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| Image credit: Wikipedia |
The lives of
literary genres ebb and flow; die and then reincarnate into something more
fitting for the times. But then sometimes the old ways return. Such is the case
with Mervyn Peake’s spectacular Gormenghast
trilogy.
The first book – Titus Groan- introduces readers to the
wonderfully gloomy and dismal world of Gormenghast, ruled by the bloodline of
Groan. Into this stronghold is born Titus, the 77th Earl of
Gormenghast and first male heir of Lord Sepulchrave and the Countess Gertrude.
At the same time an ambitious youth named Steepike escapes from a hellish life
of kitchen service and begins his treacherous ascent to power.
The book is a
return to the traditional Gothic with everything from the gloomy castle to the
excruciatingly dysfunctional family being reminiscent of such classic tales as
Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto or
Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Add to this Peake’s verbose prose, which tends to put one in mind of Dickens,
and it sounds rather like a Victorian novel right? Wrong. Perhaps the most
brilliant thing about the trilogy is that it was written in the 1940s –when
Gothic literature had become pulp fiction- and is actually an extremely clever
and scathing allegory for British society, as is represented by the traditions,
class systems, and unquestioning acceptance of ridiculous Law.
Along with the
exciting things that do happen as a result of Steerpike’s journey up the social
ladder, the majority of the book is an introduction to a superb menagerie of
characters, each and every one of them caricatured or archetypal. We meet the
melancholy Lord Sepulchrave, weary by the weight of endless rituals and
traditions that he upholds. Beside him there is the mammoth Countess Gertrude,
a woman so detached from society that she replaces human contact with birds and
cats. Their daughter Lady Fuchsia is young, headstrong and romantic and the
servants are equally memorable: Nannie Slagg, Flay, and the librarians Sourdust
and Barquentine are hilarious/horrific visions of age with Slagg being liable
to collapse any second and Barqentine being the pinnacle of cantankerousness
despite his withered leg and crutch.
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| Image credit: Babelio |
The setting itself,
the castle, is a living breathing existence that holds these characters hostage
and Peake’s delightful mixture of horror and humour consistently has you
turning pages with a feverish need to know what comes next. In place of
dragons, magic potions, knights, and fair damsels, the monsters of this
almost-fantasy setting are the boring monotonies of ritual, narcissism, vanity,
and social expectations described with such delicious wit and eloquent
vocabulary that transport you from your couch to the vast stone corridors of
the Castle.
Titus Groan is the first book in Peake’s Gormenghast
trilogy, first published in 1946 by Eyre and Spottiswoode.
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