An opiate vista
A curious vista of 'tallow-coloured' images floating before an opium-steeped lord.
'Laudanum' was the name for various opium-based preparations and...
As though unweaned
The birth of the 77th Earl of Gormenghast, innocent Titus Groan, gives celebratory license to the scullions and other assorted...
As ripe as …
Swelter is assailed by life-sapping loathing for Flay, who returns the compliment. Their battle is astounding for its intensity and...
A fondness for roofs
Clarice and Cora are two halves of an insane echo-chamber - a pair of identical twins who need to get...
Sucking at stones
Swelter is one of the less attractive characters in Mervyn Peake's sprawling, crawling, mossy pile of forgotten granite, Gormenghast. He...
Sea the colour
I love different ways of describing eyes, and colours, and this one allows some range in its definition. Blue or...
Lime-green river
In the context of Gormenghast, this intriguing river colour would unlikely be a sign of toxic effluent or bloom, so...
Slaves to the sun?
While for the most part these twin sisters are nothing short of bonkers, I liked when one of them questioned...
Gulch it down
Mervyn Peake uses Rabelaisian vocabulary to describe the gargantuan appetites and appearance of Swelter, the castle cook in his Gormenghast...
On illusory madness
A fine description of Mervyn Peake's balance between bounding imagination and taut writing, rounded off with a vintage metaphor.
...
Reasoning in vain
A convincing form of fruitlessness, as it's hard to imagine a pious vulture. The sister in question is an awkward...
A rolling boulder
Nanny Slagg meets an old man of the Dwellers, the humble people who live limpet-like on the outer walls of...
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