that exist in a self-contained, self-sufficient edifice known as Gormenghast: a labyrinthine world of towers, mansions, slums, and the corridors that connect them all. It is ruled by ancient and meaningless ritual, something that the titular character of Titus, Seventy-Seventh Earl of Gormenghast, has rejected. In the final passages of Gormenghast," Titus chooses to abandon his home and seek out the world that lies beyond his its borders.
Gormenghast was an exciting, rewarding finish to the colossal two-part novel, and its sequel, Titus Alone, opens with our prota... Read More
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The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
I haven’t actually read every page of The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, yet I’m giving it my highest recommendation. Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Master and Mistress of Weird, The Weird is 1126 pages long and should really be considered a textbook of weird fiction. It contains 110 carefully chosen stories spanning more than 100 years of weird fiction. Here’s what you can expect to find in this massive volume:
A “Forweird” by Michael Moorcock gives us a brief history of the weird tale, discusses how it has defied publishers’ attempts to categorize it into neatly-bordered genres, and gives examples of writers who are revered by modern reade... Read More
May 18th, 2012.
Kat Hooper´s rating:
5 |
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(1911-1968)
