Scan barcode
kerrygold's review against another edition
4.0
Titus Alone, first published in 1959, is the third volume in Mervyn Peake's Gormengast Trilogy. This edition was published in 1968 as one of the precursors to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series proper, before Lin Carter became series editor. The Ballantine edition has a cover designed by Bob Pepper. As with the other two books, Titus Alone contains Peake's pencil sketches of some of the characters, although in this third volume they are integrated into the book on regular pages rather than on separate glossy plates.
Over the years I have read Titus Groan and Gormenghast several times, but Titus Alone only once previously. I remember being disappointed, coming from Peake's transcendent vision of the rise and fall of arch villain Steerpike in the first two volumes, with its background of Gormenghast Castle and its vivid and surreal collection of characters.
Titus Alone has the very nasty Cheeta and the subterranean Under-River, as well as the likes of Muzzlehatch and the trio of beggars Crabcalf, Slingshot, and Crack-Bell, but Peake's writing in this third book piles images on top of each other with less restraint than in Titus Groan and Gormenghast, at least early in the book. The writing in the first two books is more precise.
The same exuberance is present at Cheeta's party at the end of the book, although I couldn't quite believe the story here. Peake writes fantasy, but even an invented world needs an internal logic—in Titus Groan and Gormenghast, the internal logic is provided by the Ritual and the Law of the Stones, and everything interpreted in these terms makes a strange kind of sense.
The main character in this work is clearly Titus, though Muzzlehatch participates on and off throughout the book. Early in the book, poor Juno is discarded, not to be seen again. Most of the Under-River characters come and go quickly. Titus isn't a likeable character in that he is callous and selfish in his quest for complete freedom. In his favour, he is a young man of twenty with a very strange upbringing who is trying to makes sense of the world.
While Steerpike is a surreal and demonic invention who dominates the first two volumes, the villains and wrecks in Titus Alone are all too human. Only Titus from the first two volumes may be said to be a real human character, with perhaps the exception of Keda and the Bright Carvers—along with Keda's daughter, Titus' foster sister, the Thing. This distinction doesn't necessarily make Titus Alone less of a book, just different. Titus Alone does however lack the narrative arc of the first two books.
Interestingly, Titus Alone contains some examples of advanced technology, ahead of Peake’s own time. For example, the sophisticated drone that Titus destroys belongs more to the 21st century than the mid-20th. Gormenghast and its environs don’t even display combustion-engine or firearm technology; Steerpike’s deadly weapons are a sword-stick and a catapult rather than a gun. It seems odd that Gormenghast belongs to the same world as that of Titus Alone, although perhaps the technological difference acts to emphasize the isolation of Gormenghast.
Titus Alone is nevertheless unmistakably Peake. After the first two books, it's great to read something that connects with them so strongly. We know what Titus is running from, and we know he is wracked by guilt at his treachery. Gormenghast and Titus' rank of 77th Lord Groan is mentioned throughout the book. Gormenghast is still in the background, though now only known through Titus' memories—except at the end in the bizarre parody of Gormenghast and its characters designed by Cheeta to drive Titus insane because he has spurned her.
At the climax of the book, Titus does find his way back to Gormenghast, proving to himself that it is not just his insane invention. At that point, I wished him to return to his home, but he turns his back on it for good. We have to wonder where fortune will take him. All in all, Titus Alone is another great Peake fantasy, though in a different way from the first two books.
Over the years I have read Titus Groan and Gormenghast several times, but Titus Alone only once previously. I remember being disappointed, coming from Peake's transcendent vision of the rise and fall of arch villain Steerpike in the first two volumes, with its background of Gormenghast Castle and its vivid and surreal collection of characters.
Titus Alone has the very nasty Cheeta and the subterranean Under-River, as well as the likes of Muzzlehatch and the trio of beggars Crabcalf, Slingshot, and Crack-Bell, but Peake's writing in this third book piles images on top of each other with less restraint than in Titus Groan and Gormenghast, at least early in the book. The writing in the first two books is more precise.
The same exuberance is present at Cheeta's party at the end of the book, although I couldn't quite believe the story here. Peake writes fantasy, but even an invented world needs an internal logic—in Titus Groan and Gormenghast, the internal logic is provided by the Ritual and the Law of the Stones, and everything interpreted in these terms makes a strange kind of sense.
The main character in this work is clearly Titus, though Muzzlehatch participates on and off throughout the book. Early in the book, poor Juno is discarded, not to be seen again. Most of the Under-River characters come and go quickly. Titus isn't a likeable character in that he is callous and selfish in his quest for complete freedom. In his favour, he is a young man of twenty with a very strange upbringing who is trying to makes sense of the world.
While Steerpike is a surreal and demonic invention who dominates the first two volumes, the villains and wrecks in Titus Alone are all too human. Only Titus from the first two volumes may be said to be a real human character, with perhaps the exception of Keda and the Bright Carvers—along with Keda's daughter, Titus' foster sister, the Thing. This distinction doesn't necessarily make Titus Alone less of a book, just different. Titus Alone does however lack the narrative arc of the first two books.
Interestingly, Titus Alone contains some examples of advanced technology, ahead of Peake’s own time. For example, the sophisticated drone that Titus destroys belongs more to the 21st century than the mid-20th. Gormenghast and its environs don’t even display combustion-engine or firearm technology; Steerpike’s deadly weapons are a sword-stick and a catapult rather than a gun. It seems odd that Gormenghast belongs to the same world as that of Titus Alone, although perhaps the technological difference acts to emphasize the isolation of Gormenghast.
Titus Alone is nevertheless unmistakably Peake. After the first two books, it's great to read something that connects with them so strongly. We know what Titus is running from, and we know he is wracked by guilt at his treachery. Gormenghast and Titus' rank of 77th Lord Groan is mentioned throughout the book. Gormenghast is still in the background, though now only known through Titus' memories—except at the end in the bizarre parody of Gormenghast and its characters designed by Cheeta to drive Titus insane because he has spurned her.
At the climax of the book, Titus does find his way back to Gormenghast, proving to himself that it is not just his insane invention. At that point, I wished him to return to his home, but he turns his back on it for good. We have to wonder where fortune will take him. All in all, Titus Alone is another great Peake fantasy, though in a different way from the first two books.
heavenwallgate's review against another edition
2.5
I dnf’ed this back in high school when I read the first two Gormenghast books for the first time, so this time I was determined to make it through just so I could say I’ve read the whole trilogy. I really wanted to like it, and there were a few moments that felt like the peak Peake we see in the first two books— the climactic Black House sequence especially— but something just feels like it’s missing from Titus Alone. I think the conceit of Titus trying to prove to the people of the outside world that Gormenghast is real and beginning to doubt his own sanity in the process has a lot of potential, but personally I was just not very compelled by the new world and characters he encounters. From what I’ve read it seems like this was intended to be a kind of in-between book, bridging the gap between Titus’s youth and his later adventures, and I think it probably would have worked better in that context. I’m happy I pushed through and finished it, but, unlike Titus Groan and Gormenghast, this isn’t a book that I ever plan on revisiting.
jesters_privilege's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
theogb451's review against another edition
2.0
This book felt like it had more in common with absurd/surrealist works than a conventional story. In fact The Third Policeman was my first comparison as I read. I don't feel like the intent was to make the entire tale feel as a dream but the narrative is quite incoherent at times, introducing so much change from what we saw in the first two Gormenghast books alongside new characters, that I was half expecting to discover it all was a fever dream.
Despite being the title character, Titus mostly feels like a side character. On the few occasions he is actually the protagonist he is mostly filled with anger and sadness, pushing away everyone he meets and crying about needing to go elsewhere and be alone. Otherwise he manages to twice collapse (actually, was it three times?!) and be brought back to health from feverish dreams.
While the first two volumes felt firmly placed in some sort of early 19th Century version of the world, based on the clothes, the existence of guns but the lack of any other technology, the sprawling huge city and surrounds that Titus finds himself in is in a science fiction world, containing modern items like cars, helicopters, artificial light and factories, but including strange flying vehicles and tracking equipment, and even what seemed like androids.
One improvement is there are some normal seeming female characters. In fact no one is really a grotesque here, the people seem quite contemporary, although there is still the strange matter of how personal relationships unfold, which is part of the incoherence for me: it seems no woman can meet Titus and not fall immediately in love with him, while he rejects all, and so we have these strange interactions of huge passions that have no obvious basis. Friendships are the same: Titus and Muzzlehatch exchange only angry words with each other but consider themselves to be great friends. The problem of course is that it's hard to really feel any emotional connection to these relationships when they come out of nowhere, even if the individual characters are interesting to read.
Thematically I feel WW2 must have cast its shadow here: this book very firmly places the scientists as the enemy. The things they create are clearly bad and they are trying (for reasons that aren't really clear) to track and get hold of Titus. Presumably the shadow of nuclear weapons hung heavy on Peake and he was distrustful of the atomic age. There is also a sense of hatred of bureaucracy. Obviously Titus going against his routine had a part of that already, but here the authority is governmental: Titus is considered a vagrant for having no good papers.
There were several moments where I considered giving up, points of tedium with characters who appeared from nowhere or long multi-paragraph descriptions of what it's like to remember something (!), but then a new part would pop up that was impressively creepy or tense and I would keep going on. Overall I'm giving it two stars but it's a bit of a toss up between that and three.
Despite being the title character, Titus mostly feels like a side character. On the few occasions he is actually the protagonist he is mostly filled with anger and sadness, pushing away everyone he meets and crying about needing to go elsewhere and be alone. Otherwise he manages to twice collapse (actually, was it three times?!) and be brought back to health from feverish dreams.
While the first two volumes felt firmly placed in some sort of early 19th Century version of the world, based on the clothes, the existence of guns but the lack of any other technology, the sprawling huge city and surrounds that Titus finds himself in is in a science fiction world, containing modern items like cars, helicopters, artificial light and factories, but including strange flying vehicles and tracking equipment, and even what seemed like androids.
One improvement is there are some normal seeming female characters. In fact no one is really a grotesque here, the people seem quite contemporary, although there is still the strange matter of how personal relationships unfold, which is part of the incoherence for me: it seems no woman can meet Titus and not fall immediately in love with him, while he rejects all, and so we have these strange interactions of huge passions that have no obvious basis. Friendships are the same: Titus and Muzzlehatch exchange only angry words with each other but consider themselves to be great friends. The problem of course is that it's hard to really feel any emotional connection to these relationships when they come out of nowhere, even if the individual characters are interesting to read.
Thematically I feel WW2 must have cast its shadow here: this book very firmly places the scientists as the enemy. The things they create are clearly bad and they are trying (for reasons that aren't really clear) to track and get hold of Titus. Presumably the shadow of nuclear weapons hung heavy on Peake and he was distrustful of the atomic age. There is also a sense of hatred of bureaucracy. Obviously Titus going against his routine had a part of that already, but here the authority is governmental: Titus is considered a vagrant for having no good papers.
There were several moments where I considered giving up, points of tedium with characters who appeared from nowhere or long multi-paragraph descriptions of what it's like to remember something (!), but then a new part would pop up that was impressively creepy or tense and I would keep going on. Overall I'm giving it two stars but it's a bit of a toss up between that and three.
newsteadlibrary's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
emmalouix's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75