Scan barcode
steveatwaywords's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-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
3.0
In some ways, this work was both the most rewarding and the most peculiar of the original trilogy. Far apart from the original two in both setting and fantastical narrative, this work follows a solitary character through his misbegotten quest: to escape his rite of passage to rule Gormenghast.
While some reviewers are thrown by the abrupt and unexplained setting change (somewhat in the style of the worse of M Night Shyamalan films), more problematic to me was the role/purpose given to the characters either allegorical or thematically. While there are some overall motifs and questions at work across the text, little to nothing is resolved satisfactorily in either the plotting or the character conflicts established. For me, it seemed that Peake understood this problem, as well, for the end of the book makes some cursory efforts to identify and synthesize some internal conflicts. It may be, too (and it certainly seems so), that Peake had sketched out a larger canvas for Titus's quest (more books) in order to address these issues, but he never realized them before his death.
I don't want to call the reading non-sensical for this reason, because the foundations for something larger were still underfoot, as it were. So I am appreciative of the experience of the "completed" trilogy, with the first two volumes read as perhaps a more satisfactory completion. Now, however, since Peake's widow has collected his notes and partial drafts for a fourth work, completed the story, and had it published as Titus Awakes, I suppose the completest in me must . . . complete. And so I do so apprehensively armed. . . .
While some reviewers are thrown by the abrupt and unexplained setting change (somewhat in the style of the worse of M Night Shyamalan films), more problematic to me was the role/purpose given to the characters either allegorical or thematically. While there are some overall motifs and questions at work across the text, little to nothing is resolved satisfactorily in either the plotting or the character conflicts established. For me, it seemed that Peake understood this problem, as well, for the end of the book makes some cursory efforts to identify and synthesize some internal conflicts. It may be, too (and it certainly seems so), that Peake had sketched out a larger canvas for Titus's quest (more books) in order to address these issues, but he never realized them before his death.
I don't want to call the reading non-sensical for this reason, because the foundations for something larger were still underfoot, as it were. So I am appreciative of the experience of the "completed" trilogy, with the first two volumes read as perhaps a more satisfactory completion. Now, however, since Peake's widow has collected his notes and partial drafts for a fourth work, completed the story, and had it published as Titus Awakes, I suppose the completest in me must . . . complete. And so I do so apprehensively armed. . . .
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Death
More...