Gulch it down
Mervyn Peake uses Rabelaisian vocabulary to describe the gargantuan appetites and appearance of Swelter, the castle cook in his Gormenghast...
Storm-nibbled heads
A thousand years of storm wear wipes the faces from the stone heads decorating Gormenghast stormenghast, eyes and features flattened...
Call him Titus
Baby Titus, born into a crumbling, rambling pile of stone, with parents of a warmth and tenderness approximately equivalent to...
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...
Don’t stand there staring…
A colourful way to deter someone from staring at you and, in case of need, to insult your staff. Stenching...
Rain-thrashed pools
Gormenghast is made for storms and this one allows Steerpike to further insinuate himself into the life of the castle....
How the other half lives
Gormenghast has two populations segregated by the walls of the rambling castle. The people outside are treated as lower order...
Sucking at stones
Swelter is one of the less attractive characters in Mervyn Peake's sprawling, crawling, mossy pile of forgotten granite, Gormenghast. He...
As huge as …
Mervyn Peake is a fount of original similes and metaphors. Given the granite-gothic ambiance of Gormenghast, it makes sense that...
Long term thinking
A family gathering for the christening of the heir to the Gormenghast title, Titus, appears to be the first time...
Of sisters dissimilar
Dante meets the two sisters in Purgatory, and Leah describes, with Dantesque pithiness, the difference between them.
For other quotations...
As ripe as …
Swelter is assailed by life-sapping loathing for Flay, who returns the compliment. Their battle is astounding for its intensity and...
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