h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can I join the h2g2 book club?
lucky

Ooh, me too! I'll do my best to write reviews, too, if I can get my Procrastinator(tm) to look the other way and my kids'll cooperate.
Where to start...? Kage Baker, I think, as there's nothing on h2g2 about her yet What fun!

Me, too!! Can I join as well?

I don't know what's already been written, but I'll gladly write reviews on...

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Darklord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I'm sure that's already been done)
Pook of Puck's Hill AND Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling
Pirates of the Deep Blue Sea by Eric Linklater
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

... and any other books I can think of... Can I do scathing reviews of books I hate, too? (heh heh)

I would like to join too please.

How do I go on about joining this club please?

That's a good question.

I was wondering that too.

Hmph. If nobody replies, are we joined up anyway? (said in a very hopeful tone of voice)

Good taste there, rigwoodie.

What did you think of gormenghast? I personally must say I thought that Titus Alone is definately superior to the other two, becoming even less conventional, more exciting, and more insightful.

The Phantom Tollboth is a childhood favourite of mine too, I love the idea of Din and Dischord, but the intelligence of the whole thing is brilliant.

aM

Really? I thought Titus Alone was the worst. Everything descended into chaos, including the writing style. It was certainly more exciting and less conventional, but I think that in its conventional, traditional way, the first was more insightful, showing the world of traditions and inflexibility being torn asunder by one man -- one got to read the minds of each character and watch how they reacted as the traditions collapsed around them. Perhaps it's simply because I fell in love with the way Gormenghast was first presented; an ancient castle steeped in tradition, where dust collects in great folds, but nobody notices because that is the way it's supposed to be. Because Mervyn Peake had to introduce Gormenghast in the first book, there were more masterful descriptions and less action. In the third book, I felt as though he were concentrating more upon the actions and events, and paid less attention to the language he used, which was a pity. I suppose I am too much like Fuschia and Flay, and not enough like Titus, to appreciate the outside world. I did not want to be dragged outside into the chaotic world where dust is swept up all too quickly. Mervyn Peake, in his efforts to show the differences between Gormenghast and the outside world, changed his writing a bit too much as well, and I wanted to go back to the long weighty descriptions of candelebras and the Tower of Flint.

Hm, went on a bit, didn't I? You managed to hit one of the topics I can really rant about... sorry!

I love The Phantom Tollbooth! Everything is done so cleverly. Every time I read it, I notice more puns with words. Have you read Haroun and the Sea of Stories? That is a book very similar to The Phantom Tollbooth -- very imaginative and word-oriented as well.

I did love Titus Groan too, and on writing style it wins hands down (TA being too breif, Gor too verbose and inefectual). I think that the descent into an anarchy of ideas in TA is fantastic and really intresting, almost as though the refinements on language usage in previous novels was a varnish that was torn down. Peake was increasingly suffering from the mental illness that killed him whilst writing Titus Alone (it's still unfinished), which accounts in part for the deviation from conventionalism (although his earlier work is hardly main stream!), and I think exposes the raw, underlying ideas, as dark and savage as they are.

aM

I agree wholeheartedly -- Titus Alone (I keep on thinking of Teacher's Aid when I see TA, sorry) really is the earlier books torn down, and while that might be symbolically wonderful (As for the dark savage ideas coming to light: earlier, there were also rather shocking glimpses of that same savagery, but still in a beautifully described way -- Flay and Swelter's horrific spiderweb battle, for example, The twins' death, the burning of the library, and especially The Tower of Flint. Later on, the darkness was apparent, but the better writing was not.) and tragic as far as Mervyn Peake's life was concerned, as far as writing goes... it is true that Mervyn Peake was dying, and I've always taken that as the excuse for why the writing wasn't so engaging as before. The writing also gets much too interesting in Titus Alone; that is the main problem with it. It becomes much too disjointed and dreamy, and stops having the heavy earthy tones that so captured my attention and admiration in the former books. Despite the fantastical setting of Gormenghast, the quixotic characters and odd goings-on, I always had a deep and grounded feeling that everything was real, or at least believable in a very human sort of way. In the last book, I lost that feeling. Everything became much too dreamy, and I ended up not really sympathising with any of the characters or their actions. It is all very well to see the dark ideas behind the book, but I would prefer to have to think about it myself, and catch a glimpse through the writing, rather than have Mervyn Peake's magical use of words ripped away simply to see what is underneath, as happens in the third book.

I'd like to know what you thought of the leaf-child, or whatever it was she was called (she was the one who fascinated Titus - I believe she was the daughter of the woman who was wet-nurse to Titus?) And also, what did you think of Fuschia's attics?

Do you think we get extra points for discussing books while waiting for someone to join us up?

I still havn't asked to join up yet, I better do that now; please can I join up?

I feel in the third book Peake wants to give it a 'dreamy' atmosphere, we are not supposed to empathise with characters other than Titus, and this helps us empathise with Titus more; the other characters and locations are ununderstandable strangers to us as they are to Titus. Personally, I don't find the lack of sense of realism as important for me, especially in Titus Alone as it is much more a commentary on the 'real' world as Peake sees it.

However, my two favourite individudal scenes both are due to the quality of description and the atmosphere this creates. The owls in the Tower of Flint at the end of Titus Groan, and Fuschia's(?) birthday celebration, with the stilted characters on the lake.

I felt Peake uses the leaf-child as an extension of Titus, representing in inner desires for freedom, selfishness, and lack of reasponsibility. He knows these to be 'wrong' in the eyes of his society, just as the leaf-child is out of place amongst her own people. Its a while since I last read the books, and I'm afraid Fuschia's rooms havn't reallyu stuck in my mind

aM

Maybe if I ask to join up several times in a row, it'll eventually happen? Please may I join?Please may I join?Please may I join?Please may I join?


I like your idea that Mervyn Peake wants us to empathise with Titus more in the third book, and that's why it's so dreamy. That makes a lot of sense. I still think that, partly because of the dreaminess, and partly because of Mervyn Peake's own problems, the writing deteriorates, but I think I'm more willing to accept the third book now as more of a different style and different ideas, rather than a random wild flight of madness (which is what I felt before you made your excellent point).

I loved those two scenes -- the owls of the Tower of Flint, especially. I think my favourite paragraph is the one with the chandelier, and the wax dripping onto the birdseed. I think the chapter is called 'Tallow and Birdseed'. Peake spends so long describing the scene, without boring the reader. Fuschia's attics were imaginative, which is what made me like Fuschia so much. Mervyn Peake used Fuschia's rooms to describe Fuschia herself.

The leaf-child struck me as not only a part of Titus, but also as a glimpse of something that had broken free of the traditions and laws of Gormenghast. Perhaps Titus saw her as what he might be able to become in the future?


... I wonder how long it's going to take to get signed up...

I've got a preference for travelogues and biographies. With fiction I usually cheat, so thanks for all the reviews so far

Lis (Goldylock)

lessee... travelogues and biographies...

I'm drawing a complete blanks for travelogues, but as for biographies... Have you read West with the Wind, by Beryl Markham? That was good, I think... it's been such a long time since I read it. Roald Dahl's Boy and Going Solo are quite amusing as well. And, er, um... me dad says Lytton Strachey by Michael Holroyd, and Ray Monk's Biography of Wittgenstein. That any help?

I'm enjoying (Unterwegs) On the Road by Jack Kerouac which I guess is an historical travelogue cum pseudo-biography. Great tales of long nights in jazz clubs and run-ins with the cops as the disfunctional pals Sal & Dean criss-cross the States almost like a spider's web.
Between times I'm dipping into Evelyn Waugh's travel book When the Going was Good (a 1959 Penguin price 3/6d) which is basically the best of his globe-trotting between 1929 and 1935.
Waiting in the pipeline are Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, W. H. Auden's Collected Poems and Modern Irish Poetry edited by Patrick Crotty. I'll never get through it all!

The leaf-child struck me as not only a part of Titus, but also as a glimpse of something that had broken free of the traditions and laws of Gormenghast.

But did you not feel this rebelinous was already a part of Titus, something ingrained in not just him, but his whole family, hence his father's madness. The leaf-child is also unattainable, and as such does not accurately represent what we know happens to Titus later on. Titus Alone is the kiss, his brief connection with freedom. But the leaf-child dies. This affects Titus, and in turning away from his home at the end he is avoiding a rerun of the lightning strike.

On the Road is a book I most get round to reading some time. It was written non-stop, with coffe and drugs replacing sleep. So he needn't pause in his writing, Jack cellotaped sheets of paper together so they went continually through his type-writer.

aM

p.s. Can I join?

That takes me back.I first read On The Road in my own coffee bar days,I carried it about like a bible.On my desk at the moment is the Collected shorter poems of Auden 1927-1957.I am very fond of a poem in it called Another Time.I am also reading Poetry of the Thirties(penguin books)
I think i'd better join!

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If only it were that simple!

aM