Gormenghast
1 journaler for this copy...
I received this book in the mail on 5/16 from ealaindraoi in ME ... through PaperBackSwap.com
c. 1967 (1st published in 1950) -- 568 pages -- Paperback -- #2 of The Gormenghast Trilogy / The Titus Books -- Illustrated by the author -- #84 on BBC's "The Big Read" Top 100 Books
Inside: To discuss the work of Mervyn Peake presents a special difficulty; the reviewer is faced by the incredible diversity of his wide-ranging talents. Illustrator, painter, poet, novelist and playwright, he represents a creative phenomenon, a man with an intense and individual inner vision.
While in the army he began work on Titus Groan, the 1st book of the monumental 'Gormenghast' Trilogy. The first 2 volumes are set in an enormous crumbling castle, in which rituals are compulsively carried out by grotesque characters, grotesque in the way that Dickens' characters are grotesque, in a way that has meaning and purpose. In the trilogy there are dozens of major characters, each one finely drawn, all with the solidity of real people. In them will be found reality, human frailty, death and sexual love ... there is strength and vitality going through everything he creates: although Peake feels the pulse of tragedy, he can observe without being dragged into a morass of confusion -- his own personal vitality resists the impulse. And Peake's vision becomes, as a result, vast in scope.
Here are some of the richest, most controlled novels of the language, a treasure-house of experience. Everyone with some feeling for language, some imagination, should be drawn irresistibly into their pages, and should remember the books for the rest of their lives.
c. 1967 (1st published in 1950) -- 568 pages -- Paperback -- #2 of The Gormenghast Trilogy / The Titus Books -- Illustrated by the author -- #84 on BBC's "The Big Read" Top 100 Books
Inside: To discuss the work of Mervyn Peake presents a special difficulty; the reviewer is faced by the incredible diversity of his wide-ranging talents. Illustrator, painter, poet, novelist and playwright, he represents a creative phenomenon, a man with an intense and individual inner vision.
While in the army he began work on Titus Groan, the 1st book of the monumental 'Gormenghast' Trilogy. The first 2 volumes are set in an enormous crumbling castle, in which rituals are compulsively carried out by grotesque characters, grotesque in the way that Dickens' characters are grotesque, in a way that has meaning and purpose. In the trilogy there are dozens of major characters, each one finely drawn, all with the solidity of real people. In them will be found reality, human frailty, death and sexual love ... there is strength and vitality going through everything he creates: although Peake feels the pulse of tragedy, he can observe without being dragged into a morass of confusion -- his own personal vitality resists the impulse. And Peake's vision becomes, as a result, vast in scope.
Here are some of the richest, most controlled novels of the language, a treasure-house of experience. Everyone with some feeling for language, some imagination, should be drawn irresistibly into their pages, and should remember the books for the rest of their lives.
I finished reading this book today. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first book in the trilogy. It did have some excited parts that kept me turning the pages ... but for the majority of the book it dragged on endlessly. However, the last chapter does a nice job of leading into the final book in the trilogy with Titus Groan leaving Gormenghast and going out into the world on his own. So I'm hoping the next book will be better.
Library 10/21/14
Library 10/21/14
