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A review by thomasgoddard
Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake
4.0
I think one day I’ll love this title as much as the other two. I think I will, if nothing else Stockholm will set in at some point, I’m sure.
The uncomfortable reality of this one is that I think quite a lot of the magic is lost when the character who wants to flee... leaves... The tension and drama dries up the moment he gets away. After that he becomes Titus Alone... in every sense. Just adrift and with that comes an imprecision that isn't familiar to the reader from the exactness of the previous two books. And I’m still in so many minds as to whether that works or doesn’t.
I think I feel that reading this is like reading fanfiction, in a sense. The character that purports to be authentic but feels artificial in some way. Boy in Darkness both is and isn’t Titus. It is him, but there is an added veil outside the setting. But here Titus is very clearly presented and I find it hard to recognise him. And I feel horrible saying all this because it still has so much skill to the writing, pared back from the flamboyance used in the first two novels. More streamlined. It has pace and motion. A certain lack of clarity in places like motion blur. There is an undeniable presence of Peake within it, but he also feels so much more distant here.
And there’s a sexual element that is entirely natural for a 20-year-old Titus. But it seems like an awkward gear shift.
Throughout the book there is this question of ‘certainty’ at work. The fear of madness is, in a sense, a fear of being wrong about the world in some simple and obvious way. He holds on to what he is, where he is from. Totemic in the shard of flint. But then action removes the question and he just cruises on.
This is powerful to me. I have my own issues with mental health and I struggle, keenly aware that I too will follow that path towards an eventual miserable disorientation. It keeps me stocked with nightmares.
I guess the message is very much one of ‘we are only a thing which acts upon the world be it the action of ritual or the spontaneous reaction to events’. Trying to theorise yourself wastes time.
Here concludes a journey, the path of which was never finished. Gormenghast is better for Titus leaving, because it cements it as a place of madness. Peake really gave a priceless gift to us and I will reread it until my own end.
The uncomfortable reality of this one is that I think quite a lot of the magic is lost when the character who wants to flee... leaves... The tension and drama dries up the moment he gets away. After that he becomes Titus Alone... in every sense. Just adrift and with that comes an imprecision that isn't familiar to the reader from the exactness of the previous two books. And I’m still in so many minds as to whether that works or doesn’t.
I think I feel that reading this is like reading fanfiction, in a sense. The character that purports to be authentic but feels artificial in some way. Boy in Darkness both is and isn’t Titus. It is him, but there is an added veil outside the setting. But here Titus is very clearly presented and I find it hard to recognise him. And I feel horrible saying all this because it still has so much skill to the writing, pared back from the flamboyance used in the first two novels. More streamlined. It has pace and motion. A certain lack of clarity in places like motion blur. There is an undeniable presence of Peake within it, but he also feels so much more distant here.
And there’s a sexual element that is entirely natural for a 20-year-old Titus. But it seems like an awkward gear shift.
Throughout the book there is this question of ‘certainty’ at work. The fear of madness is, in a sense, a fear of being wrong about the world in some simple and obvious way. He holds on to what he is, where he is from. Totemic in the shard of flint. But then action removes the question and he just cruises on.
This is powerful to me. I have my own issues with mental health and I struggle, keenly aware that I too will follow that path towards an eventual miserable disorientation. It keeps me stocked with nightmares.
I guess the message is very much one of ‘we are only a thing which acts upon the world be it the action of ritual or the spontaneous reaction to events’. Trying to theorise yourself wastes time.
Here concludes a journey, the path of which was never finished. Gormenghast is better for Titus leaving, because it cements it as a place of madness. Peake really gave a priceless gift to us and I will reread it until my own end.