Gormenghast (Titus Groan) - Ramble Review

Back in what Wikipedia informs me was the year 2000 (sounds about right), I watched the PBS adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, having never before heard of the books. The commercials had me really excited: it looked atmospheric, weird, and otherworldly, and I'm always hungry for a story that can transport me like that. So I eagerly sat down to watch it and was very quickly bored and disillusioned by an unbroken host of unlikable, one-dimensional caricatures who seemed a sad waste of the visually enthralling world they'd been set down in.

From that day on, I dismissed the books as "not my thing," until a few weeks ago, I came across a tattered copy of book 1, Titus Groan, in a little free library and thought, "Why not. I'm curious what it's like." tl;dr: The book is better. I may even have turned into a mild fan. Spoilers for Titus Groan follow( Read more... )