Story Love: Part 2, Gormenghast

The novels I would not have missed for anything

Introduction

I’ve tried to write this Story Love instalment about a billion times. You’d be surprised how fiendishly hard it is to write about Mervyn Peake and his Gormenghast books, even though Peake is my favourite author and Gormenghast is my favourite work of fiction in the whole wide literary world. Ever tried to adequately put into words why you’re madly in love with someone? Extol their unique virtues and explain why they’re not like anyone else you’ve ever met before? Ever tried to explain your feelings and found that there are literally no words to sufficiently articulate them?

Well, that’s my problem here… and yet I am going to try anyway to explain why the first two books of Peake’s Gormenghast series are my One True Story Love, and why, if you haven’t read these wonders yet, you really. really should.

I will admit that Gormenghast is something of a marmite read: you’ll either love it or hate it... and the reasons for either response are quite often the same. It’s hard to be indifferent about Peake’s style of writing; it’s a style of writing that is really hard to forget and you’re either going to get mad at it or go mad for it. Interestingly, Peake’s work was critically acclaimed by other writers in his time, but his popularity has, bizarrely, diminished over the decades, so that, according to YouGov, only 21% of people today have even heard of Gormenghast. In contrast, 94% of people have heard of The Lord of the Rings, which is so popular, it came first in the BBC’s 2023 Big Read search for the nation’s most loved book. Gormenghast came in at a very respectful 84, which is, I think, surprising for a book that has dropped into relative obscurity but says a whole lot about how those who have read it feel about it.

Amongst Peake’s greatest admirers are plenty of writers who are famous in their own right: C.S. Lewis, Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, Angela Carter, Michael Moorcock, Anthony Burgess, to name a few. Peake is very much the writer’s writer. His style is so unique that you can’t help but salivate over it. The man was a master of the English language—he played with words in ways no one else has ever done and his glee in doing so is so palpable it makes me want to go and inhale a dictionary.

Anyway, my point is that not enough people have read Mervyn Peake, and, quite frankly, that is a heinous crime against fiction, against literature, and against writing.

C.S. Lewis put it beautifully when he wrote: ‘I would not for anything have missed Gormenghast’; and since I consider this one of the greatest literary opinions of all time, I’m going to do my best to persuade you that you, too, should not miss out on reading Gormenghast for anything.

What you need to know

The story starts with the birth of Titus Groan, the seventy-seventh Earl of and heir to the vast crumbling castle, Gormenghast. As the heir, his world is predetermined by complex rituals, the origins of which are lost in time—rituals to which every Groan before him has religiously adhered. At the same time as Titus is born into this world, the Machiavellian youth, Steerpike, begins his escape from the castle kitchens and begins the machinations that will change the lives of Gormenghast’s inhabitants forever.

There are three things that I think make Gormenghast¹ so wonderful: the characters, the cinematic quality of the narrative, and Peake’s writing craft. The last two sound like they should be the same thing, and although there is obviously an overlap, the cinematic quality is really to do with Peake’s narrative choices and focus, rather than the way he handles the English language.

So, here we go…

The Characters

Gormenghast is populated with an unforgettable cast of characters. They have Dickensian names, like Sourdust, Swelter, Flay and Steerpike. Each of them is endowed with absurd and often grotesque physical traits and personality flaws. And all of them are instantly both repellent and compelling. It would be a mistake, though, to think that reading Gormenghast is going to be anything like reading Dickens. I have nothing against Dickens, but Peake’s characters are far less twee and far more complex, gritty, and surprising—encapsulating both the best and worst of humanity simultaneously.

One of the things that makes the characters of Gormenghast so unique is that Peake pulls off a clever bait-and-switch with the reader’s expectations right from the start of the narrative. We begin with only one character we can have any sympathy for, and that’s Steerpike: the poor, bullied kitchen boy, only seventeen years old, who has more wit and intelligence than most of the higher echelons of Gormenghast. Every other character, the first time we meet them, is unlikable: bratty, aloof, cruel, creepy, vain… it’s hard not to root for Steerpike in his quest to escape the misery of his fate as a lowly and exploited servant in this weird, isolated and eccentric-to-the-point-of-madness society.

And then, just as we settle into the flow of things, the switch happens. The kitchen boy is not just a kitchen boy: he’s a devil. And by the time you realise that you’ve actually been rooting for the bad guy, it’s too late; he’s under your skin and there’s no getting rid of him.

Let me be clear: Steerpike isn’t just any bad guy… he is the worst of the worst: a cunning, conniving, charismatic, psychopathic villain through-and-through, who literally doesn’t have a conscience, and who enjoys the carnage he wreaks on the castle and its citizens. And yet, despite being utterly despicable, it’s really, really hard not to enjoy Steerpike in all his diabolical glory; not to favour him amongst all the other characters, not to fall for his wit, thoroughness and determination; not to secretly hope he succeeds in his endeavours—even as you fear for the fates of all the characters you originally disliked but have inexplicably come to care about.

‘If ever he had harboured a conscience in his tough narrow breast he had by now dug out and flung away the awkward thing—flung it so far away that were he ever to need it again he could never find it.’ —Peake’s description of Steerpike.

Titus Groan, despite giving his name to the first book in the series, is not the most interesting of the characters, nor is he the real protagonist of the first two books: Steerpike is. He is the initiator of all the action and ensuing chaos, he is the character we get to know first and best. We spend so much time in his head, watching him lay out his plans in all their Machiavellian, intricate detail, that, as with Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello, we become complicit in his villainy. The reader becomes both an accomplice and also Steerpike’s first victim, as we fall for his charm before any of the other characters do. At the same time, the other characters open up, we come to understand them better, and we end up falling in love with them too. It’s a delightful experience that really screws with your moral compass. Highly recommend.

Peake’s illustration of Steerpike

It would take a dissertation, or three, to discuss all the other characters—for a start, there are so many of them, and each is so colourful and dynamic, there isn’t time here to introduce even the key players. All I can say is that that all of them are a joy to read and Steerpike is the best of them; if you don’t read the books for anything else, read them for him.

Or for the castle that lends its name to the second book— Gormenghast is itself a character and a half: the owl-filled Tower of Flints ‘pointed blasphemously at heaven’, the stone fields of its rooftops, plateaus full of herons, the labyrinth of subterranean tunnels, the great tree growing part way up the south tower with its roots filling an entire room, the Hall of the Bright Carvings, the Great Kitchen, Fuchsia’s Attics, the landing with the painted bannisters, the smoke-soaked Professors’ Common Room, the Lichen Fort, and all the other hundreds of abandoned rooms, cloisters, secret stairways, chimneys, basements, derelict ballrooms, courtyards and playrooms, gardens and orchards—Gormenghast is as fantastical as Alice’s Wonderland, but darker and dustier and far more tragic.

Peake’s illustration of Gormenghast

Cinematic Narrative

Peake makes narrative choices that demonstrate his unique perspective as an artist and illustrator². The story is written with an artist’s eye, that lends a distinctively cinematic quality to the work—there are many, many scenes that are structured as if you are watching them unfold through the lens of a high definition film camera. The effect is exquisite.

For example, at the start of the chapter By Gormeghast Lake, in Titus Groan, Peake focuses on a drop of lake water that has fallen from a bird and is hanging on a leaf. We get a ‘slow-motion’ description of the water droplet, and every little detail it captures in its reflection as it slides down the leaf and eventually drops to the ground. The last thing the droplet captures before it falls, is Gormenghast castle and a face that is looking out of one of the many windows. In the next chapter, Peake begins by referring back to this drop of lake water and reveals that the reflected face in the window is that of the Countess, as she broods over the evil that has infiltrated her world. Its so, so clever, and so, so beautifully done that for a moment you forget you’re reading words on a page and not watching a moving image on a screen. I wish I wrote this way; I wish I thought this way so that I could write this way.

There’s also the entire chapter dedicated to Steerpike’s shadow, “every whit as predatory and meaningful as the body that cast it”, where, by the end of the chapter, Steerpike has disappeared from view and we are following only this sinister shade as “It crossed a landing […] descended three steps…”. By this means, we slide with the shadow into the next chapter and Barquentine’s room, where we get to watch the thing “as black as a shade from hell” advancing on the old man from behind, ready to strike.

And then there’s the original ‘previously on’ recap at the beginning of the the second book—created by Peake long before television series started using it—where Peake imagines Gormenghast as haunted by the "Lost Characters" who died, or fled the castle, in the first book. Each character is individually described as haunting the castle in a style typical of their character when they were alive. It’s a clever and fun transition that bridges the years that have passed between the first book and the second, and creates anticipation for the narrative to come.

Craftsmanship

If you’re a writer, you’ll be aware that there’s a lot of writing advice out there. We are constantly advised against things like head-hopping in the same scene, switching tense part way through a narrative, starting a sentence with a connective, and using any adverbs ever. Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this type of technical writing advice. One should learn one’s craft, understand the ‘rules’ of standardised grammar and seek the assistance of a reliable editor to diagnose your weird writerly tics and neuroses. That is all part of becoming a good writer and honing your craft… as long as you also understand two things:

These ‘rules’ are often total bullshit.

Rules are made to be broken, baby!

Eh-hem. No, seriously, learn proper sentence construction and all that—writing is a craft after all, and writers should seek to hone their skills, but true masters of a craft understand the rules well enough to not take them too seriously, and to bend them in all sorts of wonderful ways. And if you’re a writer and want a demonstration on how to break the rules like a pro and totally get away with it, you should read Peake.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.

Changing tense: Gormenghast is written primarily in the past tense. The reader trundles along with the past-tense prose very nicely, and then, sort of in the middle of the first book, we arrive at a number of chapters that are written in the present tense. It should be jarring, but it’s not. In fact, I didn’t even notice the change—I read about it from another reader’s observation some time after I’d finished the book, and then I had to go back and check that, yes, Peake really does just switch abruptly to present tense for several chapters before switching back again. But he doesn’t do it because he’s made a mistake, or is a bad writer. He does it for dramatic effect, to draw the reader into that specific moment of the story, to create a sense of immediacy and intimacy. Suddenly, you’re not a reader but a voyeur. You’re not watching events that have happened, but events that are happening right now.

“Spring has come and gone, and the summer is at its height. It is the morning of the Breakfast, of the ceremonial Breakfast.”—Titus Groan

Over-describing: Most people are divided on descriptive writing and there is a tendency in modern writing to lean towards the more journalistic style of ‘less is more’. If you can say it in ten words, why use twenty? I love that kind of writing. Minimalistic writing can be just as beautiful and powerful as prose that is leaning towards the purple. Whether a text is overly descriptive or not, however, is highly subjective. I have been accused of being both too descriptive and not descriptive enough in my own writing—and those are opinions expressed about the same book.

Personally, I love descriptive prose. When it’s done right, description can be like an insatiable triffid that spills off the page, wraps you in its slithering tendrils and gobbles you up whole. And Peake does it right. He does it so right. Why use ten words to describe something when you can use a thousand? Why not spend an entire paragraph describing the movement of an eye, or the hateful glare one enemy gives another?

Peake is not shy about description. My descriptive writing is the equivalent of a stick-figure drawing compared to Peake’s 3D, high-definition, full-colour Pre-Raphaelite painting. Peake does not trust the reader to leave anything to their imagination. Why should he? He knows every detail of his world, down to the way the moonlight falls on a spider spinning in the corner of a great hall, or the way a character’s face crinkles when they’re angry, or what sort of noise a hundred cats make when they crowd into a small room together; why shouldn’t he share the richness of this detail with the reader?

‘Fallen and half-fallen beams were leaning or lying at all angles and between these beams, joining one to another, hanging from the ceiling of the floor above […] spreading in every direction taut or sagging, plunged in black shadow, glimmering in half-light, or flaming exquisitely with a kind of filagree and leprous brilliance where the moon fell unopposed upon them, the innumerable webs of the spiders filled the air.’—Titus Groan

There are a fair few other ‘rules’ Peake throws out of the window in Gormenghast, like an absolute rock star, but I don’t have time here to explain why each is a stroke of genius. But, in summary, he dares to do things writers are constantly told they shouldn’t: like using vocabulary in a new and atypical way that would make pedants click their tongues in disapproval; head-hopping from one character to the next in the same scene, and being rather flamboyant in his use of imagery: why settle for being literal when you can be recklessly abstract?

So why does breaking the rules work for Peake?

I have a theory: it’s because he’s having fun. Monstrous fun. More fun than should perhaps be allowed when writing a book. As I’ve said before, Peake’s joy in his creation is palpable; it rises up off the page and punches you playfully (and maybe a little sadistically) in the gut.

When Peake changes tense, it’s not a gimmick—it’s necessary for the story. It’s part of the playful, self-aware and slightly wicked tone of the novel.

When Peake head-hops, it’s to give us insight into the minds of the most eccentric and flawed characters to ever spring to life on the page. It’s so we can watch the slow colliding of each character’s motivations and machinations; the inevitable catastrophe when a slip-up on the part of one crosses paths with the suspicions of another.

When Peake spends a page giving us the minute detail of a character’s reaction, or the way a raindrop falls from a leaf, or how a knife slashes flesh in the moonlight, he makes it a sensory feast, not an architect’s blueprint. Instead of bashing us in the eyeballs with a catalogue of precise actions, props and scenery, he emotes description to the reader, and we receive it like an utterly enthralling cinematic screen shot.

When he employs words and imagery in unexpected and audacious ways, it’s with a sense of indulgent intelligence, elegance and wit. Peake is nothing if not darkly gleeful in his use of language, and he clearly enjoys liberating English from the stuffy confines of strict dictionary definitions.

As Steerpike, that wonderfully callous villain, says: “We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.”

And so Peake liberates himself and the reader in exactly this way, through his story and his writing.

Perhaps this is why I love Peake and Gormenghast so much. It liberated me. By the time I got around to reading these wonderful novels, I was in a writing slump, off the back of editing two novels. I was trying to write my fourth book and my joy was wilting, smothered by all the rules and regulations of so-called ‘good writing’ and ‘good story-telling’. So, I took a break and read Peake, and it was like fresh rain in the desert: suddenly, writing came alive again and so did I.

In some ways, I wish I had read Peake earlier in life, and I wonder how different my own work would be if I had. I’m glad I got to read Peake at all—I know only three other people who have read his work, and I’m related to two of them. I wish more people would read Gormenghast—not just because I think Peake deserves the recognition—but because I think you’re missing out if you don’t.

I have to go back to C.S. Lewis’s comment, which is probably the highest endorsement that can be offered for any piece of literature: ‘I would not for anything have missed Gormenghast’.

And to that, all I can say is: amen, amen, amen.

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Thank you for reading through my nerdy gushing. You probably won’t believe me, but I kept this as short as I could, and left out so much stuff I really wanted to share… I could go on and on and on about this Story Love for, I don’t know…forever?

• Let me know in the comments if you’ve read Gormenghast and what you thought.

• If you haven’t read it, let me know if it sounds like something you’d love or loath.

• Any writers or novels that you think everyone should read? Or that are criminally underrated?

I’ll be back, hopefully in the next month or two, with another Story Love instalment.

PJ

1. Peake’s work is erroneously referred to as the ‘Gormenghast trilogy’. But there are actually four books in the series, as well as a novella. The fourth novel was finished by Peake’s widow after he sadly died of Parkinson’s before he could complete it. Only the first two books actually take place in Gormenghast, ‘Gormenghast’ being the title of the second book in the series. But since I’m only going to be talking about the first two books (generally considered the best) I’m going to stick with referring to both these books collectively as ‘Gormenghast’.

2. Check out the official Mervyn Peake website here: Mervyn Peake