Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake: ***5/8

When I read Titus Groan a little over a year ago, I loved it, saying at the time that the only real flaw I found was a relative lack of story. The characters, ambience, setting, and individual settings were amazing, but there was a lack of a singular thread tying everything together. My exact words were "If Peake can develop a better sense of plot in the second and third novels, this may become a masterpiece." Peake does that in this book, creating amazing set pieces that lead to an amazing finale. He introduces a hearty dose of new characters while developing core ones left over from the first book, and he expands on the majesty of the Castle and its surroundings. It's a space to be lived in. In general, this feels very much like the first book, but offers a little bit more. I was a bit more aware of how this book reminds me in tone of Catch-22, though this isn't nearly as obviously absurd - it's just that Peake's overdrawn characters remind me of similarly crazy situations in that book.

Peake remains the master of creating tension and drama in the performance of the mundane, though in this book he brings a few more special encounters into the fold. Notably brilliant scenes here include time spent at the school with the Professors, a couple of burgeoning romances and the machinations involved, a fiery fight, a chase through the bowels of the castle, and the ending, which is genuinely fantastic. There is one turn in the book involving a love interest for Titus that I didn't like, and unfortunately it's an important one for the plot. Without this flaw, the book would be nearly perfect. As it is, it's excellent. [see my Titus Groan review for more general information on Peake's writing style, the world of Gormenghast, etc.]

Instead of keeping track of quotes while reading Gormenghast, I kept track of words I didn't know, though I didn't begin this practice until page 132, so there are assuredly words in the first 1/5 of the book that I didn't know prior to then. In some cases I had seen these words before but just didn't own them, while in other cases I had flatly no idea what the word was. I usually tried to find the definition of the word right away, though if my dictionary (New Webster's Pocket-Sized Edition) didn't have it, I didn't check any further. Here is the list of words and page numbers on which they appear (Ballantine Books edition). I didn't include the definitions, for copyright reasons (all words can be found at dictionary.com, with one noted exception):
stoat (132)
lintel (132)
demesne (136)
deportment (137)
gracile (154)
volitation (155)
glissade (155)
torpor (156)
viridian (156)
marcid (157)
bracken (160)
inchoate (170)
hierophant (186)
callow (193)
sward (207)
adumbrate (208)
adamantine (208)
cynosure (213)
immure (213)
petard (233)
bittiness (235)
bedizen (240)
purdah (278)
reticule (281)
intriturated (332) ’Äì not found even in dictionary.com hirsute (351)
prefatory (366)
lacuna (380)
propinquity (387)
invidious (426)
ambuscade (435)
mendicant (447)
beldam (453)
cantonment (455)
contumely (456)
chattel (485)
effulgence (523)
febrile (526)
(Winter 2005-6)

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