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A review by crufts
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
3.5
Summary: Characters you'll adore; pages and pages of unnecessary description that you won't.
In a castle governed by ancient rules (Gormenghast Castle), a cunning kitchen boy plots and enacts his destructive rise to power.
Pros:
- Charming and eccentric characters whose physical defects only make them more endearing.
- Weaves several entertaining subplots through the story.
- Conflict tension is heightened because you genuinely don't know who you want to win.
- [Effeminate Male Character] is portrayed as a hero and not as a gay-coded villain, which is a nice change and quite impressive given that the book was published in 1946.
- [Bad Guy Protagonist] is a particularly great character, because yes, he's evil, but he's also sympathetic; he's the only person who's actually trying to change [Ridiculous Status Quo].
Cons:
- Annoyingly description-heavy prose only made tolerable by reading quickly. The author falls in love with his words at the expense of his pacing.
- I don't understand [Foreigner Nursemaid]'s subplot. It builds up and up and then just ends with [Sad Arc Ending].
Overall: Reasonably fun. You might like it better if you can tolerate the over-long descriptive paragraphs. Or better yet, watch the freely-available BBC television adaption.
In a castle governed by ancient rules (Gormenghast Castle), a cunning kitchen boy plots and enacts his destructive rise to power.
Pros:
- Charming and eccentric characters whose physical defects only make them more endearing.
- Weaves several entertaining subplots through the story.
- Conflict tension is heightened because you genuinely don't know who you want to win.
- [Effeminate Male Character] is portrayed as a hero and not as a gay-coded villain, which is a nice change and quite impressive given that the book was published in 1946.
- [Bad Guy Protagonist] is a particularly great character, because yes, he's evil, but he's also sympathetic; he's the only person who's actually trying to change [Ridiculous Status Quo].
Cons:
- Annoyingly description-heavy prose only made tolerable by reading quickly. The author falls in love with his words at the expense of his pacing.
- I don't understand [Foreigner Nursemaid]'s subplot. It builds up and up and then just ends with [Sad Arc Ending].
Overall: Reasonably fun. You might like it better if you can tolerate the over-long descriptive paragraphs. Or better yet, watch the freely-available BBC television adaption.
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence