Cosmo Digital

Author: Mervyn Peake
Page Count: 543 pages
Review originally written 10-6-2002

This book, this whole series, is in all aspects an epic. There is so much to it. The vision of this immense castle, so large and sprawling that some of the inhabitants never leave it during their entire lives, is just amazing in its scope and breadth.

I first heard of Gormenghast while watching the television, when I saw a quick brief about the making of a miniseries based on it. I quickly realized it was an epic fantasy and made the mental note to watch the miniseries. Much later I saw a couple parts of the dramatization of the first two books, and this only whetted my desire to procure and read the series. At last I found the first two books at a used bookstore, and immediately bought them.

Although I bought the books in an instant, it took me and extraordinarily long time to read through the first book. Perhaps this is because it was written in the 1940s, and so in contemporary with Tolkien, Eddison, etc... The language used in fantasy books of this time period is much more formal and elevated than that of today, and thus this could have caused me some trouble with the text.

There is another sort of problem with the text: Peake goes all out with descriptions of just about everything. On one hand this is a good thing, for all the vivid descriptions serve to create this fully-realized fantasy world, but one can also go too far with them. Although there is not all that much action in the book, it is still 543 pages long, due to these descriptions. Sometimes I would get bogged down in them, which would severely impede the pace of my reading.

Other than the conception of the castle itself, the characters are the best part of the book. They all are completely crafted, each with his or her own distinct personality and little quirks. Every so often I would get the impression that the characters are all a little crazy, due to their idiosyncracies, but that makes them interesting and is what makes the book a good read.

My favorite character is Steerpike, and this could because he drives much of the plot. In the later volumes I expect this to shift to Titus Groan, but in the first book he is only a baby and thus it falls to others to carry on the action. Another interesting character is that of Flay. At first he wasn't much more than a generic supporting character in the role of Lord Sepulchrave's manservant, but soon he gains a role of his own in his conflict with the head cook Swelter. The battle between them, ending with the death of Swelter and Sepulchrave, was quite entertaining to read. Sepulchrave was an interesting character later on in the book before he died, as he slowly went insane from the burning of his library. I can sympathise with that.

Although it took me quite a long time to read this book, it was all worth it. From viewing those sections of the miniseries, I had high expectations of what this would be, and it more than met those. I am already reading the second book of the series, and am making good progress on that. It will be interesting to see what happens next in the epic of Gormenghast.

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