#titus alone

[anotherrandompersonsstuff]

Never read a book so ridiculous and so poetic. Beautiful and immersive prose perfectly evoking the scenery and feelings of the most perfectly nonsense absurdist satire of the dustiest aristocracy imaginable.

I found myself empathising a lot with the melancholic romantic characters against a force of change that is sympathetic at first but quickly turn into vile.

It's a shame how fragmented the last book turned to be, because it still manages to give exceptional new characters and to perfectly convey the confused conflict between the desire for freedom and homesickness.

[smbhax]

Cover illustrations by Bob Pepper

Info and box set cover from ISFDB

[femmefatalegoth]

I’ve hit a snag in my Illustrated Gormenghast project. Frontispieces for books 1 and 2 are all planned out… but what to do for book 3?

For book 1, a painting of Fuchsia in her room, with a window behin her. Beyond the window, the roofs of Gormenghast with Steerpike climbing. The whole thing should have a vaguely medieval style, like an illuminated manuscript.

For book 2, the Countess with her birds, again in front of a window. Beyond that, the wall of Gormenghast with The Thing standing atop it. Behind her, the forest and mountain. At the foot of the wall, unaware of The Thing, is Steerpike sneaking off on his own business.

Book 3 though? What could possibly work? Apart from the massive shift in… everything I have no idea what to depict. I can’t summarise the plot or conflict in an image, because I barely know what they are. The story is so episodic.

Any suggestions? How would you sum up Titus Alone in an image?

[mervynbunter]

Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone (1959)

[billlaotian]

[contremineur]

There was Sepulchrave, moving as though in a trance, his tired soul in his eyes, and books beneath his arms. All about were his chains of office, iron and gold. On his head he wore the rust-red crown of the Groans. He took deep sighs with every step, as though each one was the last. Bent forward as though his sorrow weighed him down, he mourned with every gesture. As he moved into the centre of the ring he trailed behind him a long line of feathers, while out of his tragic mouth the sound of hooting wandered.

Mervyn Peake, from Titus Alone (Eyre & Spottiswoode 1959)

image from here

[herenowandelsewhere]

Through a gap in the forest the night looked down upon the roofless shell of the Black House studded with fires and jewels. And above the gap, floating away forever from the branches was a small grass-green balloon, lit faintly on its underside. It must have come adrift from its treetop mooring. Sitting upright on the upper crown of the truant balloon was a rat. It had climbed a tree to investigate the floating craft; and then, courage mounting, it had climbed to the shadowy top of the globe, never thinking that the mooring cord was about to snap. But snap it did, and away it went, this small balloon, away into the wilds of the mind. And all the while the little rat sat there, helpless in its global sovereignity.

Titus Alone Mervyn Peake

[fyale]

“I am in love with something as mysterious and elusive as a ghost. A ghost never to be held at the breast. Something that will always melt away.”

- Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake