What I Am Reading - Titus Groan

Titus Groan

Mervyn Peake

Read it in deceivably small 9 point black print, paperback, at 396 pages.

Before being to ask a reading group for this series of books, I had never heard of them at all.  This was also my first experience with a reading group on Goodreads.  My fellow book devourer is much more active on Goodreads than I am and had invited me to read with him/them.  I had two months to read this first one and I was able to kill it in one.  I had thought it was going to be a faster read than it turned out to but none the less I struck it down and placed in on the shelf next to my other victories.

I have been struggling to write this review for some time.  It's an interesting book.

The author, Mervyn Peake was born in 1911 and is best known as a writer, poet, illustrator, and general artist.  Besides this series of three, Peake is probably best known for his work as a commissioned to depict war scenes during World War 2.  Although the three books known as the Gormenghast series was intended to be a 'lengthy cycle' their completion was halted by Peakes' death from dementia with Lewy bodies during his work on the third novel, Titus Alone.  Titus Groan was published in 1946.

The story opens with the birth of a new heir to the Groan house deep within the towering and ancient complex of Gormenghast.  At this point we are introduced to a plethora of characters that inhabit the castle and work for the Earl of Groan, Lord Sepulchrave, as well as his wife the Countess Gertrude and their daughter Fuschia.  The whole story is riddled with characters of different stations that are forced to interact and work together, despite in some situations hating one another.  This creates some interesting dynamics within the castle as the characters are constantly trying to impress Lord Sepulchrave and vie for power within their little worlds.  As the story comes together you learn a lot of the intricacies and rituals that revolve around Gormenghast. 

I can't recall that I have read a book like this before, in which the surroundings are as much a character as the characters themselves.  While Martin and Tolkien are famed for it I found that they both use the surroundings to set the mood, the surroundings change and as fond as the reader may be of a specific location and its ideals, no real attachment to these lands changes the story, only how the characters might be changed by their surroundings and the interactions within those settings.  This is not the case with Gormenghast.  Gormenghast is a haunted place with a long rich lineage.  Parts of the castle are little more than rubble and the passageways that are still standing are complex and polished with ware.  What is really the defining difference to me is that we don't have any view of other lands beyond the realm of Gormenghast, the realm and castle exist in a timeless state of decay without any other comparison.  At times parts of the castle are busy and bustling while others are always doomed to abandon.  This sense of endurance makes the castle feel as much as the story as the characters that exist within its walls.  As the book progresses the interactions ratchet up and characters start making moves that will irreparably change Gormenghast forever. 

It took me some time, about 150 pages, for Titus Groan to sink in and allow me to start enjoying it, but once I did I was thoroughly mesmerized by it.  It's an enchanting story full of exotic characters and I am excited to read the other two in the 'cycle.'

What I Am Reading - On The Beach

On The Beach

Nevil Shute

Read it in paperback @ 312 pages.

July's OLT book club pick brought to you by the one who often picks post-apocalyptic, sees once again, another classic post-apocalyptic book.  His past choice in the genre saw us reading Earth Abides, and despite its sordid reception from OLT, onward with the next classic in the genre.

On The Beach, written in 1957, pointedly for the time tells the story of a world catastrophe.  Through deception the United States is the victim of a nuclear bomb attach which causes reprisal strikes and a  degrading situation for the entire world as nuclear holocaust ensues.  Lucky, or unlucky, for some, the only remaining population of humans exist in the southern hemisphere of the globe in Australia.  The unfortunate thing is that naturally the radiation is following currents and air trends on a southerly route to eventually consume the entire globe in fallout.  When most of the northern hemisphere has gone dark and those on the fringes of what's still habitable are facing their impending doom there is suddenly a signal from a communications center in the north, in what should be uninhabitable.

The books primary focus are on this signal and how people in the southern hemisphere deal with impending desolation.  At a time when the world was experimenting and creating nuclear arms at an unprecedented level the world was scared of what could come, this book captured those fears and the consequences of what could happen.   

-Spoilers Below-

So how did this classic match up to OLT's standards of fine book selection?  With a score of 1 being a candidate for rolling papers and a 10 being the next Pulitzer, let's see where On The Beach ended up with the 7 of 10 completing it.

Hylen: 6

BoozyCoug: 3

Th3ee: 3

G$$: 2

Shely-the-don: 3

SS: 3

Dust: 3

For us, it averaged out to 3.28 which is only .02 from being our worst selection ever.  Why so low you ask?

Well, for a lot of us, we just felt there wasn't much to the book (this is the spoiler bit.)  For us the book covered two things.  The first being the encroaching nuclear winter in which you get no view into its beginning.  It is all hearsay and general anecdotes about what happened.  A 'shots fired' chapter or a glimpse of what happened to begin with from the view point of one of the characters would have covered this nicely, instead we get nothing.  We know it's coming and generalities but all of the excitement of a nuclear war is just gone.  The second, and the point of the book, is how the last remnants of humanity deal with impending doom.  This was the controversial part of our discussion.  Many felt that the fall was too soft and devoid of the panic that you would expect when people are faced with no chance of survival.  At least many of us felt that way.  To make matters worse, the survivors fill their end times with different activities that just didn't seem to fit in with the story as a whole.  A lot of us were really expecting more from this book.  The inevitably of the demise also means you see what's coming long before the end transpires.

Overall, I bet this book would have been a huge success for OLT if we read it in 1957, instead reading it 2013 we felt that it was just too dated to be applicable.