Completists' Club discussion

Any fellow completists or fans of Peake, or those who want to be persuaded as to the wonders of his weird world?

The White Chief of the Unzimbooboo Kaffirs (1921)
Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (1939)
Shapes and Sounds (1941)
Rhymes without Reason (1944)
Titus Groan (1946)
The Craft of the Lead Pencil (1946)
Letters from a Lost Uncle (from Polar Regions) (1948)
Drawings by Mervyn Peake (1949)
Gormenghast (1950)
The Glassblowers (1950)
Mr Pye (1953)
Figures of Speech (1954)
Titus Alone (1959)
The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb (1962)
Poems and Drawings (1965)
A Reverie of Bone and other Poems (1967)
Selected Poems (1972)
A Book of Nonsense (1972)
The Drawings of Mervyn Peake (1974)
Mervyn Peake: Writings and Drawings (1974)
Twelve Poems (1975)
Boy in Darkness (first separate edition, 1976, but a corrupt text)
Peake's Progress (1978)
Ten Poems (1993)
Eleven Poems (1995)
The Cave (1996)
Boy in Darkness and other stories (2007, the correct text and five other pieces)
Collected Poems (2008)
Titus Awakes (2011, with Maeve Gilmore)

I would love to return to this world, Cecily. My first experience of Murakami ("Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World")reminded me of Peake's castles.

I had no idea Peake had such a large biblio outside the Gormenghast books. I'd like to try Gormenghast again for sure.

I have been meaning to read the Gormenghast books for a while. That could be a fun group read.... They are sitting here, waiting patiently.

Ian: What's stopping you? ;-)
As for Murakami, I've not read him: which would be a good one to sample?

MJ: The Gormenghast trilogy is the only large body or written work (he was an artist as well). The others are poems, children's stories etc.

Kris: The books will wait. As Gormenghast waits. Patiently, and unchanging...

Cecily wrote: "Ian: What's stopping you? ;-)"

Haha. To be read lists and priorities.

i'd like to add that anyone interested in reading Peake should check out Cecily's (above) excellent series of reviews for some of his major works. i think she gave him his own shelf, so the reviews should be easy to find.

Thanks, mark, will do.

Thanks, Mark. Here's my Peake shelf: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...

Kris wrote: "I have been meaning to read the Gormenghast books for a while. That could be a fun group read.... They are sitting here, waiting patiently."

Tell you what - let's exchange Ghormenghast for Ulyssess this November? Shall we? Please? I don't think i'll have the stamina for Ulysses... or, i mean, i might want to relax a bit at that point in time. :P :s

Trav, I haven't forgotten about Ulysses - it's a re-read for me, and I can definitely still read it and discuss it with you. :)

I loved the Gormenghast trilogy, and hope to become much more of a Peake completist soon. The only thing holding me back has been the fact that I would need to actually pay money for any of his works I want to read beyond the Gormenghast trilogy....the Arizona libraries own nothing beyond that.

Cecily, would you recommend Peake's Progress as the jumping off point into his other work? What should I try out next?

I'd start with the Gormenghast books, ideally reading Boy in Darkness between Gormenghast and Titus Alone. Then, if you're prepared to take a risk, the follow-up his widow compiled from fragments, Titus Awakes: The Lost Book of Gormenghast.

Then I'd probably suggest a biography to put the man and his works in context: either http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... or http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... (which is not limited to his art, despite the title). Then I'd move on to http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....

After that, I'd reread the Gormenghast books!

However, the advisability of that is somewhat dependent on enthusiasm, time and budget.

I have written quite detailed reviews of most of his books and some bios, which might help. You can access them all from my Gormenghast shelf: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/....

There is now a Gormenghast reading and discussion group: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1...