Peake's Prose
the Power of Words in the Gormenghast Trilogy
by Karen L. Oberst
published in NoveLAdvice, July 11, 1998

  This month I would like to talk about a neglected masterpiece, The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake, specifically the first book, Titus Groan. First published in 1946, this dark fantasy contains beautiful writing and haunting images. Peake crafted his work carefully, using words with the skill of a watchmaker, to build the atmosphere of his stories and describe his characters. This is not the spare prose so popular today, but a rich, full-blooded, rejoicing in the English language. It is not diet soda, but an old wine; not a healthy snack, but a multi-course banquet. "This is not the spare prose so popular today, but a rich, full-blooded, rejoicing in the English language."

  "The Gormenghast Trilogy has been compared to The Lord of the Rings..." The Gormenghast Trilogy has been compared to the The Lord of the Rings in scope and character. It has been called a "world of such depth, vision and creativity that it is hard to imagine a book that could be its parallel." Some see it as depicting the crumbling of the old Europe after World War II. But everyone agrees it is the writing and the images that stay with you. Here is the first sentence from Titus Groan, describing the castle, which is very much a character in the story.

"Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its Outer Walls."

  All these words are chosen carefully to convey a feeling. "Ponderous architectural quality" gives a hint as to what the reader will find inside the castle. It is huge and sprawling, with rooms and passages and stairways and halls, most very large, and in a state of disrepair and decay. The word "circumfusion" comes from two Latin words 'circa' around and 'fundere' to pour. Thinking of the dwellings poured around the base of the castle gives a vivid word picture. Last, the phrase "swarmed like an epidemic" foreshadows not only the claustrophobic feel of the outer dwellings, but their occupants as well. As the story goes on, we learn that there is something wrong with those who live outside the castle walls. They turn old suddenly at just past marriageable age. "'Ponderous architectural quality' gives a hint as to what the reader will find inside the castle."

  "'Mr. Flay appeared to clutter up the doorway...'" Now that I have picked apart this sentence, I will let the rest of them stand more on their own. This next deals with a man who is caretaker of a kind of museum inside the castle walls. "Yet occasionally, for one reason or another, a servant or a member of the household would make an unexpected appearance, and startle him with some question appertaining to ritual, and then the dust would settle once more in the hall and on the soul of Mr. Rottcodd." As with this sentence, often the startling bits of writing are found in the last few words.

The head servant to Lord Sepulchrave, the Earl of Gormenghast, is described in the following paragraph: "Mr. Flay appeared to clutter up the doorway as he stood revealed, his arms folded, surveying the smaller man before him in an expressionless way. It did not look as though such a bony face as his could give normal utterance, but rather that instead of sounds, something more brittle, more ancient, something dryer would emerge, something perhaps more in the nature of a splinter or a fragment of stone. Nevertheless the harsh lips parted. 'It's me,' he said, and took a step forward into the room, his knee joints cracking as he did so. His passage across a room--in fact his passage through life--was accompanied by these cracking sounds, one per step, which might be likened to the breaking of dry twigs." The other characters in the book are described as succinctly and as memorably as Mr. Flay.

  Peake's descriptions of things are equally as vivid. "Like a vast spider suspended by a metal chord [sic.], a candelabrum presided over the room nine feet above the floor boards. From its sweeping arms of iron, long stalactites of wax lowered their pale spilths drip by drip, drip by drip." "The library appeared to spread outward from him as from a core. His dejection infected the air about him and diffused its illness upon every side. All things in the long room absorbed his melancholia. The shadowy galleries brooded with slow anguish; the books receding into the deep corners, tier upon tier, seemed each a separate tragic note in a monumental fugue of volumes." As a librarian by trade, that last phrase, 'monumental fugue of volumes' is particularly compelling to me.

Describing a man heading for a fight to the death, he says: "The moon slid inexorably into its zenith, the shadows shriveling to the feet of all that cast them, and as Randel approached the hollow at the hem of the Twisted Woods he was treading in a pool of his own midnight."

"Randel...was treading in a pool of his own midnight."

  "...the deep, unhurried purring was like the voice of an ocean in the throat of a shell." Here's the summoning of Dr. Prunesquallor, the castle physician: "Lady Groan raised herself in bed, and, looking fiercely at the open door, bellowed in her deepest and loudest voice, ''SQUALLOR!' The word echoed along the corridors and down the stairs and, creeping under the door and along the black rug in the Coldroom, just managed, after climbing the Doctor's body, to find its way into both his ears simultaneously, in a peremptory if modified condition."

Just a few more short descriptions. "A carpet filled the floor with blue pasture..." "...the deep, unhurried purring was like the voice of an ocean in the throat of a shell." "She tossed her long hair and it flopped down her back like a pirate's flag." "Nannie Slagg, who was very grey and old, with red rims around her eyes, and whose intelligence was limited, gazed vacantly at her Ladyship."

  I hope I have whetted your appetite for this unforgettable work, filled with vivid images, and incredible description. Borrow it from your local library and savor the poetic prose of this nearly forgotten craftsman. "...savor the poetic prose of this nearly forgotten craftsman."

Copyright © 1998 Karen L. Oberst

Back to: Quote of the Day Home Page