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World book day

Its national book day - what is your favourite book... Its a hard one to pin down as there are so many but the book that always springs to mind when I'm asked this is the Gormanghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake -I first read this when I was about 18 and have reread it many many times since.  There is always something new to stimulate the imagination.



Its broadly a Gothic fantasy - full of wonderful characters and set in a landscape you can't quite piece together to visualise as an entirety - just glimpses of rooftops, long halls, lakes and the general estate creeping towards never ending walls where the bright carvers dwell.  Grand places like the tower (sadly destroyed in a fire ) the school where the Prunsquallors live out ridiculous fantasies, the kitchen where evil brews, Cora and Clarices rooms and then of course the rest of the sprawling castle home to Titus, Fucshia, the countess Gertrude and the servants who run the house by the never ending book of Rituals.  These servants notably Barquetine, Mr Flay, Nanny Slagg and the despicable Steerpike are the life blood of Castle Gormanghast, between them the story unfolds and the malicious destruction of the rituals and consquently the very fabric of the families traditions tells a compelling tale.  I havent read it for about 5 years so I've probably missed some key points (Swelter the cook - nasty piece of work) but I'm going to hunt it out this weekend and put it in the to read pile...

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