aghast/Gormenghast and also SV story recs and ego

[oiran]

So, about three years ago, I purchased a copy of the Mervyn Peake Gormenghast trilogy bound in one volume. I was enthralled instantly and, unlike my usual pattern of devouring a book within a matter of hours, I found that I was both unwilling and unable with this story. I wanted to savor it. When I moved back to Seattle for a year and some, I had boxed up a bunch of books that were special, and that I wanted Mr. Glove to mail to me. Unfortunately, he got the box mixed up with other boxes of books, and he later could not recall whether it had been stored or taken to Goodwill. About a month ago, I finally unearthed the box (the LAST box with books in it in our basement) and was delighted that all the special books had not, in fact, been given away. I began reading Gormenghast again and finished book two.

The descriptions of time and space and quality of light in these stories are like nothing I've read before. Pages and pages and pages of detail and set-up so that a character can walk in and some tiny thing can happen ever-so-prettily. It sounds claustrophobic and stuffy, but it's wonderful. The characters are fairy tale creatures, but kind of grubby and sad, furtive, misunderstood. I fell in love with poor Fuchsia right away--and perhaps that was one of the first problems. Fuchsia, you see, isn't the star of these tales. Her brother, Titus, is.

The villain, Steerpike, is described in most unflattering terms. He has dark red eyes, a bulbous forehead, and high, narrow shoulders. I have seen caps from some filmed version of this, however, and Steerpike is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who is widely agreed to be fucking hot. If anything, JRM should have played a hotter version of Lord Titus (I have no idea who really did play Titus, and I haven't seen anything of the filmed version except pics of JRM standing on roofs and scowling). Even though I like to look at Jonathan Rhys Meyers as much as anyone, I haven't made the least effort to see the filmed version of the story because I just love the books so much and love to hate ugly, as-written Steerpike.

Yes, I love the books so much. Well, the first two books.

I am hating book three, which is called Titus Alone. That right there is the reason, I think. It's just fucking Titus, and I don't care what happens to him. I don't care about his adventures. I don't care about anything now that he's left the castle. I want to go back to the castle and see what they're up to there. The author has very carefully and definitively removed all the things I like about the story from play. I am so resentful of this that I can't imagine he'll be able to reengage me in a mere 200 pages (there have been, what? about 900 pages prior, I think) and thus redeem the storyline. I have been poking at this for a couple of weeks now, and I'm maybe 40 pages into it, which is what I might usually read in 20-30 minutes.

I know there are a few people on my FL who know these books well, and I think for the same reasons that I do. I'm going to stagger through it (while rereading Dawn Powell novels as a reward), but I'm wondering: is Titus Alone ever going to make me happy? Even for a moment? With my two favorites decidedly missing?

Story recs: I see all these posts complaining about the lack of SV stories being posted and that's just wrong. Whether or not they're what everyone wants to read, there are definitely stories being posted.

kieyra wrote a very sci-fi story, Negative Space that bumps us 100 years into the future. I'm not familiar with the book she says she borrows from, but I really like this story very much. I've really enjoyed her other stories as posted to SSA, as well.

Healer by paperbkryter. I did not expect to like this pairing at all, but I read it anyway and I'm very glad I did. You probably will be, too.

And I pimped this last night, but my excitement has not yet waned, so here you go again: I Could Hurt You Now by gothphyle(also here on the challenge site). Write for the challenge! Please! I will squee and follow you around telling you that you're pretty and smell good.

And in the ego slot: I posted something that is only mostly completed about Lex @ Excelsior. No Clark in sight. No Bruce, either, if that matters.

~~~

I totally agree that Ashton Kutcher looks like a younger, dopier Gale Harold, but I so cannot see the Tom Welling resemblance. Of course, I don't think Ian Somerhalder looks like TW, either. I think Ian Somerhalder looks like a really pretty girl with a scruffy beard.

~~~

tynantblue0162 needs to write more, and write more porn. By not doing so, she's being selfish and cruel.

Comments

[tamalinn.livejournal.com]

i think ian somerhalder bears an odd resemblance to freddy mercury.

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

Hee! You are correct! All he needs is a big mustache and a gay jumpsuit!

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

I also don't think either Ashton Kutcher or Ian Somerhalder look like Tom Welling. I mean, there's being a Similar Type as someone else and then there's Looking Like Them. It's certainly reasonably arguable the three of them are the former. I'd disagree totally that any of them are the latter when it comes to each other.

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

I really don't see similarities, so it has always surprised me to see the comparisons. So far as I can tell, they're only "alike" in that they're male, mammalian, and not-blond.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I've never gotten as far as Titus Alone. I bought the trilogy in one volume not so long ago, and started reading from the beginning but kept being distracted by varsity and so on.

I love Fuschia and Steerpike. Do you have the Peake illustrations too? Is it just me, or is Steerpike somehow quite *hotly* unattractive? Even without the pictures I fancied him in the book. But JRM was utterly, utterly wrong. I disliked the TV Gormenghast, at least what I saw of it, as it had the absurdity but none of the blackness and power that underlies the book.

I also passionately love the story of Edna Prunesquallor's party, with the cold hot water bottle bosom and the catatonic professors.

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

Yes! And the love that blossoms, absurdly and grotesquely, between Irma and the headmaster...Bellgrove, I believe.

Yeah. I'm not loving Titus Alone. In fact, I'm hating it, I guess.

I think Gormenghast ran on the public stations in the U.S., but I missed it, and I'm rather glad, just because I don't know how you could make it anything remotely like the books (and apparently it's not doable). Steerpike should not look like JRM.

I will have to go back and look at the illustrations. There are only about four of them, and they're scribbly.

[stone-princess.livejournal.com]

I read the first two bnooks (couldn't get into Titus Alone) and I have the DVD of BBC production. It's surprisingly good, but I loved Streerpike the most, so I'm not adverse to looking like Jonathan Rhy-Meyers (who I don't htink is all that hot anyway).

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

JRM has got his attractive angles, but I could see him more as Titus because he just doesn't look very smart. Steerpike is smart! I love Steerpike! He's AWFUL!

When I come to live with you and eat all your food, I will be sure to watch all the DVDs that you have that I do not.

read my stories! you can hate them, even--I just want you to read them!

[stone-princess.livejournal.com]

I'll print them today to read, I promise!

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

(Just passing by, the word "Gormenghast" caught my eye:) Titus Alone, as I discovered from the foreword to my own edition, was written when Mervyn Peake was in the advanced stages of Parkinson's Disease and, as the editors said, you could kind of tell his facilities were deserting him at that point. I tried to read it with the same attention as the first two, but ended up skimming it out of a sense of duty more than anything.

I was very skeptical about the casting of Steerpike in the BBC version, but although Rhys-Meyers is too handsome for the part he really did do a wonderful job (though not as wonderful as Christopher Lee, who is Flay the Butler). Unfortunately, their Fuchsia was a teen-angst cardboard cutout, nothing like the tragic figure in the book.

[burnitbackwards.livejournal.com]

i never saw any kind of tom welling/ashton kutcher resemblance (except for the fact that they're both tall and hot and HOT) until i saw TW on TRL from like, last week or the week before that, and he has cut his hair in a very ashton-like (AND HOT) way.

[hey-miss-missy.livejournal.com]

I think Ian Somerhalder looks like a really pretty girl with a scruffy beard.

Good Lord! I thought I was the only one! *whew*

[justblue0162.livejournal.com]

*wails*

I'm sorry!! I don't mean to be so slow. Did I mention I suck?

*limps off for more punishment from evil muses*

(thank you for the encouragement. really.)

[bientot.livejournal.com]

I agree that Titus Alone has far less appeal than the rest of the trilogy. For me, and for most people I've discussed them with, it's the grotesque that draws, and Titus Alone eschews the grotesque for the merely fantastical. Sigh...

I watched the BBC version with trepidation, having loved the books (the first two, anyhow) and never believing they could be filmed, and was pleasantly surprised. Some parts were better than others, of course, but Steerpike was as sharp and angular as he should be, and his malice and cunning were exact and evident. The twins were perfect. Fuchsia was, unfortunatley, a bit more pathetic than tragic, but still fine. I found I couldn't forget the schoolmaster was Stephen Fry, which is a pity because otherwise he was very good. Overall, they got the feel right, the looming gothic twisted claustrophobic sense of Gormenghast -- I think you would enjoy seeing it.

[cpt-babypants.livejournal.com]

Since I had never even heard of this series until I saw the film version (thank you Netflix!), I can only tell you that JRM is about 10x hotter in action than he is in still pics. And Titus is just as uninteresting as he apparently is in the book. I also liked Fuschia a lot. The Queen and the Doctor were great characters but I think that was more because of the actors than how they were written. Gormenghast has been on my wishlist since I saw the film. I'm not sure how loyal the movie is to the book, but it's gorgeous and it made me want to read it.

[kieyra.livejournal.com]

Greetings. I just wanted to come and thank you for the lovely rec. Your name has come up many times in my Smallville browsing and conversing, so it's something of an ego-boost. :)

Thanks again.