Mervyn PeakeBesprekingen

Non è sicuramente il mio genere.

finishing this feels like I've accomplished something, but unfortunately, it was something meaningless.

Ultimo volume della trilogia di Gormenghast (non per scelta ma per il deteriorarsi delle condizioni di salute dell'autore), che riprende esattamente da dove ci eravamo fermati: col giovane Tito che scappa dal regno e dai suoi doveri in cerca di qualcosa che neanche lui sa definire.
Devo ammettere che ero scettica, Gormenghast è una presenza così preponderante negli altri libri che temevo se ne avvertisse troppo la mancanza; per fortuna Peake è stato abilissimo nel giocare con questa mancanza in modo da renderla viva e palpabile: "l'assenza" di Gormenghast diventa uno dei temi portanti del romanzo, con Tito che si strugge di nostalgia e al tempo stesso comincia a dubitare della veridicità dei suoi ricordi. Quello del protagonista in fondo è un viaggio più simbolico che reale, durante il quale tramite il classico meccanismo di caduta e risalita non troverà risposte ma se stesso. Niente paura però, il focus stavolta potrà essere più introspettivo ma non rimarremo mai a corto di luoghi immaginifici e personaggi grotteschi, che si muovono su quella linea sottile al confine tra il grandioso ed il patetico tanto cara all'autore.
Proprio per la sovrabbondanza di ambienti e persone l'inizio può risultare frammentario e ci vorrà un po' prima di entrare nel vivo, ma saremo ripagati da un'ultima parte molto intensa in cui tutti i nodi verranno al pettine.
Tirando le somme forse qui non troveremo il fascino descrittivo del primo volume (ma per fortuna neanche quella prosa iperbarocca) o la potenza narrativa del secondo che è inarrivabile, ma la considero una conclusione più che degna per una trilogia che è riuscita a fare dell'originalità il suo punto di forza.½

I liked this book but I will admit it is not going to be for everyone. It moves at a languid pace. The words are as important as any story that is going on. For me it was a lot like reading an over the top fantasy novel that Dickens might have written. Only Dickens made his writing more accessible.

I can see the roots of a lot of writers I really like in this book though (China Mieville for instance). I am glad I finally read it and will work my way through the other books but this is going to be a series I will not read straight through.

The artwork is gorgeous! The story is not as good as I remember from childhood, I couldn’t help just feeling bad for Jackson.

I can't even describe how much I loved this book. Peake's use of language was amazing and enthralling and I felt like I was being physically pulled into Gormenghast. Brilliant book.

My rating covers the overall package, as well as the stories; the forewords and accompanying art. It's a nice little package, even if nothing is quite as good as the title story.

While not outstanding, the collection shows that Peake bordered on literary chameleon. His style, rhythm and pace seems to change from story to story according to what feels apt for the narrative. Always pretty, often whimsical, but the range of writing feels wide.


Boy In Darkness - 4

Nothing beats Titus Groan for me, but this is an enjoyable little nightmare and a nice extension to the world of Gormenghast (and beyond). It starts and ends a little clunkily, but the meat of the tale is engrossing and packed with delicious prose. I'm sad I've now read everything the world has to offer.


The Weird Journey - 3.5

Beautiful prose weaves a breif, whimsical narrative, producing less wonder than expected.


I Bought A Palm-tree - 3.5

A simple, witty story about the spontaneous and uninformed purchasing of a palm-tree.


The Connoisseurs - 3.5

An on the nose, but amusing, satire on art.


Danse Macabre - 3.75

A dark, ghostly tale. I found the writing a tad laborious at first, but the direction the story takes toward the end is intriguing and the ending nothing short of brutal.


Same Time, Same Place - 3.5

A runaway youth and his naive, romantic pursuit. Nicely written, very readable.


Overall a nice little collection. Worth picking up as a fan of Peake, and certainly worth it for the title story alone if you're a Gormenghast completionist.

Generally well presented with a good cast, and certainly exceeding the ghastly BBC TV adaptation - however, it still suffers from being too abridged; the story is rushed and characters severely underdeveloped. Even just an extra 30 minutes per part would have made a huge difference.

It's an enjoyable listen if you're familiar with the story, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read the novels.

It's really good fantasy, but it's a sloooow burn. Maybe a bit too slow? The plot is just so all over the place. I'm not normally one to require a strong plot, but this one was a bit tough to get through because of that, and took me almost two months to finish (the longest it's taken me to read a book in a few years).

The prose was incredible, really superbly written. The tone, atmosphere, world/setting was also incredible. Gormenghast is an amazing place with so much history, and Peake gives the perfect amount of detail and backstory for certain things, as well as leaving the perfect amount of mystery. There are many little quirks with the world that leave the reader mystified and interested.

The characters were interesting in their own ways, and unique, but very one dimensional. Very few characters had any kind of growth through the book. Very few of the characters have more depth to them than the descriptions given to them in the first few pages of their introduction. I was blown away with the inventiveness of the characters in the beginning of the book, but found myself quite disappointed with the shallowness by the end.

Overall, I'd still recommend this to anyone who loves classic fantasy (LOTR), or anyone that reads prose-centric books. However be ready for a slow read.

I could never get past the first few chapters until I listened to the audio book. So having passed through the initial curtain of words, this turns out to be quite impressive. Very unique. Bizarre characters, that can be initially off putting, but become more interesting as they are developed. There are any number of truly memorable scenes. The central protagonist Steerpike’s climb up the castle wall and on to the massive roof structure of Gormenghast is the kind of tableau I read fantasy fiction for. The author has an amazing sense of place.
About 50 pages before the end, the major storylines are completed, and the curtain of words drops again. So as much as I was fascinated by this , I’m not in a hurry to start the second novel right away. But I will read it.
Probably very influential on Edward Gorey, and Tim Burton and any number of people. Jack Vance might be influenced by him as well. The mud people that are master artisans of wood carving seems like a Vancian notion.
There is a biographical documentary about Mervyn Peake produced by the BBC that is worth hunting down and watching. A sad, but compelling biography.½

Amazing form (prose), lackluster content (lacking story)

Wonderful.

The warning signs were all there. A much-delayed sequel to a well-loved masterpiece, "based on a fragment" by a long-dead author, focused on possibly the least interesting character in all of Gormenghast.

This is a tiresome book. Dull set-pieces featuring boring characters inhabiting a plot that goes nowhere, uttering god-awful dialogue that is both pretentious and wooden. I should have known better.

This series messes with your head. I found myself most fascinated by the bad guy, while the good guys are either boring, insipid, or both, a little like Thackery's Vanity Fair.``

Lejos del colosal castillo de Gormenghast, libre de la opresión del ritual y de la locura y el temor que gobernaron su infancia, Titus despierta a la madurez errando por el mundo de extramuros, un mundo moderno y arcaico a la vez, que nada tiene que ver con su universo conocido, y donde jamás se ha oído hablar de su estirpe. Perdido e incomprendido, llegará a dudar de la existencia de su propio hogar, hasta tal punto que acabará anhelando regresar para probar que la suya no es una vida soñada.

paperback

An enjoyable, non-taxing and inventive fantasy about Mr. Pye who soon discovers the pit-falls of over enthusiastic proselytising on his mission to Sark, Channel Islands.

October 2017: I finally read through the whole book this time, and enjoyed it. It took me a looong time though; the prose is so dense and the pace of the story is molasses-slow. I would put this down to read other things and come back to it. I love the idea of the book-- the idea, the setting, the bizarre characters-- but I wasn't always in the mood for something so slow, nor was I captivated by every single plot thread/character. I always devoured Steerpike's scenes though!

October 2014 DNF ~55%: I really wanted to like this book but it just wasn't working for me. The prose is beautiful but dense and plodding and heavy. The story moves along at such a slow pace, and while there are times where I enjoy books like this, I really had difficulty staying attentive with this one.

I found this a bit of a trudge, but am determined to get through Gormenghast and Titus Alone as well this time. It has its moments, but is a bit too long and ornate. It's all a bit too grotesque, but quite a work of imagination.

Anyway I must like it more than I thought as I spotted this edition which matches my other 2 volumes so bought it with the intention to get rid of my non-matching edition!

Its hard to know what to say about this one. The writing is good in places but can also be a bit monotonous or at least repetitious. It does resemble Titus Alone to a degree, although not to its credit being almost as random and fragmentary as that work.
However i enjoyed it more than my score might belie. My score is based on the quality of the writing but there is another level to it.

This is a work that was clearly written to be written, not written to be read. It must have been quite a cathartic experience for the author. This is a love-letter or a prayer and while i understood the ending i’m sure there where more allusions and reference points that i would have gotten more out of with a better knowledge of Peakes life.

While it was a bit of chore in places i do think it deserves a place as the final piece of the Gormenghast puzzle and i plan on buying a copy to reread along with the trilogy.

This is undoubtedly a valuable resource for beginning artists, and as an exemplar for those more experienced, but as I'm neither my five-star rating is based upon my love of Peake's art and the fact that in a manual on the craft of making marks on paper with a dirty twig, Mervyn cannot help but be a poet.

Only read a few pieces in this compendium of Peake- but Boy in Darkness is one and it is great! A little side story of the Gormenghast universe.

How do you review a book that can't be compared to anything else? One of my favorite books of all time. Titus Groan and especially Gormenghast are outstanding. Titus Alone is a strange sequel that probably was influenced somewhat by Peake's progressing disease. Still worth reading.

Bizarre, fantastical, Gothic, symbolic, surrealistic, beautiful. Peake's language is superb. Some of the most gorgeous prose to read.

While i guess we could still call this fantasy, at least as much as the previous ones, i don;t think we can call it gothic anymore. Ths is like a sort of steampunk-Great Gatsby with grothesque shadows of WWII lurking here and there.

It is a complete story in that it has an ending which i wasn't sure it would have, however the start and middle are a little hazier. Many sections feel abridged or truncated. A plot of sorts really only begins at the 3-quarter mark.

Still vivid and memorable, Titus himself has never been much of a character though and is never the most interesting person in the room but the sidecharacters are unique as always.

I'm debating whether to buy the trilogy but its scenes engrain themselves so deeply it might be quite a long time before you feel the need to reread it ;) .

Well i think the best word to describe this... at least the first 3/4s... is fragmentary. The author does a great job reintroducing everyone and recapping the first book. I mostly remember the plot of the Titus Groan but had forgotten Peakes' beautiful style.
However it does feel like there are too many time gaps between chapters and almost seems unfinished in places. I know it takes place over a much greater time period than the first book but its not the large time movements which are the problem, but rather the small incident to incident transitions. The last quarter however is much more solid than the rest.

The characters and scenes are so vivid and memorable, i would say its a lot funnier than the first book but the humour is almost entirely concentrated on the Professors and doesn't really spread elsewhere, which again adds to the fragmentary nature of the tale.

I'm now convinced that the Professors had a big influence on the Terry Pratchetts unseen university. Also speaking of influence at one point the red haired countess is described as having a head which seems too big for her body, and i suddenly realised that gormenghast had been heavily plundered by Tim Burton for his version of Alice in Wonderland.
The big headed queen of hearts, the really lanky guy, the bizarre mannerisms of the queen of diamonds, the twin sisters at the start... all gormenghast.

Anyway overall still really good, not a single character i don't like, looking forward to the finale and considering buying a copy.

Final note, the copy i borrowed was illustrated by Peake himself which sounds great, but there are very few drawings and those are really sketchy and incomplete, if getting an illustrated copy i'm definitely going to go for a proper illustrator, this version just isn't that good.