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Jeff Potter

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Jeff Potter rated a book it was amazing

The Gormenghast Novels (Gormenghast, #1-3)

by Mervyn Peake

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Jeff Potter said: " Wow. What a boggling, expansive tale. The quintessence of romantic gothic grotesque. What wordplay! (And have you seen the Wiki pic of the author? He looks so alive and modern -- better even.) I'm 3/4's thru. It's a castle story, of a vast, dreary st Wow. What a boggling, expansive tale. The quintessence of romantic gothic grotesque. What wordplay! (And have you seen the Wiki pic of the author? He looks so alive and modern -- better even.) I'm 3/4's thru. It's a castle story, of a vast, dreary stone place with dozens of bleak yet over-the-top characters. No real heroes, exactly. No magic, no Little People. Lots of grey and crumbling stone. Some heroism emerges at a point, I won't say where. I'm not sure that it's the key to the tale, but it might be. I've never read anything so atmospheric, but I doubt that would be enough to keep me going. There is sweetness, but it's almost hidden. There's humor, too. Not much "meaning," but there's some, certainly no preaching -- he seems to subscribe to the Tolkien idea of a story with no allegory. It's outrageous in many ways. Rough in some ways, too. Mervyn Peake was quite the amazing nut! OK, that's mean -- he was a multi-disciplinary genius of the ye olde 1940's English sort, it seems. I discovered him by way of his art and illustration -- which to me smacks a bit of the "dabblish" -- and then found out that he was also a writer. But you can't do it all perfectly, can you? I forgive him his literary roughness -- what remains is so BIG. I can see why his fans might put him ahead of Tolkien. The only drawback is that it's so long and engrossing. I haven't suffered like this from a book in ages -- I don't know how people do it with long books. It's taking up so much of my ultra-rare free time. The nerve! But what a world, what characters... It's a stand-alone: it's not about you, not about us, the readers. It's hard on us. But we're getting the chance to look in, and we're lucky.

***SPOILER ALERT***DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ BUT MIGHT***

[SPOILERS: OK, the heroism starts at the halfway. Hooray for Flay! And Irma and her marrying party had me snorting. The whole professors angle is provides an amazing buildup to intense, but brief, hilarity. That's it for spoilish feedback for now.] ...more "

Aug 18, 2011 11:50AM · see review