At one point Titus loses a small piece of flint, his only physical link to Gormenghast, and this becomes both symbolic and tremendously poignant. Indeed, in reading the novel as a meditation on madness one is drawn to Titus’s inner conflict, unable to determine whether his life in Gormenghast was in fact a delusion a fantastical interlude from the world he inhabits in Titus Alone. However, the plotting is tight, and the theme of madness provides a constant undercurrent. Whilst writing Titus Alone, Peake’s mind was being cruelly degraded by Parkinson’s disease and this led some critics to suggest that the novel’s change of pace reflected a mind losing control. This shift in setting is jarring at first, and the reader is forced to acknowledge, as is Titus, how backwards and irrelevant Gormenghast is in this overwhelming world of technology the castle’s antiquated rituals seeming even more absurd in comparison.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |