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The Gormenghast Novels

C

callao

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I heard some good things about this trilogy and how some say its better then Lord of the Rings. So can somebody please tell me a brief synopsis of the novels to see if this trilogy is worth picking up. Thanks.
 
The Gormenghast trilogy is, in my humble opinion, far superior to Lord of the Rings. They are urban fantasy as opposed to epic. Think old crumbling castles etc. One thing you should be aware of is they are depresing and dark. They're are often described as boring as well. They are no easy read, and it's not a light undertaking to start reading. Here's the synopisis from Amazon.co.uk:
Gormenghast is the vast, crumbling castle to which the 77th Earl, Titus Graon, is Lord and heir. Gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old ritual, a world primed to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder-- a world suggested in a tour de force that ranks as one of the century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.
"The Gormenghast trilogy is one of the most important works of the imagination to come out of the age that also produced Four Quartets, The Unquiet Grave, Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One, Animal Farm and 1984" --Anthony Burgess, Spectator
 
I gave up on it. :eek: I saw the tv adaptation, which was very good, and I'd heard good things about the book, and they were selling all three volumes in one, so I got it. But I just could not get into it. It has a very dense and challenging style to it. You have to be prepared to put a lot of effort into it. I'll probably get around to trying again, and I think I'll succeed because I know now what sort of mood I need to be in to get through it, and I could see that even though I found it unreadable at the time that there was a worthy book in there.

So I think it is worth the read, so get hold of a copy, but it is definitely a book that you need to be in the right frame of mind to read. You won't enjoy it if you're not prepared to put the effort into it. You also might need to have one aborted attempt at reading it just so you know what sort of a mood you need to be in before you'll be able to read it. Or you might be lucky and be one of those people that can just dive straight in and love it immediately.
 
This is just the sort of thing I joined the forum for. My exposure has obviously been limited & I've never even heard of these books. Thanks to all for bringing up & discussing them.

I may not like what I find on them when I look into them but I'll definitely look those novels up.


RaVeN
 
i think i remember watching the tv adaption, and having read these comments (combined with my reading slump) i shall go down the bookshop and put them on order, get all thre and then there is no waiting invovled after ive started them.
 
My advice to you is read a bit ( as much as you can ) in the bookstore. I personally don't like it. I own the book and have attempted about 5 times to read it and each time failed. Each time I have tried so hard to like it and failed. I just don't like the writing. It's very long winded and very dry ( to my taste ) and boring. I have a friend who also does not like it at all. of course others like it very much. I say find a good and big bookstore where you can sit down in a comfortable chair and read as much of it as you can to get an idea if you are going to like the writing or not :)

Ah! Something I just thought of. If you are going to buy all three then you can buy it bound in just a single large formate paperback volume. This is the one I have and has all three novels. It will save you money and it looks good on the shelf.
 
Instead of upsetting store owners you could just loan it from the library.

That is what I plan to do at least but my heart is full of sugar and fairies. The Gormenghast trilogy has been on my "to read list" for quite some time because I always push longer series away since I want to be free and have some options open. But this year I might go for it.
 
Store owners WON'T get upset. At least here in the UK it's really normal to read in the book shop. Most of the big shops have large leather arm chairs for you to sit and read in.
 
I signed them out for my boyfriend at the University library. I started reading the first book the day they were due and sadly only got 47 pages into it before I had to return it. I'm dying to read more!
 
SillyWabbit said:
Ah! Something I just thought of. If you are going to buy all three then you can buy it bound in just a single large formate paperback volume. This is the one I have and has all three novels. It will save you money and it looks good on the shelf.
Click to expand...

Plus its worth getting for the lovely cover. :eek:
 
My opinion on the trilogy...Titus Groan was good, Gormenghast was great, and Titus Alone was not so good.

I would consider Gormenghast as being one of my favorite fantasy books, an excellent read with wonderfully twisted characters and an intricate plot.
 
I personally loved the novels - particularly the first two, but Titus Alone wasn't anything like as bad as I expected, it was actually an excellent novel, but just not comparable to the first two.

It's very long winded and very dry ( to my taste ) and boring
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Strange, I didn't think that at all. That is what I expected it to be, but I found it relatively fast paced compared to a lot of modern fantasy. It's infinitely faster than most Robert Jordan novels, for example, and a lot better in almost all aspects - the writing, the characters, the plot, the atmosphere - than pretty much any other fantasy. I can see it won't appeal to everyone, but I think Moorcock probably got it right:

What makes Tolkien the mass market success that Peake is not is that Tolkien can be smoothly assimilated into the culture. His stereotypes slide easily into the world of popular fiction. Peake’s grotesques are the opposite of Tolkien’s fairy tale regulars. Peake’s characters and plot are brilliantly idiosyncratic. Tolkien’s entire ensemble of greybeards, evil forces and humanoids is instantly recognised It’s the familiar, with a little gloss, that sells in millions, not the awkwardly unfamiliar. Tolkien’s stated aim was to tell fairy stories, Peake’s stated aim was to break windows. Tolkien has mass sales, Peake has more likelihood of longevity. For Peake was an original visionary where Tolkien was manipulating existing images.
Click to expand...
 
Oponn said:
The Gormenghast trilogy is, in my humble opinion, far superior to Lord of the Rings. They are urban fantasy as opposed to epic. Think old crumbling castles etc. One thing you should be aware of is they are depresing and dark. They're are often described as boring as well. They are no easy read, and it's not a light undertaking to start reading. Here's the synopisis from Amazon.co.uk:
Gormenghast is the vast, crumbling castle to which the 77th Earl, Titus Graon, is Lord and heir. Gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old ritual, a world primed to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder-- a world suggested in a tour de force that ranks as one of the century's most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.
"The Gormenghast trilogy is one of the most important works of the imagination to come out of the age that also produced Four Quartets, The Unquiet Grave, Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One, Animal Farm and 1984" --Anthony Burgess, Spectator
Click to expand...

Brys said:
I personally loved the novels - particularly the first two, but Titus Alone wasn't anything like as bad as I expected, it was actually an excellent novel, but just not comparable to the first two.

Strange, I didn't think that at all. That is what I expected it to be, but I found it relatively fast paced compared to a lot of modern fantasy. It's infinitely faster than most Robert Jordan novels, for example, and a lot better in almost all aspects - the writing, the characters, the plot, the atmosphere - than pretty much any other fantasy. I can see it won't appeal to everyone, but I think Moorcock probably got it right:

What makes Tolkien the mass market success that Peake is not is that Tolkien can be smoothly assimilated into the culture. His stereotypes slide easily into the world of popular fiction. Peake’s grotesques are the opposite of Tolkien’s fairy tale regulars. Peake’s characters and plot are brilliantly idiosyncratic. Tolkien’s entire ensemble of greybeards, evil forces and humanoids is instantly recognised It’s the familiar, with a little gloss, that sells in millions, not the awkwardly unfamiliar. Tolkien’s stated aim was to tell fairy stories, Peake’s stated aim was to break windows. Tolkien has mass sales, Peake has more likelihood of longevity. For Peake was an original visionary where Tolkien was manipulating existing images.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

My initial reaction to The Gormenghast Trilogy was "this is fucking crazy," but by the time I got half-way through Titus Groan it became an automatic favourite and shot to No. 1 on my "best books I've ever read" list. (That is, until I met Nabokov ;).)
The characters are by no means standard (I like Steerpike and Gertrude. To me, they are the oddest, most interesting of the lot and, what can I say, I have a fetish for red-heads). The setting is phenomenally imaginative. Gormenghast feels like the kind of castle-maze you could lose yourself and die in. The society within (in my opinion) is a dying earldom, characterized by a sense of stale tradition (and breaking tradition).
I agree that Titus Alone is not comparable to the first two books, but it is still a spectacle of its own. Reading it felt very bizarre in the absence of Gormenghast... and, oddly, the ending scene even more surreal.
 
Embarrassed to say I have this trilogy for the looooongest time, but haven't yet got around to it. I really want to, but I have read the first few chapters and it is something that the earlier posters have mentioned - it's not something you dip into now and again. It's a long term relationship.

Right now looking at my Black Friday and Cyber Monday Kindle hauls I don't think I'll be getting to Gormenghast anytime soon. In the bucket list, though.
 
direstraits said:
Embarrassed to say I have this trilogy for the looooongest time, but haven't yet got around to it. I really want to, but I have read the first few chapters and it is something that the earlier posters have mentioned - it's not something you dip into now and again. It's a long term relationship.

Right now looking at my Black Friday and Cyber Monday Kindle hauls I don't think I'll be getting to Gormenghast anytime soon. In the bucket list, though.
Click to expand...

I'd had the trilogy on the shelf for at least 10 years......finally there was a book discussion in another place, and they chose Gormenghast, well, Titus Groan at any rate. I managed the first 200 pages, and just could not stand another page, word, letter.
Just a friendly warning. heh o_O:D
 
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