In Gormenghast, book 2 in the series, we get to dive deeper into the characters that live in and around the castle. Titus really comes into his own and Fuchsia becomes a woman all the while our knowledge of the castle grows.
I really don’t like the comparison of these novels with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. They are so very different that it is not fair to either of them. I have enjoyed reading LotR but I find much of the writing to be tedious but the language used in the Gormenghast novels makes me smile and laugh out loud.
Robert Whitfield does a wonderful job with the narration of the audiobook, his ability to give the words life makes me very happy.
From the publisher:
In Volume 2 of the classic Gormenghast Trilogy, a doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of Gormenghast Castle. This trilogy, along with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of everything is the 77th Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom.
In this second volume, Titus comes of age within the walls of Gormenghast Castle and discovers various family intrigues. His twin aunts, Cora and Clarice, have been imprisoned in their own apartments, believing that they alone among the castle inhabitants were free of a hideous disease referred to as "Weasel plague." Titus has discovered secret hiding places in abandoned parts of the castle from which he can watch and learn, unobserved: for he has been "exiled" to grow up with the common children until the age of 15. And so, not feeling connected to his future responsibilities, Titus drifts back and forth between the complicated social world he will grow up to govern, and a world of fantasy and daydream.
©2000 Mervyn Peake; (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks
I rate Gormenghast a 9 out of 10 and hope every fan of fantasy literature give it a read.
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