The second novel in the series, Gormenghast picks up where Titus Groan left off, returning to the castle where the new earl, 77th of his line, grows up in his vast crumbling demesne into a life governed by strict and stifling ritual. Peake reintroduces his cast of extraordinary characters in a leisurely manner – he is in no rush to get the action underway. Titus, who had just turned one when the first novel ended, has to grow up before he can confront the demons that threaten him. 

The florid language that characterised Titus Groan also returns, not least in the descriptions of the castle itself:

Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet bears away from a choked river.

Readers will either luxuriate in prose like this, or be irritated by it. I don’t think one can have Gormenghast the adventure story without Gormenghast the prose poem, and I am very glad we have both.

Once the scene is set, and the characters are re-introduced, Peake can spend time on showing Titus’s childhood. He is wonderful at capturing the joy as well as the boredom of infancy: in a phrase that has stayed with me since reading it some 40 or more years ago, Titus is wading through his childhood. 

Or to put it another way

Drear ritual turned its wheel. The ferment of the heart, within these walls, was mocked by every length of sleeping shadow. The passions, no greater than candle flames, flickered in Time’s yawn, for Gormenghast, huge and adumbrate, out-crumbles all. The summer was heavy with a kind of soft grey-blue weight in the sky – yet not in the sky, for it was as if there were no sky, but only air, an impalpable grey-blue substance, drugged with the weight of its own heat and hue. 

Titus begins to chafe at the crippling conventions of castle life and the impositions of the daily rituals he has to undertake. I always read these rituals as Peake’s commentary on the meaningless conventions we surround ourselves with in life. Yes, this novel is thought provoking as well.

Sooner or later an Earl needs to go to school, and here Peake introduces new characters to his cast: the Professors. Professor Bellgrove is elevated to the headmastership following a fatal and grotesque accident which disposes of his predecessor. The other teachers are, as one by now expects, a collection of grotesques, not one of whom should be within a mile of a classroom. Peake is in no hurry with the adventure element of his tale, and introduces a new element to his narrative – romance, albeit a comedy romance between lovers who are getting on in years. The angular spinster Irma Prunesquallor, sister of the castle’s doctor, decides to get married, and throws a party to help her secure a groom from among the eligible teachers of the castle. Bellgrove rises to the occasion and begins to pay her court:

“His staff had shaken hands with her as though a woman was merely another kind of man. Fools! The seeds of Eve were in this radiant creature. The lullabyes of half a million years throbbed in her throat. Had they no sense of wonder, no reverence, no pride?”

I have an immense fondness for the chapters featuring the professors – they add little if anything to the plot, but they flesh out the world of Gormenghast wonderfully.

Meanwhile Steerpike, now assistant to the Master of Ritual, Barquentine, watches and waits for his opportunity. He decides that Barquentine stands in his way of advancement and has to be disposed of. However the plan doesn’t go smoothly – Barquentine puts up an unexpectedly fierce fight. Steerpike is severely injured, suffering extensive burns and almost drowning. As he lies recovering his delirious mutterings give rise to concerns in Dr Prunesquallor’s mind that he was involved in the mysterious disappearance and presumed deaths of Titus’s aunts, the twin sisters Ladies Cora and Clarice. Steerpike is now under suspicion, and from this point the novel races to a tragic and bitter conclusion in a chase scene that repays any and all the patience the reader has invested up to this point. An epic manhunt through the rapidly flooding castle ends with Titus having to make the most difficult decision of his young life.

I’ve praised Peake’s use of language, his character creation, his descriptive powers, but really at the heart of this novel is an adventure story. It takes a while to get there but the payoff at the end is extraordinarily exciting.

The question is, however, what happens next?