emhanc's review
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
richardpierce's review
4.0
I loved Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. This did not disappoint. I found the tone lighter, and room for hope in a desperate world.
el_entrenador_loco's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
stephilica's review
There is no central antagonist to the plot like there is in Steerpike from the main two Gormenghast books or even in Cheeta from Titus Alone. Rather, it is mostly episodic, where Titus runs into several different colorful characters. The plot’s real antagonist is Titus himself; this is an intensely character-driven book. The first half is intensely depressing, as Titus abandons every single person who helps him, becoming more self-loathing as he does so. The second half is the reciprocal; Titus gives back to society by becoming a caregiver, and then retreats to hermetical contemplation before setting out on his final journey. Dotted throughout these major arcs are satirical encounters that feel like Maeve Gilmore has a personal vendetta against Communists (far be it from me to blame her).
The key to Titus’ character is his realization of agency. First he laments how he abandons everyone but he ‘cannot help it.’ But after he meets the Poet (who is obviously Mervyn Peake even if you Google nothing), Titus wants to change that. He needs a goal beyond ‘wandering.’ And to do that, he needs to understand himself better than ‘someone who wanders.’ So where is he to go to do that? To understand himself, he goes back to his beginning—not Gormenghast, though the prose echoes that with “not a road, not a track but will lead you home”—but to the Ur-Home: his journey ends when he finds Mervyn Peake happy and well. There is a therapeutic aspect to this (Maeve writes Titus finding her marriage during its most sunlit days) but it is also fitting for the character. He had no father, as Sepulchrave died when he was an infant, but Titus has found a guiding figure, which is what he most sorely needed.
The key to Titus’ character is his realization of agency. First he laments how he abandons everyone but he ‘cannot help it.’ But after he meets the Poet (who is obviously Mervyn Peake even if you Google nothing), Titus wants to change that. He needs a goal beyond ‘wandering.’ And to do that, he needs to understand himself better than ‘someone who wanders.’ So where is he to go to do that? To understand himself, he goes back to his beginning—not Gormenghast, though the prose echoes that with “not a road, not a track but will lead you home”—but to the Ur-Home: his journey ends when he finds Mervyn Peake happy and well. There is a therapeutic aspect to this (Maeve writes Titus finding her marriage during its most sunlit days) but it is also fitting for the character. He had no father, as Sepulchrave died when he was an infant, but Titus has found a guiding figure, which is what he most sorely needed.
fuchsia_groan's review
5.0
Poco o nada se puede "criticar" de una obra escrita por alguien tras la muerte de su marido y que al terminar guardó en una caja y no intentó publicar. En la introducción Brian Sibley explica que Maeve lo escribió como un intento de negar que el hombre, igual que la historia que había creado, estaban perdidos para siempre; ella muere en 1983, y es después cuando su nieta encuentra el manuscrito en una caja (Sibley sí sabía que existía, eran amigos y hablaban de ello).
Lo único que Peake dejó de lo que iba a ser la cuarta novela de Los Libros de Titus fue un fragmento, datado de julio de 1960, que constituye el primer capítulo de este libro, y una lista de las posibles tramas para cada capítulo, en la que Maeve se inspiró para crear la historia, además de en los tres libros anteriores y en la vida del propio Mervyn.
El libro iba a titularse Search without end (que es como se titula el último capítulo), pero al final Maeve lo cambió por el título que Mervyn tenía planeado: Titus Awakes.
En el primer capítulo, escrito por Peake, por un lado tenemos Gormenghast, a Lady Gertrude y a Prunescualo, ¿quizás iba a retomarlos? Por el otro, a Titus, exactamente en el mismo punto en el que quedó en el anterior libro.
A partir de ahí, Maeve sigue con la obra, al principio ciñéndose más o menos al esquema de Peake, para ir alejándose poco a poco (tanto en temas como en estilo), juntando al autor con su obra, convirtiéndose más en un homenaje que en una continuación.
Creo que este libro se disfruta muchísimo más si se lee antes A World Away, un libro de memorias de Maeve sobre Mervyn y su vida juntos.
Lo único que Peake dejó de lo que iba a ser la cuarta novela de Los Libros de Titus fue un fragmento, datado de julio de 1960, que constituye el primer capítulo de este libro, y una lista de las posibles tramas para cada capítulo, en la que Maeve se inspiró para crear la historia, además de en los tres libros anteriores y en la vida del propio Mervyn.
El libro iba a titularse Search without end (que es como se titula el último capítulo), pero al final Maeve lo cambió por el título que Mervyn tenía planeado: Titus Awakes.
En el primer capítulo, escrito por Peake, por un lado tenemos Gormenghast, a Lady Gertrude y a Prunescualo, ¿quizás iba a retomarlos? Por el otro, a Titus, exactamente en el mismo punto en el que quedó en el anterior libro.
A partir de ahí, Maeve sigue con la obra, al principio ciñéndose más o menos al esquema de Peake, para ir alejándose poco a poco (tanto en temas como en estilo), juntando al autor con su obra, convirtiéndose más en un homenaje que en una continuación.
Creo que este libro se disfruta muchísimo más si se lee antes A World Away, un libro de memorias de Maeve sobre Mervyn y su vida juntos.
elizafiedler's review
2.0
The writing style is nothing remotely like Peake. It's missing all the attention to surprising detail and the whimsy.
steveatwaywords's review
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
While the completionist in me is satisfied that I have (somehow) reached the "end" of the series of books around Gormenghast, I can't pretend that this volume added anything significant to the allure of the first two books.
Yes, it's a grave undertaking to build an entire novel from a fragment which remained, but this work compounds the problems of the third book, being a more or less random assortment of unexpected encounters with people as Titus wanders, all either unreasonable or unreasonably reasonable. Titus, mostly inexplicably, is unable to latch himself to any, ever world weary. And so he wanders more, and occasionally Gilmore pronounces these seemingly enormous revelations about Titus's own psyche that have rarely any sound connection to the encounters nor to an important characterization which allows the book to . . . conclude.
Outside of a few new characters who more or less retain the eccentricity of the first two books, there is little here that satisfied.
Yes, it's a grave undertaking to build an entire novel from a fragment which remained, but this work compounds the problems of the third book, being a more or less random assortment of unexpected encounters with people as Titus wanders, all either unreasonable or unreasonably reasonable. Titus, mostly inexplicably, is unable to latch himself to any, ever world weary. And so he wanders more, and occasionally Gilmore pronounces these seemingly enormous revelations about Titus's own psyche that have rarely any sound connection to the encounters nor to an important characterization which allows the book to . . . conclude.
Outside of a few new characters who more or less retain the eccentricity of the first two books, there is little here that satisfied.
jgwc54e5's review
3.0
Based on a fragment written by Mervyn Peake, his widow has completed this fourth Gormenghast novel. I found it disappointing though there were moments that were sad, or entertaining or colourful, it never really got into my imagination like the original works and at times it just meanders. Interesting I guess, but not essential.
phelpsa64's review
5.0
I loved this book. It felt emotionally true in a way that few things really are. The plot might disappoint you if you are just coming from the main series, but as catharsis it is magnificent.
octavia_cade's review against another edition
3.0
Mervyn Peake may be my favourite author. His "Gormenghast" series is outstanding, and if Peake hadn't succumbed to neurological disease he would have continued to write. "Titus Awakes" is the work of his wife, Maeve Gilmore, extrapolating from the thinnest of fragments left behind, and it is proof positive that one can marry a genius but not continue on for them.
I wanted to love it. But the characteristic grotesquerie of Peake, the Baroque prose you can drown in, just isn't there. Gilmore tries, and the mimicry of style is in some places clever, but compared to the immensity of Gormenghast castle she has produced a scaffolding at best - the same sense of shape, with none of the depth. "Titus Awakes" feels like stepping stones, an episodic skipping of here-to-there that doesn't have the cohesion, the interconnection, of Peake's previous works.
This isn't surprising. Gilmore isn't so much writing a continuation as she is an exploration - what life is like without her husband. It is hard to read the final parts of the book and not recognise Peake himself as the patient in the sanatorium, his mind and intelligence failing as his wife sits beside him and waits for the end. It's not just the patient, of course - Peake appears in the book, unnamed, a couple more times after that and it is unutterably sad - but sad because of context, and not because of text. One can't blame Gilmore for reaching out, for trying to reconcile her husband's greatest work with the ending of his life - but it's not "Gormenghast", not even close, and I wonder if the fragment should have been left well enough alone.
I wanted to love it. But the characteristic grotesquerie of Peake, the Baroque prose you can drown in, just isn't there. Gilmore tries, and the mimicry of style is in some places clever, but compared to the immensity of Gormenghast castle she has produced a scaffolding at best - the same sense of shape, with none of the depth. "Titus Awakes" feels like stepping stones, an episodic skipping of here-to-there that doesn't have the cohesion, the interconnection, of Peake's previous works.
This isn't surprising. Gilmore isn't so much writing a continuation as she is an exploration - what life is like without her husband. It is hard to read the final parts of the book and not recognise Peake himself as the patient in the sanatorium, his mind and intelligence failing as his wife sits beside him and waits for the end. It's not just the patient, of course - Peake appears in the book, unnamed, a couple more times after that and it is unutterably sad - but sad because of context, and not because of text. One can't blame Gilmore for reaching out, for trying to reconcile her husband's greatest work with the ending of his life - but it's not "Gormenghast", not even close, and I wonder if the fragment should have been left well enough alone.