3.5
The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy
ByDownload the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy Reviews
3.5
Flavia 🌺
Created 7 months agoShare
Report
Jess
Created 9 months agoShare
Report
Kim
Created 11 months agoShare
Report
Ralemont
Created 11 months agoShare
Report
“some of the best and most original prose you'll find in the fantasy genre. Completely original and unlike anything I've read.”
Wheel of Tomes
Created 12 months agoShare
Report
“I will preface this by saying I only read books 1 and 2 and will only ever read books 1 and 2, but since the copy I have is a trilogy, I have to mark it as complete.
Book one took me a while to get into, but once I did, I was IN. I loved the writing inexplicably much, I grew to love the unusual characters, the setting, the slow but purposeful progression of the plot. Even though the titular character was only just born, there was a presence to his existence.
Once I got used to the flow of things, the particularities of the rich and wordy writing style, I was mesmerized by the stifling and yet unique and intriguing small world of Gormenghast.
The Earl Sepulchrave, his wife Gerture, Sourdust, the Doctor, the twins, Flay, the forgotten keeper of the carvings... all these eccentric and odd characters grew on me immensely.
I also felt an immense hatred for Swelter and Steerpike, I loathed to reach their POVs and felt a bubbling reckoning would be very satisfying once it finally arrived. In book one, very bittersweetly, the Earl is lost, Flay is banished but at least Swelter is dead. I felt very satisfied at the ending, knowing what was to come, and let it sit for a bit while I read other books.
I read book two rather quickly, though over a longer span of time, but when I was sitting down with it I was DEVOURING it.
The addition of new characters, who I confess I still don't remember apart from the few notable ones, bored me to tears at first. I thought the Professors would have a larger role than they actually did. The slow and gradual build up and escalation of the plot of the second book felt like the REAL thing, whereas book 1 was a lengthy prologue.
Our titular character Titus is now a proper character, and through him the main exploration of freedom is explored. However, I'll save him for last.
Flay, Fuchsia's and the Thing's deaths did quite get to me. All three were very abrupt and sudden, though only Flay's was somewhat to be expected. I confess that now upon reflection I begin to wonder why the Thing in particular was such a hugely foreshadowed presence, only for her to die immediately upon meeting Titus and actually engaging with the main narrative, of a random ass lightning strike. She, above all, fell victim to being a plot device to drive Titus forward, nothing more, nothing less. I have my gripes with the second book, I only now realise this is also one of them.
Flay's role wasn't meaningless, so his death wasn't either. I loved his chapters greatly, especially with young Titus in the woods.
The other thing I want to gripe about is Bellgrove and Irma Prunesquallor. What in the fresh hell was the point of devoting so much time to the two of them?! They did nothing for the story, slowed the pacing, and their "romance" was painful to read. I kept waiting for something about that plotline to matter, but it never did. They were just 'there'. One could make the arguement that a lot of this story and its structure depends on many characters simply existing, but I'd disagree. Nothing about book one felt superfluous or out of place, it was one conherent whole. Only in the second book did I begin to feel like some of the additions were setpieces, rather than living characters.
On the other hand, Doctor Prunesquallor was another standout. He becomes an important part of the group that despises and wants to expose Steerpike, his love for Fuchsia warmed my heart, and I loved his commentary. I was very fond of the Doctor after getting to know him.
This brings me to my two favourite characters, Fuchsia and the Countess.
I found the tragedy of Fuchsia's life, and her clumsily accidental death, very devastating. It was beautiful when she finds common ground with her brother and they become close, adoring each other and being open and honest with each other. I always knew she would run afoul Steerpike, that is clear from the beginning, and when she so powerfully rejects him and foils his plans simply because he raises his voice at her? Queen, icon, absolute legend of a woman. She lives in her own imagination a lot, so to be so strong and determined in reality that even the bastard himself saw she was ferocious was a beautiful thing to see. WHICH IS WHY, I was absolutely gutted to see her devolve into such loneliness, and lose the bond with Titus, that she wants to kill herself. Fuchsia always felt like a character with weight, so to see her end being reduced to another catalyist for Titus was disappointing. She had a life in the story for far longer than he did, she was important to her father, to even her mother, to nanny Slagg, to Prune, eventually to Titus as well, and to be reduced to a motive for Titus wanting revenge and "having nothing left in Gormenghast" was very upsetting. His decision to leave would have been that much more powerful if he left either WITH her or left her BEHIND. My biggest personal gripe with the story was the actual circumstance around her death, I adored her as a character and she remains one of my favourites, I just didn't like at all how her character was disposed of. Especially after so powerful a scene as Steerpike realising she isn't as stupid as he hoped.
The Countess, my beloved Gertrude, a brilliant, enromous woman with the power to influence cats and birds. She is a recluse, with love and care only for her animals, but when "roused" she is clever and smart enough that even Steerpike respects her and considers her a threat. Her abilities are mysterious, her presence palpable, I loved each and every scene that she was in. It is a damned shame she didn't at all bond with her children, but we know why that is, they are all but vessels of the rituals of the Line. Their existence wasn't a desire it was a duty. Her final conversation with Titus was very powerful and a perfect way to end the story, because she is the last of his family left and he sees how earnestly she believes there is nothing else out there for them. She retreats back inside herself once Steerpike is dealt with, and while this is quite heartbreaking, her character has been so strongly built you see why everything about her is so purposeful. She is the one character whom I loved throughout. I cared for her from the beginning, I cared for her until the end. The image of her enormity, of the birds around her, of the white cloud of cats always trailing in her wake, she is a uniquely magical presence in the story without ever being explicitly so.
Lastly, Titus and Steerpike. I hated the latter viscerally, his demise was something I actively cheered and hoped for. I despised him from the very beginning, and his character was extremely well built and developed for you to hate him as much as the characters. Even more so, perhaps, because you can see everything he is doing long before anyone else does. As far as villainous characters are concerned, he was perfect. He thought everyone so stupid and naive and foolish, I knew he was bound to be proven wrong. I almost wished he HAD been the cause of Fuchsia's death because to be very honest, if she had to die, that's how I'd have expected her to die. Fighting him and resisting, but being defeated as poor Barquentine and the twins had been. It would have GENUINELY given his character no reedemable qualities and the Groans a justifiable loathing of him, making his comeuppance even more satisfying.
Fuchsia randomly falling to her death and drowning because someone knocked on her door is something I will never let go, I fear. It was embarassing and I am glad Titus left believing Steerpike was to blame, I too wish that was the truth.
Titus, the final piece of the puzzle. He was the weakest character, but the one who was always going to break through the confines of tradition and become free. We spend the least amount of time with him, so he always remains more of an idea than a person. Ironically, because that is what he wants to escape, but so much of his life is skipped and rushed through that when he finally has his epiphanies and realisations, it's too little too late to care about him too much as a character. His relationships are very brief and surface level, only the one with Fuchsia carried any weight. My favourite bits were when he was a child, and running around the forest and meeting Flay. I genuinely felt remote from him as soon as he grows up. Don't even get me started on the interaction with the Thing, that was weird and I'd like it blocked out of my memory. I fear all this is because the author intended to make a long series about Titus, so he didn't bother fleshing him out as much in what were supposed to be only the beginnings of his story. As a result, the titular Earl of the land of Gormenghast is the character I cared the least about. I cared more about Barquentine and the twins than I did Titus. His sole personality trait was that he wanted to leave, and be free of rituals and tradition and inherited duty. In the end, he was nothing more than a walking ideal. Whereas the others felt like real people.
The Outer Dwellings were also not explored at all, neither were Keda and her daughter's importance as I already said, the Tree Man reminding me of Ents and the Green Man was also irrelevant. A lot of the story was pure atmosphere. And it was a beautiful one. His writing enchanted me. Whenever anyone went into the forest, or mountain, or some cave beneath the trees, I was loving it.
Ultimately, now that I've sat with it for a while, I conclude that while I LOVED it, it feels very unfinished. Which is obviously exactly the case.
It feels like a phenomenal prelude to a longer tale. I am content to end it at Gormenghast, but I also wonder if I will begin to mind, with time, how loosely ended it really was. Then again, such a story is far more focused on the here and now than its future. Perhaps all it wants from you is to dive deep into the lush world of the castle and its grounds, its strange people and its strange ways, and then finally, eventually, to leave it all behind, as Titus did. Witrhout a backward glance at its magical, archaic strangeness, leaving it and its loose ends and unexplained threads alone.
After all, Gormenghast exists apart from the wider world, and that is how it is meant to remain. Large, looming, distant, unexplained.
All I can say is that I loved my time with it, and grew to love its inhabitants. The 750 pages felt like far more, but at the same time, as far too short. My critical self will have to sit this one out, and leave it at a simple: I loved it, I really did.”
About Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) was a playwright, painter, poet, illustrator, short story writer, and designer of theatrical costumes, as well as a novelist. Among his many books are the celebrated Gormenghast novels, Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone, and the posthumously published Titus Awakes, the lost book of Gormenghast finished by Peake's wife Maeve Gilmore after his death.
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
