In the small loft with the great castle beneath them like a gigantic body with its arteries filled with water, they sat there side by side, and stared at where a piece of plaster had fallen from the opposite wall, and had left a small grey pattern the shape of a heart.
Mervyn Peake, from Gormenghast (Eyre & Spottiswoode 1950)
are you a gormenghast fan?! ive never rlly seen one before. ive read the first one but im saving the second one because I loved the first too much to read it casually.
could you please explain what the appeal of gormenghast is? i picked up the copy we have at my work and tried reading the first page but it immediately made my adhd brain dissolve into static. does it get easier to read if you stick with it?
I…can’t actually, at least not in a way that will sell it to another person. I don’t recommend it to people, not because I don’t think it’s great and every line is a bizarre and specific poetry, but I think it fits a…very particular sort of taste that is absolutely not for everyone. And you’re not alone in that haha! Other people have asked me why I love gormenghast so I answered…That Ask here. And I also talk a little bit about it (and Shirley Jackson who does similar things to me) here too. TL;DR It’s Personal lol.
My favorite sort of books are the ones that when people who don’t like them have a critique, it’s usually ‘nothing much happened’. All my favorite books have been ones that are dense and odd and ask you to sit with their sentences. A book that has little interest in a linear plot or answering ‘why’, but instead takes your hand and says ‘I want you to know a place and I want that place to swallow you whole.’ I copy and pasted that whole paragraph from my review of another book that I’ll link here for honorable mentions if anyone is intrigued by books like that. And that’s what the Gormenghast novels feel like.
Also when I say Gormenghast, know that I mean Titus Groan and Gormenghast. I prefer Titus Groan a bit more. Titus Alone was odd and discordant but that’s because it was…supposed to be a middle novel and Peake died before the whole series could be completed.
The Oath of Conquest calls to paladins who seek glory in battle and the subjugation of their enemies. It isn’t enough for these paladins to establish order. They must crush the forces of chaos. Sometimes called knight tyrants or iron mongers, those who swear this oath gather into grim orders that serve gods or philosophies of war and well-ordered might.
from Anonymous: 
