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Mervyn Laurence Peake
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Gormenghast (The Gormenghast Trilogy Book 2) Kindle Edition

by Mervyn Peake (Author), Tad Williams (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 433 ratings

A young earl’s future in a sprawling castle could be changed by a feral girl and a cunning servant in this acclaimed gothic fantasy trilogy’s second entry.

Titus Groan is seven years old, lord and heir to the crumbling castle Gormenghast. A gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old rituals, a world primed to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, and death. Steerpike, who began his climb across the roofs when Titus was born, is now ascending the spiral staircase to the heart of the castle, and in his wake lie imprisonment, manipulation, and murder . . .

Gormenghast is the second volume in Mervyn Peake’s widely acclaimed trilogy, but it is much more than a sequel to Titus Groan—it is an enrichment and deepening of that book.

The Gormenghast Trilogy ranks as one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable feats of imaginative writing.

Praise for Gormenghast

“Gormenghast is must-read fiction, that’s all. You’ll finish it with a small spike of regret stabbing at your heart, and a desire to start again at page one the moment the back cover is closed. It’s a tale to be cherished for life. This is as good as it gets.” —Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

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  1. Book 2 of 4
    Gormenghast Trilogy
  2. Print length
    363 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    The Overlook Press
  5. Publication date
    October 30, 2007
  6. File size
    6.9 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

This extravagant epic about a labyrinthine castle populated with conniving Dickensian grotesques is the true fantasy classic of our time.

-- "Washington Post Book World "

"Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It is a very, very great work...a classic of our age."

-- "Robertson Davies"

"[Peake's books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience."

-- "C. S. Lewis "

[A] magnificent ediface spun from thin air by a tortured genius.

-- "Liz Jensen, author of The Rapture"

About the Author

Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) was a playwright, painter, poet, illustrator, short story writer, and designer of theatrical costumes, as well as a novelist. Among his many books are the celebrated Gormenghast novels, Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone, and the posthumously published Titus Awakes, the lost book of Gormenghast finished by Peake's wife Maeve Gilmore after his death. The Gormenghast novels, as well as Peake's other writings Mr. Pye and Peake's Progress, are all available from The Overlook Press.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07MW9QQVZ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Overlook Press (October 30, 2007)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 30, 2007
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 6.9 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 363 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 433 ratings

About the author

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Mervyn Laurence Peake

Mervyn Laurence Peake

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
433 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find this book to be a worthwhile read, with the plot developing an air of inevitability. Moreover, they appreciate the character development, noting how the characters' thoughts and actions immerse readers in an entire world. However, the writing quality receives mixed reactions from customers.

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13 customers mention "Value for money"10 positive3 negative

Customers find the book to be a great value, with several mentioning it's wonderful as they remembered it, and one customer describing it as an all-time favorite novel.

"...The writing is not particularly easy but it is spectacular, and Peake's vision is truly creative...." Read more

"...plot with a lot of tension still thrown in, so I consider it well worth giving a try if you couldn't get enough in the first book...." Read more

"...Darkly funny and fantastic, this series is obviously an overlooked gem in fantasy. The second is just as good! Absolutely love it!" Read more

"...It's hard to see the point of most of it. I'm feeling as if I wasted my money & am wasting what time I have for reading...." Read more

6 customers mention "Pacing"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the pacing of the book, noting its inevitable plot and surprising turns, with one customer describing it as razor sharp in its psychological depiction.

"...Fascinating, fun, original, thought-provoking...." Read more

"...There is an air of inevitability about the plot with a lot of tension still thrown in, so I consider it well worth giving a try if you couldn't get..." Read more

"Peake’s writing springs forth from a rare talent that catches the imagination with emotions, images, and characters whose thoughts and actions carry..." Read more

"...of the estate is depicted in a comic tone, yet it beautifully dissects the varied emotions each of them are experiencing as they calculate their..." Read more

4 customers mention "Character development"4 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, noting how the characters' thoughts and actions draw readers into an entire world.

"...Characters and plots brought to fulfillment, which I have mixed feelings about, appreciating mystery and simply leaving things to the imagination as..." Read more

"...with emotions, images, and characters whose thoughts and actions carry the reader to an entire world, replete with passion, in a world of strange..." Read more

"...with some of the most bizarre, imaginatively developed and memorable characters in all of great literature!..." Read more

"...Peake has created in such detail, and I felt totally immersed in the characters and images." Read more

6 customers mention "Writing quality"2 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing quality of the book, with some finding it amazing while others note that the language is flowery to an excessive degree.

"...The writing is not particularly easy but it is spectacular, and Peake's vision is truly creative...." Read more

"...Peake’s prose is thrilling even when his action is tedious. Here are a few phrases that dance off of the page: “jungle-headed Mr. Splint”..." Read more

"...What I found impossible to read in Gormenghast, though, were the interminable descriptions of and interactions between the professors and..." Read more

"...or skipping those sections wholesale, this is Peake still writing amazingly, for those who appreciate his slow-paced style...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • E. S. S.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Recommend as True Literature, & Fun
    Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    The first 2 volumes of the Gormenghast trilogy hold their own compared to just about any work of great literature, in my opinion. Fascinating, fun, original, thought-provoking. I dare anyone to find me a better description of a hunt through the corridors of a large castle, or of a flood. The writing is not particularly easy but it is spectacular, and Peake's vision is truly creative. And what a superb creation is the stunted, tragic villain Steerpike.

    At least be sure to watch Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the 2000 BBC miniseries, even If you don't want to read the book! It is brilliant. It even has Stephen Fry.
    And if you like the film, be sure to order the gorgeous book they made about making the film! (I reviewed it also.) It's worth it.

    In addition- for true Gormenghast fans- be sure to check out "The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy," a special edition by Overlook Press 2011. It has the most number of Peake's illustrations of any edition so far, over 100- supposedly some unpublished before.
    It's all three volumes in one binding, so get the hardback!! It's worth it, it's an absolutely stunning "hefty tome" I recommend for anyone who truly loves this book.
    The 1st edition had an intro by China Mieville, the 2nd ed by Michael Moorcock. After that I don't know.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Steve Constantelos
    4.0 out of 5 stars Entirely lesser, but worthy enough, sequel
    Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I often regret reading/seeing sequels, and often regret that they exist in the first place: Dune. But they often have their merits--The Empire Strikes Back. Even if nothing had followed Star Wars of The Hobbit (or even The Fellowship of the Ring, if you prefer to start from there), they would have stood alone as milestones. Although this book isn't as good as Titus Groan, it's got a lot to recommend it--more fine scene painting and intricate descriptions of movements and thoughts from Peake. Characters and plots brought to fulfillment, which I have mixed feelings about, appreciating mystery and simply leaving things to the imagination as I do. But if this was done all the time, stories would never be told in the first place and I don't begrudge stories from having neat endings.

    What I found impossible to read in Gormenghast, though, were the interminable descriptions of and interactions between the professors and headmasters of the school, possibly thanks to not having experienced the antique British education system--thank goodness. Other than skimming or skipping those sections wholesale, this is Peake still writing amazingly, for those who appreciate his slow-paced style. There is an air of inevitability about the plot with a lot of tension still thrown in, so I consider it well worth giving a try if you couldn't get enough in the first book. But, by all means, unless you are in love with grotesquerie mixed with aged schoolmasters, don't feel guilty about giving some chapters a pass.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Alex Richardson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good as the first.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    When I gotten this along with the other two I didn't know what I was going get. But after reading the first book I was immediately hooked! Darkly funny and fantastic, this series is obviously an overlooked gem in fantasy. The second is just as good! Absolutely love it!
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Gerald Conroy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful
    Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Peake’s writing springs forth from a rare talent that catches the imagination with emotions, images, and characters whose thoughts and actions carry the reader to an entire world, replete with passion, in a world of strange and grotesque beauty.
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  • Chad P.
    3.0 out of 5 stars worth the read but…
    Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    These books are great once you wade through the first two thirds of the pages. I recommend for those willing to do the arduous work. Otherwise stay away.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • shayna
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing OMG LOVE
    Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Just get it.
    One person found this helpful
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  • BOB
    4.0 out of 5 stars The dissolution of the ossified, Gothic world
    Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    ‘Gormenghast’ announces itself as a sequel with introductory chapters that could be summarized as “Meanwhile, back in Gormenghast” and cues that state “When last we saw Steerpike”. The mood of the castle and the surrounding environs of Gormenghast Mountain are quickly reestablished and we rejoin the world five years after the conclusion of ‘Titus Groan’, in which the two-year old, titular heir of the House of Groan has unceremoniously yet characteristically for his age dropped the ceremonial stone and ivy branch into the surrounding lake of his ceremonial barge.

    At seven, Titus is no less recalcitrant. There is a surge of rebellion welling up inside of him, struggling to extricate him from the suffocating weight of his hereditary ritual. His mother still expresses non-existent affection or attention to him as the individual person Titus, only regarding him as the 77th Earl of the House of Groan. With the demise of his father in the first novel and an older sister Fuschia, who by a quirk of sex is excluded from inheriting any of the familial titles, all weight and expectation is placed on his shoulders as the only surviving male heir.
    We are brought up to date with Steerpike’s plans to wreak havoc on the castle. He is now assistant to Barquentine, the Master of Ritual who inherited the position after his father, Sourdust, was burnt to death in the fire years earlier that Steerpike manipulated the mentally stunted Sepulchrave sisters, Cora and Clarice, into starting. He is patient and has been biding his time, which seems to be a necessary approach to anything regarding the glacially paced activities of Gormenghast. He is plotting the demise of Barquentine while romancing Fuschia, another measure requiring immense delicacy as Fuschia is mercurial and difficult to seduce. Fuschia is also, despite her chronological adulthood, still remarkably adolescent in her level of emotional maturity. The only person she loves unconditionally at this point is her younger brother Titus.

    Much of the first half of the novel is taken up with the activities in the school, centering primarily among the instructors and their headmaster Bellgrove. They are as fussily eccentric, vain and grotesque as the other occupants and much space is devoted to their personal quirks. The doctor Prunesquallor’s sister Irma has determined that that her youth is slipping away and that there’s no time to lose in getting married. She has focused on the faculty of the school, inviting them to an elaborately planned party, at which she will, she feels, subtly audition them as suitors. Headmaster Bellgrove struggles between his natural urges to express emotion and his duties as a figure of authority that merits respect and must not show vulnerability. He focuses on Irma and she is only too happy to be singled out, not necessarily a point of distinction in that she, the hostess, is the only female present. Their courtship on the grounds of the estate is depicted in a comic tone, yet it beautifully dissects the varied emotions each of them are experiencing as they calculate their moves.

    While this is beautifully written and razor sharp in its psychological depiction, it is a distraction from the primary thread of the story. The courtship grows into an engagement which culminates in a marriage and we see the gradual erosion of romance between them and the increased friction and mutual irritation as each other’s most annoying qualities become more apparent.

    Peake’s prose is thrilling even when his action is tedious. Here are a few phrases that dance off of the page:
    “jungle-headed Mr. Splint”
    Tears are described by one character as “grief’s gravy.”
    “Death’s icicle impales him now.”
    “Suddenly he stretched his arms out on either side, the fingers splayed like starfish as though he were wakening them to a kind of hypersentience of tingling life.”

    By the second half of the novel, when we return to Steerpike’s schemes on one side and Titus’ internal struggles on the other, the novel becomes engaging again. These are the two pivotal characters and their parallel struggles and inevitable conflict with each other provides the spine of the story.

    Titus is at this point an alienated adolescent and has already skipped class and ridden out into the forest, where he has encountered both the exiled servant, Flay, who has surreptitiously crept into the castle a few times to observe the doings of the site of his former life, and the Thing, a wild girl, his foster sister, daughter of his nursemaid Keva, left to fend for herself as an outcast after the suicide of her mother. The Thing represents freedom to Titus and an invitation to join the world outside of the castle.

    While Steerpike’s murders and ensuing pursuit has alerted the castle into action and elicited the stony Countess to rise to the occasion of being a leader in a time of crisis, Titus’s frustration has grown to the point where he has summoned the courage to tell his mother that he wants to renounce his earlship and leave Gormenghast for other lands. His mother does not express emotion or surprise but merely says, “There is nowhere else... you will only tread a circle... everything comes to Gormenghast.”

    The last fifty pages or so are full of action that makes up for the inert quality of much of what has preceded it. While Steerpike is inevitably defeated tragedy strikes elsewhere and Titus is more resolute in his determination to depart. By the conclusion of the novel, the ritualistic monotony of Gormenghast has become literally lifeless and one senses that this change is inevitable. A confluence of factors has precipitated the development but what will continue in the castle can only be imagined because Titus has left for other lands and his adventures will be depicted in the final Titus novel, ‘Titus Alone’.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Frederick C. Wilt
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is one of my all time favorite books. Rather than try to explain in a ...
    Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This is one of my all time favorite books. Rather than try to explain in a few words the nature of the story, the writing style, etc I would simply suggest that you download the sample and read it.
    It's not a book for everybody but for those that might truly enjoy this book it should not be overlooked.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Felix
    5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect
    Reviewed in Germany on September 28, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Everything was perfect! Nothing to complain about. Would oreder again anytime from this vendor. I am very pleased and happy.
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  • francesca
    5.0 out of 5 stars un secondo capitolo all'altezza del primo
    Reviewed in Italy on December 27, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Secondo capitolo della saga di Gormenghast, il giovane Tito è ormai quasi un adolescente, Fucsia lo è decisamente, la Contessa è sempre più matronale e statica, Lisca è stato esiliato, il Conte De Lamenti è morto, Irma e Floristrazio sono nella loro casa a ripiccarsi e Ferraguzzo è pronto per la sua scalata al potere di Gormenghast.. insomma ritroviamo tutte le nostre vecchie conoscenze più qualche new entry (i professori della scuola di Gormenghast).
    Devo dire che nei primi capitoli ho sentito quella piacevole sensazione del ritorno ad un luogo conosciuto, mi è parso di ritrovare tante vecchie conoscenze, ho rivisto le mura di Gormenghast e la vita che vi pullula intorno ed all'interno. Ho trovato la parte centrale un po' lenta, un po' troppo descrittiva, in alcuni punti fin troppo minuziosamente. Ma il riscatto doveva arrivare ed ecco una parte finale al cardiopalma, con continui colpi di scena che incollano il lettore alle pagine fino alla fine, in un crescendo di dolore, rabbia e vendetta.
    Ero rimasta più sognante dopo il primo, ma anche questo secondo capitolo è stato all'altezza, ora non vedo l'ora di leggere il terzo.
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  • La Lunetterie Cousin Julien Cousin
    5.0 out of 5 stars La trilogie de Mervyn Peake est GENIALE !!!
    Reviewed in France on January 16, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Très bonne trilogie.
    Attention, il y a des chances que vous n'ayez jamais lu un livre comme ça: il est surprenant, on ne s'attend jamais aux événements qui vous tombent dessus.
    On s'attache à chaque personnage, la lecture est facile, l'écriture est originale.
    A lire
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars FIVE STARS
    Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2017
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    Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  • Chris D
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is the middle of the trilogy and possibly one of the finest books ever written on a par with such classics ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Call yourself a lover of classic literature and you have not read the Gormenghast trilogy...dear oh dear. This is the middle of the trilogy and possibly one of the finest books ever written on a par with such classics as Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye. However, you will need to start with Titus Groan and then progress to this literary masterpiece, which succeeds in being everything that ponderous epics such as War and Peace are not. If you truly appreciate fine great literature you will be overjoyed and devastated by the last page. I cannot recommend Mr Peakes masterpiece to highly.
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