Strange, somber, and unconventional, Peake’s first novel Titus Groan delights the senses with prose that challenges even the most cerebral reader and so begins the tragic chronicle of the Groans and Castle Gormenghast.
This gothic fantasy gets off to a slow and inauspicious start, detailing a ceremony of the bright carvers, inhabitants that live in hovels outside the castle and carve statues to honor Lord Sepulchrave the 76th Earl of Groan. Taking place in the shadow of Gormenghast, the whole scene offers an excellent glimpse into the Castle’s immensity and immutability. Even if the plot meanders, the verve of Peake’s descriptions are a pleasure.
Moreso than the birth of Titus, the novel’s titular character and heir to the throne, it is the machinations of Steerpike, a kitchen scullion with much loftier aspirations, that provides most of the narrative’s forward momentum. He seems to come so far during the single year covered in the novel. First we cheer for Steerpike, then we witness the ruthless lengths he goes to achieve power and our sympathy becomes acrimony — that we feel conflicted attests to the power of Peake’s characters.
Almost every character we meet in castle fits the mold of a literary grotesque, fully-fleshed with hilarious and sometimes nightmarish descriptions. This detailed taxonomy extends to the castle as well — as much a character as any person in the novel — with its forgotten sections and shambled ones, which seem to reflect the damage apathy has wrought not only on the castle but all its inhabitants.
The events at Titus’ earling ceremony symbolize perhaps an end of the adherence to useless arcane tradition, a changing tide; these, combined with Steerpike’s upward mobility and conniving, marks the two as potential adversaries in the battle for the future of the Groan’s and sets the stage wonderfully for the second book, Gormenghast.
The Aberrant Rag 