Ghastly Gorm

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 29 Jun 2001, 08:38 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Subject: (urth) Ghastly Gorm
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 08:38:10
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0525 at digest.urth.net>
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William Ansley, quotha:
> I did enjoy the Gormenghast books immensely. Well, the first
> two, but  I even enjoyed _Titus Alone_, just not as much.=20
> (That ending!)

Well, it isn't really supposed to be an ending, nor was the=20
"trilogy" intended to be three books long. Peake was dying=20
(in great pain) when he wrote _Titus Alone_, which explains
at least _some_ of its infelicities*; he tried to get on with=20
the fourth book but didn't get very far.=20

------
* The greatest "infelicity," the fact that the story does
  not take place in Gormenghast, is not in fact an
  infelicity except by accident. The longish series was
  intended to be the story of Titus, not of the castle;
  the castle was such an overwhelming presence that it became,
  in effect, the main character of the first two volumes of
  the projected series. If the whole had been completed
  (and if Peake had been at his full powers in writing=20
  it), I gather, Titus would have been more clearly the
  center of the whole thing and the castle more clearly=20
  a setting.
-----


> For all the rest of you who did enjoy the Gormenghast trilogy,
> there is a novella about Titus as a young boy called "Boy in
> Darkness" which is, in my opinion, as good as the best bits of
> the novels. It actually takes place away from Gormenghast, for
> the most part.=20

Ummmm... no, I don't think so. Just in one of the odder quarters
of G., where you can forget you're in a castle. Think of the
place where the christening is held, that sort of place. Titus
doesn't actually _leave_ Gormenghast until well into the second
volume, and "Boy" seems to take place between TA and G.


--Dan'l


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