"Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake is unlike any book I have read. Its prose is unique, its story and characters are compelling, and it is a truly sui generis creation that does not quite fit neatly into any particular genre.

Peake was an illustrator and the prose is the closest something I read has come to painting or drawing. His command of vocabulary is unmatched and used with great affect. And it is not just the words but the sounds. In fact, the prose almost feels like notes in a symphony. I would definitely recommend while reading to take interesting passages and read them aloud for an additional experience.

What a world he creates in this first novel. It concerns the comings and goings of the denizens of a crumbling castle called Gormenghast, the seat of the Earl of Groan. But calling Gormenghast a castle is not accurate. Peake was raised in China during the 1910s and 1920s and his Gormenghast owes more to the Forbidden City then any European fortress. The castle itself is a personality and looms large over the inhabitants and their actions. Each character is utterly unique and (to keep with the illustrating metaphor) quite finely drawn.

There are numerous themes in the novel and like most of the great works of speculative fiction, one can read it twice and not come to the same conclusions. The two big themes for me were the tension between change and tradition and an underlying conflict between the Enlightenment (embodied by Lord Sepulchrave) and the Romantic Movement (embodied by Lady Gertrude).

I have seen the novel called "Gothic Fantasy," even though it is not "fantasy" as most people conceive it. A recent Barnes and Noble Review argued that it is one of three types of modern commercial Fantasy. The first are the derivative works of J.R.R. Tolkien - epic battles of good versus evil that draw heavily from folklore and myth traditions. The second "features strange, mind-bending venues, odd, idiosyncratic characters, problematical morality, enigmatical actions, open-endedness, interstitial hybridization, and a more elaborate and elegant prose style." [The article argues that the third type is embodied by works like George R.R. Martin, that combines the epic scale of the first type and the grittiness of the second).

I would highly recommend that you give this novel a try. Peake had intended to write a long series of novels about the life of the title character. Unfortunate, he died of dementia at the age of fifty-seven. But if this book is any indication, he would have been remembered well for this particular work.

If you would like to read the Barnes and Nobel Review article, please go here - bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/The-Speculator/Seeds-of-Ice-and-Fire/ba-p/12756