…and Titus has
entered his stronghold.
And that’s how this magnificently intriguing but difficult novel ends.
Titus Groan, the heir of gormenghast who begins this novel with being born and
ends this novel by becoming the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. That’s as
much of a role he is playing so far.
The rest of this novel is being carried by his family and their
servants. We meet such peculiar characters, that cannot exist outside this
dystopian world where Castle Gormenghast plays the central role.
I didn’t get much information of how and when and why the situation is as it is and maybe this is explained in the following novels, but in a way it’s part of its charm. Believe it or not, but even without knowing why or having means to compare it with, Titus Groan creates a world that feels nightmarish, even hellish in certain ways and which doesn’t let go until you’ve read the final words. Imagine a world where there are men whose sole purpose in life is scrubbing the filth of the walls in the kitchen, and have this task passed on them through birth right.
“ It had been their privilige on reaching adolescence to discover that, being the sons of their fathers, their careers had been arranged for them and that stretching ahead of them lay their identical lives consisting of an unimaginative if praiseworthy duty.”
The way it is mentioned gives me the idea that however drab their
circumstances, they are in fact lucky. That there is even worse.
Forget what you know about logic, because Titus Groan needs its readers to expand their imagination beyond
what you thought possible AND believe it could happen. In its pages it has
created a dystopian, ritualistic and organized world where impulses from the
outside are cut off. Its inhabitants, obligated or not, feel the weight of the
castle and its ancestry and are each in their own way affected by the demure
nature of having no other purpose than doing what has been told ages ago. And
for me, the reader, it has a dreamlike quality because it is not explained why
they go through the motions. Why is it important that every day has to be
written down to such detail and that these instructions need to be carefully
followed?
The novel seems very precarious in its subject and it’s definitely not a
book to read when I’m going to bed, but when it’s quiet and when I can
concentrate it’s actually quite a good book. Not like anything I’ve read so far and for me that’s
kind of unusual.
Beside its setting, its characters and its story, Titus Groan is a very
beautifully written novel which amazed me with how well it used the English
language. It’s a trifle more difficult than other books I’ve written and a
decade ago I wouldn’t have been able to continue reading, but even though
progress is going slower, it gave me the opportunity to savor the way in which
something was said, as much as what it entailed. It’s not a bad thing to be
forced to take it slow, instead of rushing through chapters as I tend to do.
With all that I know now, I’m quite sure that it won’t be long before I’ll
start in the next Gormenghast novel.
