![]() ![]() ![]() The tortured trees by the dark lake burned and dripped, their leaves snatched by the wind were whirled in wild circles through the towers. “The crumbling castle, looming among the mists, exhaled the season, and every cold stone breathed it out. There are many beautifully detailed descriptive passages throughout this book. Whichever way you interpret it, it remains a work of vivid imagination written by a very visual artist who was painting fantastic pictures with words instead of paints. ![]() It could be interpreted as a social commentary on the British class system of the time, looking at the us-and-them interactions between the haves and have-nots. It’s a story of castle intrigue, of ambition and madness, of familial relationships and jealousies. Wikipedia has it labelled as “Gothic”, and describes the book as “the first fantasy of manners.” It is often referred to as “fantasy” but it is not a traditional fantasy in the vein of Tolkien or LeGuin. They have a teenage daughter, Fuchsia, and Titus is their newborn son. His wife, the Countess Gertrude, lives in a different part of the castle with a large collection of cats and birds. The head of the family is Lord Sepulchrave, the 76th Earl of Groan. ![]() It tells the story of the Groan family and their servants, and it is set in the sprawling Gormenghast castle. Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan is the first novel in the Gormenghast series. ![]()
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