A ponderous effort in Gothic fantasy, overlong, obscure, and only
rarely lightened by any measure of the inventive talent that might
redeem it. A sombre, night-marish book, with a strange and serie
tale set in a vacuum of place and time. The scene is the ancient
seat of the house of Groan, wherein a tragic Earl rules, or fails
to rule, his household, his wife, surrounded by her snow-white
cats, her magpie and raven and rook and owl, his chief servant, Mr.
Flay; Swelter, the huge, sadistic head cook and his minion; the
librarian Sourdust and his crippled son, both dour ancients, ; the
curator, the nurse, first to his fey? daughter, then to the newborn
heir who gives the name to the book. Outside the castle are the
whinnying Dr. Prunesquallor, Steerpike, once kitchen apprentice,
now on his own search for power, the old twin aunts, vengeful and
bitter, and the strange people who submit their carvings once a
year for the Earl's approval. The story covers a year in the life
of the newborn babe, punctuated by strange rituals, by Steerpike's
climb to power, by the Earl's disappearance, and by the saga of
Keda, the wet nurse. Perhaps the most interesting character is
Fuschia, the daughter, but even she is not much more than a gleam
in the author's eye. A difficult book, impossible to place, and
very limited in its appeal. (Kirkus Reviews)
As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just
been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and
mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are
predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only
by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange
laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings;
dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth
of stone.
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