Titus Groan (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 1946; vuoden 1970 painos)

I'm not going to attempt to give any synopsis or really critique this book. I'm just going to tell you why I loved it.

This book isn't for everyone. It especially isn't for the reader of typical mainstream popular fantasy.

There are no Mary Sue characters. All the characters are flawed and weird and not easy to relate to. There is no formulaic plot; the plot itself is rather elusive, beyond symbolic commentary on ritual and dynastic rule in stasis. With a few exceptions, all the characters in Gormenghast are pretty old and not very attractive, charming or rational.

There are no teenage badass characters who save the world from ultimate evil in a spastic series of non-stop action scenes.

Best of all, no characters were involved in a love triangle with two super hot and lustful fae.


That's why I loved this book.

A slow and heavily atmospheric tale, this book is best read at a slow pace, so that it can be savored and appreciated for what it is.
( )

Oh dear, I really wanted to like this book. The wonderful names called to me, but the writing style was so hard for me to digest that it made the going too difficult for the reward. My only defense is that when I read this I was in my late 20s and (by my standards) not yet much of a reader, so it may be that I have to give this another try one day. I did absolutely love the television version of it, which put things much more in to context. ( )

Thick, verbose imagery, which will often expend 10 pages describing a leafy quadrangle, grotesque characters, which are so well filled in, they become that rare thing -- a round caricature -- a well constructed, albeit plodding storyline, possibly the best imagery to be found in fiction. This series is an experience like no other, and a book nothing like what you'll find in popular fiction today. There is no attempting to sell to the audience, it is just creation and world-conjuring at its finest. Like all the best pioneers of a new genre, not everything is precisely explained, but the ambiance and feeling the book leaves with you is something that will last a lifetime. I still remember how Ghormenghast looks, feels, smells and tastes, 10 years after reading the series -- as clearly as if I were there, caught someplace between my world and theirs, during all these intervening years. ( )

Clever little rat
skyrocketing socially
nearly to the top. ( )

Un romanzo originalissimo, che ci immerge in un mondo a metà tra il fantastico e il surreale.
Si tratta di Gormenghast, il vero protagonista dell'opera con le sue enormi mura diroccate e la miriade di sale, corridoi e saloni che spesso sembrano vivere di vita propria. Gli abitanti del castello invece si limitano a vegetare un giorno dopo l'altro, imprigionati nei riti e nell'immutabilità millenaria di un luogo che rappresenta il loro intero universo ("Non esiste un'altrove fuori di Gormenghast"). Sono personaggi grotteschi ed eccessivi sia nell'aspetto che nel modo di fare, sempre in bilico tra tragedia e commedia. Eppure (o forse proprio per questo) ogni tanto riescono ad offrirci momenti di grande intensità emotiva, che gettano una luce nuova sul loro animo e sull'intera vicenda. [SPOILER]-Come dimenticare le pagine potentissime dell'incendio, o il duello nelle tenebre fra Sugna e Lisca?-[FINE SPOILER]
Le note dolenti per quanto mi riguarda arrivano sullo stile, barocco ed involuto. Ci si perde in un mare di descrizioni dettagliattisime, brulicanti di similitudini ed artifici retorici. Se da un lato questo aiuta a costruire un'atmosfera suggestiva ed indimenticabile, dall'altro appesantisce il ritmo rendendo il romanzo statico e prolisso.
Resta comunque un libro notevole di cui non vedo l'ora di leggere il seguito, peccato solo che la scrittura non abbia incontrato i miei gusti. ( )