A review by heavenwallgate
Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

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.