# Gormenghast



## whoneedsactions (Feb 4, 2006)

The Gormenghast trilogy is one of my favourites.  I read it when I was still in school and it affected me deeply.  I tried to read it a couple of times, got only a couple of chapters through and got bored, but a friend told me to masochistically plough through, and it was incredible.  I became fixed to the slow rhythm and as the pace increased, I found myself reading and reading.

Anybody else think this is a classic?  Just finished Don Quixote and that's a good book too...


----------



## Stiltspear (Feb 8, 2006)

I adore Gormenghast!
Mervyn Peake's characters are absolutely brilliant and his writing is simply exquisite - the metaphors he uses are to die for. 

It's certainly one of my favourite series, yet, very ashamedly, I have to admit to only having read up to the end of the second book. You're totally right about having to stick with it - it's not that it isn't interesting, it just requires dedication... However I'm aware of the story, having seen the tv series they made from it - which considering the mammoth task of bringing Peake's characters to life and indeed Gormenghast itself, they did a very good job of.

I just love the atmosphere in the book, and I think it's brilliant how the castle becomes a character in its own right. I can't really find the words - it's one of those books that gives me shivers... you have to read it to know. (which is a bit pretentious coming from me perhaps - I must start reading again)

Also, I am yet to find a cast of characters so well described, so colourful, and so absurd. My favourites are Mr Flay and Lady Groan (I can't remember if she had a name) and of course, the most wonderfully evil, scheming, and manipulative villain I've ever encountered; Steerpike.
I think Gormenghast is utterly and deservedly a classic. 

I've also been meaning to read Don Quixote actually, but have yet to find a copy...


----------



## strangedaze (Feb 23, 2006)

I usually don't read 'fantasy,' as it were, or books claiming to be of that genre, but there are exceptions, and I think Gormenghast might be something I'd like to read. Hmmmm. Any other comments to help convince me?


----------



## Suile (Mar 20, 2006)

This is coming in about a month after the last post, but when I see the name Gormenghast somewhere, I just can't turn away.

Oddly enough, I was just watching part of the tv series they made off it today, for sake of boredom and a need for entertainment.

It really is a gorgeously odd read, and the characters are simply marvelous.  They have such intriguing flaws about them, and I'm a big fan of Lady Groan as well.  She's one of the people who really do have potential to be someone great, but, well..yeah.  

Though I will admit I haven't finished reading the books yet, I've read the first one and part of the second so far, and while I stopped randomly (I have a habit of reading too many things at once then just dropping them all), I've been dying to get back to them.


----------



## Walkio (May 24, 2007)

I've just finished the first book, and although it is beautifully written - and I mean it's exquisite - I wasn't hooked at all. Mainly because I didn't think much happened in it at all. Maybe it'll pick up pace later on, but I was a little disappointed at one of the BBC's Top 100.


----------

