Titus Groan by Mervyn PeakeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
For a long time reading this book, I thought I'd picked another stinker. Another long, dull indulgence like "Little, Big" where Nothing. Ever. Happened. And Mervyn Peake's book is very much in that vein, where nothing really happens.
But there is a plot. And it's obviously continued in the next novel. Good thing I bought all three of them.
At least with Titus Groan I could feel things building, just a little bit at a time. And now I have to read Gormenghast to see how much of that building actually happens. And will probably have to read Titus Alone as well. He got me hooked. And his writing is beautiful.
It's very Dickensian with interesting and extremely dull characters. And there are enough twists in the story to keep things going for the more adventurous reader. But this isn't a great quest, if that's what you like in fantasy. It's as if Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote a great quest novel about all the stuff that happens before the quest starts.
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