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| this, the second of peake's books, was equally good. it continues the same story in the same basic style. titus is older in this one, and it spans more time. from age 7 to about 17. this book starts off a lot lighter, with considerable amount of humour, but ends up being darker. these two books together make a pretty complete story where everything is concluded, except for just a little bit at the end. but that bit at the end changes the whole feel of the books to be just the very beginning of what would be the most epic of epic stories. too bad peake had to go and die after only the third book. confusing to me is why the second book is not called titus groan since it focuses much more on titus than the first book. but then again, it deals a lot more with gormenghast, so i guess it works. in any case, i like this one even more than the first. it's much more intense. i watched the bbc production after reading this one. it covers just the first two books. while pretty accurate to the books, it just doesn't translate well to movie form. but ian richardson as titus's father and christopher lee as the manservant are enjoyable. one of my favorite currently writing authors, china mieville, made a list of the top 50 sff books socialists should read. peake's gormenghast books are on there. he says it's "an austere depiction of dead ritualism and necessary transformation." another i have read recently on his list is 'wicked'. | | |
| i took a break from peake for a bit to read wicked. i've heard a bunch about it from a coworker and just general people on account of the play being big and all. it was good, but not as good as i expected. the whole idea is that this gives a background as to why/how the witch becomes wicked, but the author never really presents his views on the subject. he just put forward many different ideas without making a case for any of them. most frustrating was maguire's tendency to skip over key points in the witch's life, so we don't really see how her character develops, we just see long after the fact that she has changed or come to a new point in her life. maybe this was all his intent so that the reader can make his own conclusions as to why she is the way she is. strangely enough she dies in the end. didn't see that coming at all. maybe i'll see the musical some day. i think it's the top of my musicals-to-see list (which is not extensive). | | |
| i am back everyone. my computer died a while back, for good this time. i have a new one now. | | |
| so i didn't continue directly through all three gormenghast novels. i just read the first for now. and don't be deceived, it's not really a trilogy, the author just happened to finish only three books (chronicling the life of his hero titus groan) before he died of parkinsons at the age of 45 or so. while classified as a fantasy novel, i wouldn't really call it such. there is no magic, no supernatural occurrences, no weird monsters or elves or anything (there is a midget, but midgets are real). it is possible that the following books might have something more fantastical about them, but i doubt it. my guess its classification comes from its setting and characters being entirely fictional. it does, however, have a strong feel of fantasy, and has probably influenced urban fantasy in the same way that tolkien influenced the epic fantasies (i always assumed people had at least heard of it if not read it, but from talking around i apparently know no one who has ever heard of mervin peake or gormenghast before). disregarding its lack of popularity (as should always be done since people generally don't know anything and have bad taste to boot), this book is one of my favorites. we'll say top ten. i was very scared about this book. i heard that peake's initial idea was to write a book thousands of pages long in which the hero, by the end, is only about six months old. he didn't quite achieve that, fortunately, but titus groan is four hundred pages, and titus is only a little over a year old by the end. it is debatable as to whether titus is the actual hero of the book. he is after all only an infant and can't do too much, but nonetheless, the events of the story all revolve around and concern him whether he can react or not. titus groan is, naturally, long winded, but peake manages to actual do something with his excessive words unlike most authors with the same problem. it is one of those books where is seems the author labored over each word until he was sure to have found the perfect one. every aspect of peake's work is well executed from the establishment of setting to the development of characters to the construction of the various themes to the emotional respose induced in the reader. most notable are peake's characters. if i were ever to (by some strange twist of fate) teach an english class, or (somewhat more likely) be involved in an actual book club, this would be the number one choice for people to read and discus. if anyone has read it or reads it, let me know. we'll make a little forum somewhere. i didn't immediately start on gormenghast for three reasons. partly, i wanted to take time to reflect and consider titus groan before it got all jumbled with its sequel. partly, wicked has been taunting me for some time now (about six weeks). and partly, gormenghast begins, 'titus is seven,' so i figured i should take a break as well (but not for six years). my list of books to read is growing lately; i am pretty much booked through june. | | |
| man, this book was good. i blitzed through it in about 3 days. it was quite the page turner, but one with some literary quality unlike many others. the book has a few different sections, each written differently. there are a couple small first-person narratives from modern characters. the majority of the book is two accounts of stage magicians in the late 19th century. one is written in an autobiographical style giving a brief overview of his life, highlighting some key components, in addition to a few expositions on his theories on illusion. the other records his life through a series of journal entries up to his death. priest does a great job of relating the same incident through different eyes, each time revealing something completely different. i have not yet seen the movie, but hope to soon. my coworker and i have discussed it some, and it seems the movie differs greatly in content but still manages to hold to similar themes, and it may even have made some acceptable changes. we shall see. a brief compare/contrast to susanna clarke's book: both take place in the same time period, both deal with conflict between two magicians. priest's deals with magicians doing tricks along the lines of slight-of-hand, while clarke's magicians work real magic and deal with fairies. priest's magicians are agressive toward eachother, clarke's are passive. priest uses modern prose and switches style and viewpoints through the book, allowing his book to reflect the illusive nature of his characters/subject matter, clarke writes like jane austen and is fairly straight-forward. priest's book is dark, clarke keeps the tone light and, to an extent, humourous. i am debating postponing the reading of gormenghast in favor of maguire's wicked. it's awful daunting having a thousand pager of presumably thick and heavy reading ahead of me.... if i haven't written anything in the next three weeks, i'm still in the thick of gormenghast. probably in the first hundred pages or so. | | |
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