Urth Net
Hamster Gong
↰ answers William Ansley
· by quotation
William Ansley --
First, I defer to your analysis (and your copy of _Peake's
Progress_); my impressions were from a copy of _Sometime,
Never_ that I haven't read in several years.
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Actually I knew that Titus Alone was unfinished and that Peake intended to have Titus return to Gormenghast eventually. But, the book was published the way it was, with the ending it had. I don't see how I can judge it as what it might have been but wasn't, rather than what it is, a book with a (to me at least) quite unsatisfactory ending.
Seems to me that there is another option to consider here, which is not to judge it as a finished work at all, but on the same basis one might judge the varied texts in (say) the History of Middle-Earth or Stephen Hero.
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The fact that TA didn't take place in Gormenghast didn't bother
me particularly, in fact I rather liked the weird, science- fictional, somewhat Kafkaesque world in which Titus found himself.
Puts you in a definite minority among Peake fans -- most seem to dislike the environment of TA (I've known folks who call it "depressing." Yeah, like Gormenghast was such a cheery place...)
--Dan'l