This could have been even better than Titus Groan, because when it comes to epic life--the return and grim fall of Flay, the Golem of Gormenghast; Titus's great allegorical sexual encounter with the Thing in the cave; (heart pounding, full of hate, breathing in water), Steerpike's last stand. I will not forget these characters.

But Peake doesn't seem to know if he wants allegory, high satire, or low parody, and all to often settles for the last in a grimy ramshackle way that the "Fantasy of Manners" label I see applied to this book does only so much to excuse. I'll give fantasy of manners to Fuchsia, and maybe (maybe) Irma Prunesquallor and Bellgrove, although Peake all too often seems to be looking down his nose Britishly at their marriage with sneery vignettes, rather than the good-humoured touch they demand. But the schoolmasters and pupils, the way they intrude like broken-record trash knockoffs of the sort of just-over-the-top public-school parody you might see in e.g. Waugh, the way you're constantly invited to take this book seriously and then get your nose pushed into turgid slapstick comedy, is demoralizing.

And it saps the book's might to an extent. Too much of the time you feel like they could all be called Prunesquallor. Peake should have decided whether he wanted a Jungian fable or credit for preemptively writing Pink Floyd's The Wall, and then stuck with it.

And Titus is a cipher, grimmer than Prince Hal or Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime and that's all. He has another chance to shine, though, in book 3, and by the end of this one I was starting to care a little. But I think Peake wants me to think "Can he be free?", when I really just think "Will he turn out to be damaged goods?" ( )

if only to meet the professors and the prunesquallors. truly a great work of imaginative fiction. some with a harry patter tummy ache might find medicine here. nothing against hp, of course. ( )

This is a unique coming of age story, with Peake's Dickenslike characters and the brooding castle the overshadows everything. The plot itself unfolds slowly, both in pages and in years, but this was not a detriment as the reader knows what the expect in the second novel of the trilogy. In many ways it is even more bizarre than the first book, but that is part of the appeal. ( )

Affascinante! Per gusti gotici

Reviewed Feb 2005

In this second novel by Peake the author becomes more detailed and numbers his chapters instead of titling as he did in his last novel. The story closely follows the movie it end with the Death of Steerpike and Titus leaving on horseback to seek his destiny. Oddly there is another novel "Titus Alone" I am curious to see what happens to him, but am almost afraid to read it as it probably deals with him just riding around - living off the land and finally coming back home ready to rule. I found the death of Fucia unnecessary and anticlimactic. As well as the character, "the Thing" what was that all about. Surly Titus could have learned about freedom some other way. As far as the story being believable it really reached to imagine that the valley and the castle could be flooded so quickly with little rain. The countess states to Titus that there is nowhere but Gormenghast, there must be other countries. Why is there no trade. where does the countess come from, what is her history? Were is Titus and Fucia supposed to find mates? He details the surroundings but never answers the basic questions.

6-2005 ( )