 Titus Groan: "My Cold Grave Calls Me Back, But Shall I Answer It? No!”
 I completed the first installment of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series with a sense of exhaustion. It is a colossal book, written with such dense language that reading through it is like gorging on words. It was the book equivalent of eating a very rich, very large chocolate cake. Behind all the intricacies and techniques of the language is an equally strange story, one that does not easily fit into any particular genre. In my local bookstore at least, it is shelved in the "fantasy" section, seemingly because no one knows where else to put it.
These days (after the publication of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings) the word "fantasy" is used to classify books that are concerned with magical creatures, the fight between good and evil, and vast sub-created worlds. Mervyn Peake has none of this, unless you count the stronghold of Gormenghast, filled with its sense of social and political machinations, its detailed descriptions of claustrophobic rooms and passageways, and its vast history of culture and ritual as a "created world" — which you easily could. But I'm more tempted to call it a Gothic novel — there's plenty of intrigue, dark romance, and murder most foul. Yet, as the line between Gothic and fantasy fiction is often blurred — we're right back where we started. Suffice to say, Titus Groan (and its two sequels Gormenghast and Titus Alone) is one of a kind.
The story is set at Gormenghast Castle, the immense stronghold of the Groan family. Ruled over by ritual and tradition, life at Gormenghast can best be described as stagnant. Nothing ever changes. Even if someone dies — whether it be a member of the Groan family, or a lowly servant — they are immediately replaced thanks to the strict guidelines of hereditary inheritance. Life grinds on, ruled by complex and obscure ritual, with only minor hobbies providing any sort of relief against the monotony of existence for the residents of Gormenghast — hobbies that include reading (for the melancholy Earl Sepulchrave), devotion to pets (for the Countess Gertrude, who cares more for her birds and cats than her own daughter Fuchsia), pointless scheming (for the Earl's twin sisters Cora and Clarice) and petty feuds (for the manservant Flay and the grotesque cook Swelter).
But two agents of change are about to be introduced to this stifling atmosphere. One is the newborn Titus, the future Earl of Gormenghast who — despite being the title character — has little to do with the action of the story (it's hard to be a properly developed character when you're an infant!) The other is the much more intriguing figure of seventeen-year old Steerpike, a lowly kitchen boy with high ambitions. Taking every opportunity he can to spy on the Groan family and make himself indispensable to various members of the household, the Machiavellian youth begins his climb to power and control — and the only way I can describe him is to combine Macbeth's overwhelming ambition with Scarlett O'Hara's disregard for morality when it gets in the way of personal gain. Naturally, he makes for a fascinating character, just a tad too unsympathetic to be called an "anti-hero," yet compelling nonetheless.
Although Steerpike's manipulations are main storyline of the novel, there are plenty of subplots, predominantly the story of a young "Dweller" (a member of the peasantry) who is brought in as wet-nurse to the infant Titus, but eventually leaves to return to her feuding lovers. Likewise, there are the characters of Doctor Prunesqualler, Nannie Slagg and Sourdust (much like Charles Dickens, Peake must have had a great time assigning appropriate names to his characters) who each have their part to play in the vast tapestry of familial and class relations throughout the novel.
However, it does seem as though much of this particular story is set-up. I have yet to read Gormenghast, but several of the characters and situations introduced in this novel (and the lack of resolution assigned to them) give the impression that they are being "saved" for later books — as Peake certainly planned out these works in advance, having always intended them to be part of a multi-book series. Sadly, this plan never reached fruition due to Peake's untimely death that cut Titus's life-story short — but there is still plenty here to intoxicate a patient and discerning reader. Admittedly, it's a bit of a chore to struggle through the density of the language, some of which appears needlessly self-indulgent. But when Mervyn Peake has something profound to say, he says it in a way that will stay with you forever: "There is a love that equals in its power the love of a man for woman and reaches inwards as deeply. It is the love of a man or of a woman for their world. For the world of their centre where their lives burn genuinely and with a free flame."
So basically: the pace is slow, the characters range from irritating to loathsome, and the language is sometimes nigh incomprehensible. Yet something drew me in and made me keep reading: this fascinating world of Gormenghast (which could easily be set in the past, the future, or another planet entirely), the extraordinarily dreamy and even psychedelic prose, and an alternative way of classifying "fantasy fiction" that is void of dragons, elves and magic-filled quests. Who knows? Had Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings not been so popular (all but creating the term "fantasy genre" as we know it today), Mervyn Peake's incomplete cycle may very well have been the template for popular fantasy authors everywhere. —Rebecca Fisher
 Gormenghast
 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 hindering secondary characters, and an insidious villain who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.
But ultimately the books have more in common with the likes of Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte, what with their grotesque, shrewd characterizations of weird and horrible people, and the way in which these characters go about their lives (which is basically making themselves and everyone around them miserable). They are a rich, dark, Gothic rendering of a world without any discernable reference point in terms of the time period, and it's all told in dense prose that's simply exhaustive to read. They're crammed full of detail (all of it beautiful, most of it superfluous) in a style that makes it feel as though you're wading through words, and which often meanders off to visit places and stage dialogues that have no bearing on the central plot at all.
And yet somehow Peake makes all of this fascinating. Gormenghast has a hypnotic effect on a patient reader, and I was utterly intoxicated throughout my reading. As I'm sure is the case with most people, overlong descriptions irritate me, but I'm willing to put up with a lot as long as there's eventually a payoff to such ramblings. And in Peake's case: there is. In droves! In fact, the time he takes in setting a scene has the advantage of ratcheting up and drawing out the anticipation in the climactic moments. When Titus, Flay and Prunesquallor track Steerpike through an abandoned wing of the castle to regions unknown, or when a frightened Fuchsia tiptoes through the darkened halls to a secret rendezvous, Peake's slow pacing lends the book an excruciating, nail-biting tension.
The title refers to the stronghold of Gormenghast, the setting of both this and the previous book, Titus Groan. It is a sprawling household that is large enough to act as a self-sustaining city, and in turn, it is the entire world of those who live there. The inhabitants live and die within its walls, with no interest whatsoever in what might lie beyond the peak of Gormenghast Mountain and the surrounding forests. Described in minute detail, the rooftops and quadrangles, corridors and secret passageways are gloomy, claustrophobic and labyrinthine. Here is where readers might get frustrated at the excessive detail that Peake pours into his rendering of Gormenghast, and yet this too serves a purpose in the narrative, for the physical clutter of the place is matched only by its spiritual despondency. The house is ruled by custom and ritual, so ancient that they have lost all meaning. Alongside the longing to leave such a stifling environment is the desire to stay and delve deeper into its depths.
Into this world is born Titus Groan, the seventy-seventh Earl of Gormenghast. The previous novel, named after this infant protagonist, recounted his birth, childhood and unfolding destiny. Obviously the fact that he was a baby for the length of the novel meant that the action focused on other characters: his morose father Sepulchrave, his mother Gertrude (a force of nature which sleeps most of the time, but is devastating when it wakes), his loveless, scatter-brained sister Fuchsia, and a plethora of servants. Predominant amongst these servants is Steerpike, who along with Titus himself is an element of change in this static world. The most engaging character in the book, Steerpike has dragged himself up from his life as a kitchen boy, and is still steadily climbing the social ladder with only his cunning, wits, and sheer ambition to drive him on. In comparison to this tour de force, Titus is a much more sedate character; not uninteresting, but certainly not as interesting as the malevolent Steerpike. The plot, such as it is, revolves around these two polar opposites: the young Earl who rejects his power, and the displaced kitchen boy who craves it and will do anything to get it: spying, arson, manipulation, blackmail, and murder of the most Machiavellian kind.
In many ways the trilogy is a coming of age story, in which Titus, dreading his own life as the overseer of dreary ritual, begins to rebel against the destiny laid out before him and attempt to understand the world beyond Gormenghast's borders. Likewise, it is an exploration of class relations and the dissolution of social structures that was occurring at the time of publication (the loyal Flay is superseded by the fluctuating Steerpike; the family dynasty of the Groans is undermined by the freedom of an outcast) and the journey of evil which by the story's end has taken on Biblical proportions. From an abusive and pitying childhood, Steerpike is the embodiment of pride, arrogance, vanity and viciousness, leading inevitably to isolation, madness and depravity. Peake describes the height (or should I say the depth) of Steerpike's evil thus:
"He no longer wanted to kill his foe in darkness and in silence. His lust was to stand naked upon the moonlit stage, with his arms stretched high, and his fingers spread, and with the warm blood that soaked them sliding down his wrists, spiraling his arms and steaming in the cold night air — to suddenly drop his hands like talons to his breast and tear it open to expose a heart like a black vegetable — and then, upon the crest of self-exposure, and the sweet glory of wickedness, to create some gesture of supreme defiance, lewd and rare, and then with the towers of Gormenghast around him, cheat the castle of its jealous right and die of his own evil in the moonbeams."
Wow. They don't write `em like that anymore.
Surrounding Steerpike and Titus are a range of characters such as Doctor Prunesquallor (my own favourite!) and his spinster sister Irma, a range of school professors led by the self-important Bellgrove, and a range of servants such as the exiled Flay and the long-suffering Nannie Slagg, some of which only act on the periphery of the action. However, they are given plenty of attention, particularly concerning Irma's extensive search for a husband amongst the professors. And yet, at the height of his power Peake is a undisputed master of storytelling: there's an Old Testament-like flood that forces the inhabitants into higher and higher levels of the castle; schoolboys that play a daring game which involves flinging themselves out of a high window, flipping on a branch and diving back in through the window and onto a wax-covered floorboard; and Titus's hours-long crawl through a secret passage into the frightening freedom of the countryside beyond Gormenghast's walls. All these things strike a chord in the imagination, and will stay with you for a very long time.
The "trilogy" is only one by default considering that Peake had planned a seven-book series that chronicled Titus's entire lifespan, a project that was sadly cut short by Peake’s death. It's difficult for fans not to long for what could have been, but for those that have yet to discover Gormenghast, the premature ending of the series shouldn't deter them from reading the first two installments. I have yet to read the third book: Titus Alone, but the combined Titus Groan and Gormenghast make a satisfying, self-contained novel. Although it ends on a promise of more stories to come, it brings Steerpike's tale to a satisfying conclusion and provides a fitting, though open-ended, finish for the protagonist.
—Rebecca Fisher
 Titus Alone:
“Can You Not See How Ghastly is the Dawn?”
 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 protagonist alone for first time in his life, wandering in the world that he never knew existed. Having left his entire world behind, and carrying only a flint as a reminder of his home, Titus is on a quest for ... what? He himself isn't sure, but it becomes clear enough to the reader that he's looking for self-knowledge and a sense of who he is outside his past, his home and his title as Earl of Gormenghast. The ritual and history that has informed his entire existence is now gone, and Titus struggles to understand himself and his place without it. The fact that no one in his travels has ever heard of Gormenghast and suspect Titus of insanity and vagrancy, only adds to his identity crisis.
For Titus, the mere fact that a world exists outside of Gormenghast is astounding. Gormenghast was a world of its own that seemed to exist in some unspecified time period (it really could have been at any point from the Middle Ages to the Victorian Era), but outside the walls there are factories, cars, airplanes, helicopters and even what seem to be technologically advanced spy-crafts. The move from Gothic fantasy to science-fiction may be jarring for some readers, but one can't help but be fascinated at Titus's shock and exploration of this new city of glass and concrete.
The story is, quite frankly, bizarre and erratic. Titus is washed up on a riverbank and taken in by the indescribable Muzzlehatch, the owner of an exotic menagerie of animals, and who seems to take an odd interest in Titus's wellbeing. Titus goes on to experience his sexual awakening with a beautiful, middle-aged woman, as well as its antithesis (lust and indifference) with a young woman his own age, who engineers an elaborate scheme against him once she realizes his lack of sincere feeling toward her. These are the most easily-described aspects of the story; it also includes two helmeted men that are tracking down Titus, a range of characters who live in the darkened world of Under-River, and an ominous factory that seemed to run on human lives. These portions of the story feel erratic and nonsensical, though this is only to be expected considering Peake's declining health at the time.
Mervyn Peake was writing Titus Alone in the midst of the early stages of Parkinson's Disease (as well as a history of depression and nervous break-downs), and though it was published before his death, there were examples of careless editing and several inconsistencies that suggest it wasn't completed to his satisfaction. In 1970 Langdon Jones reconstructed several chapters of the novel, working from three separate versions of the manuscript as well as new material in Peake's notebooks in order to reach the edition that most readers will be familiar with. Yet even with this meticulous care, one cannot shake the sense of incoherency in Titus Alone. There is a lack of structure and continuity here: introduced characters that drop in and out of the story, plot devices that go nowhere, and several moments of sheer weirdness. Peake worked through his illness, and the language is as beautiful and rich as always, but it does seem as though this is a draft that still needs extensive polishing.
It poses a problem when it comes to a recommendation. On the one hand, readers of the first two books will be somewhat uncomfortable at the change in tone and setting; on the other, this book will mean virtually nothing to newcomers. The first two novels form a complete story, with an open but satisfactory ending. For those pressed for time, or not particularly involved in this saga, Titus Alone is not strictly necessary, and Titus Groan and Gormenghast make up the best that Peake has to offer (in fact, the BBC's miniseries of the show adapts these two initial novels, but doesn't even touch Titus Alone).
Titus Alone is not the third and final book in a "trilogy" — it is the latest instalment in a series that sadly was cut short due to the author's death. Titus's story was originally designed as a series that would have followed Titus's life from infant to grown man (it shouldn't be too difficult to track down the opening segment of Peake's proposed forth novel: "Titus Awakes" on the internet) and it's heartbreaking that we'll never get Peake's complete vision. As it stands Titus Alone will appeal mostly to completists or fans; those who come into this novel knowing that it is, in a sense "incomplete." —Rebecca Fisher
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