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

Dr Prunesquallor is a character from Mervyn Peake's gothic and fantastic
Gormenghast trilogy.

Whoops I didnt mean to put it forward for discussion...no replies anyway thank god!
Posting it made me seem like a selfish bunt...sorry I have a problem with the b...do
you mean "c"? - borrect!

No sweat.

I'm reading Gormenghast at the moment...

How's Irma?

I wish I knew...
Great book if you can get your head around the over description throughout. It doesnt
let up at all. Which book of the three are you reading at the moment?

Gormenghast. As I said .

I like the rambling descriptions, they make the books in my opinion. The sense of place is incredible.

And I find it amusing that I'm going out with a Fuschia.

She doesn't.

Fushia? Ha, nice one!
Are you going to read Titus Alone? The final book when Mervyn
Peake went mad? He was dying of a brain disease when he wrote
it which also I think gives a hint as to eccentricity of the previous two...
brilliant too!

I'm interleaving the Gormenghast trilogy with the Illuminatus! trilogy at the moment.
I'll get to Titus Alone in good time.
Being the book librarian of the university Sci-fi society has it advantages...

I like eccentricity. I once read three Philip K. Dick books on the trot, and lived to tell the tale.

I think that when you finish Gormenghast, you should take a break and savour the first two books, before embarking on the third. It really is a very different book to the other two, and does not fit in as part of a trilogy. It has no connection to the other two other than Titus's own view of himself as Earl of Gormenghast. Read it by all means, but not as part of a trilogy.

When the BBC made their serialisation, they stopped at the end of the second book and did not attempt to film the third.

Didn't notice the dates on the previous posts. This advice comes a little late.

I shouldn't worry; I do it all the time.
I've reread the first two since then.
What did you reckon to the serialisation? I liked it, although I wish they'd kept Sourdust and Barquentine as separate characters.
In the following months I kept frightening my girlfirend with sudden Steerpike impressions.

I thought that using Warren Whats-sname for Barquentine was a master stroke, because most of us thought the actor died years ago, not having seen him since Alf Garnet many years ago. This matched exactly Steerpike's shock in the books when Barquentine turned up after Sourdust died.

The serialisation was great although if you hadn't read the boat, you hadn't a pup's chance of figuring out what it was all about. I thought the architecture should be more grey and gothic, but I got used to the oriental feel to the place very quickly.

They came in for a lot of criticism for the oriental look, but I liked it. It stopped it looking like prepetual night and made the model shots worthwhile.