Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy feels more like an autumn/winter read, but I didn't want to put it off any longer. By the end of the first paragraph I was all in:
"This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow."
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TITUS GROAN luxuriates in baroque description, outlandish metaphor, and flights of fancy; it won't be to all tastes, but it's absolutely hitting the spot for me.
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Smiles don't come easily to the people of Gormenghast
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The baleful mood extends, of course, to the landscape around the castle:
"Ahead lay Gormenghast Mountain in all its permanence, a sinister thing as though drawn out of the earth by sorcery as a curse on all who viewed it."
When I mentioned outlandish metaphor, I mean this kind of thing. Sentences that take you in gloriously unexpected directions even in gratuitous asides
#books #metaphor #writing #Gormenghast #MervynPeake #literature
Stan Carey
Adam