I know it's considered like the weird mishapen cousin to fantasy's nobel ancestor, Lord of the Rings, but sometimes I glimpsed a common theme.
Something around the anxiety during the WWII and immediate post war period about the shift in authority away from tradition and monarchy, the perceived corruption of the old way. Tolkein does a lot of rightful kings returning to put things right, and Peake has Steerpike putting things wrong. Also there's old warmongering men ruining the world and incapable of change, people trapped in archaic systems when there was a new wider world out there. You know.
These books were fundamental to my formation as a reader and a writer. Peake's control of language and character, and the spaces he creates, is all remarkable.
I agree with others that if Gormenghast isn't fantasy then our definition of fantasy is insufficient. Peake had an understanding about how ritual and language work *as* magic, so that fantasy does not require the explicitly supernatural for magic to operate.
It is a great loss to literature that illness prevented Peake from finishing the Titus books. It was an astonishingly ambitious project, for which we only have these first three books.
There’s the really interesting “problem,” too, of the trilogy’s so-called decline, plus the Boy in Darkness and his wife’s (functionally, 5th) entry after his death. I’m really partial to the later entries, even the “epigone” Titus Awakes.
I actually haven’t read anything about how the series develops outside of your comment here and Premee Mohamed’s piece I linked. I try not to shotgun series but I do plan to continue on to at least Gormenghast and Titus Alone at some point. May wait till next year to start Gormenghast. I like to husband these things.
I look forward to seeing how you like them. They’re no less rich as time goes on, but they are more s t r a n g e. I envy you your having the rest of the series still ahead of you! To read this again for the first time! Mm.
Once upon a time I tried Titus Groan and loved the style but couldn’t get into it otherwise. So I set it aside, with the thought that I would have to try again someday… maybe that day should come soon…
Probably depends on the piece. One thing that’s interesting about Le Guin is that she had the educational and class background compatible with what we might call the literary elite but made a self-conscious choice to work in the genres she did to avoid critical scrutiny—this plan obviously didn’t work out. I sort of think of her of a kind of upside down Margaret Atwood or Kurt Vonnegut for this reason.
Since I don't know Titus Groan I can't be sure this will help you make the distinction you want, but here's a post that distinguishes world-building from fantasy, and both from allegory, as a way of making a scale that ends in literary fiction. You might find some of the sources useful. https://jameselkins.substack.com/p/what-is-the-literary-imagination
Just bought the trilogy this week. I’m eager to give it a try this year. Thanks for supplying a helpful introduction to it.
I joined Substack to find kindred spirits to read and chat with. A piece struggling with Titus Groan? Subscribed.
Such good, and sad, books.
I know it's considered like the weird mishapen cousin to fantasy's nobel ancestor, Lord of the Rings, but sometimes I glimpsed a common theme.
Something around the anxiety during the WWII and immediate post war period about the shift in authority away from tradition and monarchy, the perceived corruption of the old way. Tolkein does a lot of rightful kings returning to put things right, and Peake has Steerpike putting things wrong. Also there's old warmongering men ruining the world and incapable of change, people trapped in archaic systems when there was a new wider world out there. You know.
These books were fundamental to my formation as a reader and a writer. Peake's control of language and character, and the spaces he creates, is all remarkable.
I agree with others that if Gormenghast isn't fantasy then our definition of fantasy is insufficient. Peake had an understanding about how ritual and language work *as* magic, so that fantasy does not require the explicitly supernatural for magic to operate.
It is a great loss to literature that illness prevented Peake from finishing the Titus books. It was an astonishingly ambitious project, for which we only have these first three books.
There’s the really interesting “problem,” too, of the trilogy’s so-called decline, plus the Boy in Darkness and his wife’s (functionally, 5th) entry after his death. I’m really partial to the later entries, even the “epigone” Titus Awakes.
I actually haven’t read anything about how the series develops outside of your comment here and Premee Mohamed’s piece I linked. I try not to shotgun series but I do plan to continue on to at least Gormenghast and Titus Alone at some point. May wait till next year to start Gormenghast. I like to husband these things.
I look forward to seeing how you like them. They’re no less rich as time goes on, but they are more s t r a n g e. I envy you your having the rest of the series still ahead of you! To read this again for the first time! Mm.
Once upon a time I tried Titus Groan and loved the style but couldn’t get into it otherwise. So I set it aside, with the thought that I would have to try again someday… maybe that day should come soon…
I love Titus Groan so much. Really, if Fantasy isn't a big enough tent for TG, screw the whole genre.
Fantasy literary fiction (or sci fi)? Ursula K. LeGuin.
Probably depends on the piece. One thing that’s interesting about Le Guin is that she had the educational and class background compatible with what we might call the literary elite but made a self-conscious choice to work in the genres she did to avoid critical scrutiny—this plan obviously didn’t work out. I sort of think of her of a kind of upside down Margaret Atwood or Kurt Vonnegut for this reason.
Since I don't know Titus Groan I can't be sure this will help you make the distinction you want, but here's a post that distinguishes world-building from fantasy, and both from allegory, as a way of making a scale that ends in literary fiction. You might find some of the sources useful. https://jameselkins.substack.com/p/what-is-the-literary-imagination
Thanks for sharing.