............and they are going to eat you all up. Or, you know, not.
Poor old Sepulchrave. He loved his books more than anything.........certainly more than any living person. Perhaps not more than tradition, obviously......
I was first introduced to Mervyn Peake's Titus books (emphatically NOT a trilogy, apparently) just before Christmas 1983. And it is in fact absolutely impossible for me to talk about them without running round waving my hands in the air shouting (excitedly) I love these books! I really really love them!!! . Because, I do.
Peake was an artist and illustrator as well as a writer, and he brought a very visual sensibility to his writing. It's actually quite rare for me to appreciate this sort of thing (I'm sure it's not particularly rare as a phenomenon, although other proponents may be less successful than Peake) because I'm incredibly un-visual myself (as those who have met me and encountered my dress sense will testify). Peake's imagery, though, is mad as a box of frogs. Grotesque, larger than life, on the one hand, intricate, involving and tender on the other. Intriguing and infuriating in equal measure.
Every time I read the books, I see something new about the world of Gormenghast,and the characters who inhabit it. Sometimes I love Steerpike (after all, Sting and Robert Smith can't both be wrong, surely?) sometimes I'm rooting for Titus. Thus far I have never found it in me to like Gertrude - but, you know, maybe next time? She does like cats, I suppose........Irma Prunesquallor, initially a figure of fun to me, has become one of my favourite characters. Sepulchrave and his owls..........I have an owl tatoo on my shoulder. It's not very good, the tattoo artist was obviously not that great at his chosen trade - but it's my permanent tribute to Sepulchrave, and his fate...........What would I do if I lost all my books? Well, I wouldn't turn into an owl I'm pretty certain, but I can understand his desolation, and why he chose to isolate himself with his owls rather than remain in the life of the castle, once his whole reason for living, his only respite from the tyranny of tradition, had gone up in flames. And Fuschia.....poor poor little Fuschia. She played with fire and got burned just as surely as the books did. She never had a chance, locked up in that castle.
The BBC adaptation 8 years or so ago was a bit of a disappointment to me, if I'm honest. I preferred the radio version in 84 (or was it 85?). And not just because Sting was playing Steerpike - I think the visual imagery was just a bit....off. Whereas the radio version, strangely enough, was perfect ;) The realisations of Gondor, Helm's Deep and Moria in the Lord of the Rings films were actually closer to how I imagine Gormenghast than what the BBC came up with - but that's probably because Peter Jackson used Alan Lee for a lot of his design work, and my first copies of the Titus books were the Penguin versions with the Alan Lee covers.
I wanted to call our cats Prunesquallor and Barquentine, but I was overruled. I live with philistines.
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2 comments:
I, too, enjoy the Gormenghast books.
I'm interested in your saying that the books are 'emphatically not a trilogy'. Why would that be?
In my youth, I was for some time a member of the Mervyn Peake society. Together with a certain Mr Baker. Received wisdom from the 'experts' there (and they were all coming from a literary criticism or academic basis) was that he didn't intend the books to be seen as a trilogy, and that Titus Alone was very much a standalone effort - which of course, when you look at the plot and style and structure, is obvious. The 'not a trilogy' position was also held firmly by his family, members of which would often come and give talks at our events.
It was oh so much more civilised than DWAS, I'll tell you! Although I was introduced to Peake, and the Peake society, by my first DWAS friends, so....
Did you ever see the stage adaptation? By the David Glass ensemble? It was breathtaking.
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