My 10 Authors reading Marathon!

[Silver Owl]

The Cosmic Puppets (1957)

What's that you say? You wonder what it would be like if PKD wrote a fantasy novel? Well your wish has been granted kind of... Ish..

The cosmic puppets is Dick's take on a fantasy novel. With gods and Demi gods and cool powers and ghosts that aren't ghosts. The story follows an ordinary guy who revisits his birth town and realises it has changed beyond comprehension. He soon finds out that the town is a battleground caught in the middle of a war between two epic gods.

The book is only very short and for once doesn't have any blindingly obvious themes. Perhaps you could call memory and childhood a theme. Or you could say it was about returning home. But it's mainly for enjoying for the fun madcap runaround it is.

This is definitely a PKD novel for people who don't normally like PKD. Non of the confusing stuff from his most famous books is here. I really enjoyed it personally because it was a 'small scale look at an epic war' type story and I love that kind of thing. It also had a pretty cool female character that wasn't the protagonists wife which is a nice change. I know I said I'd stop mentioning that sort of thing but I'll praise him when I think it's due.

It's a fairly light and breezy read and it's easy to see why it gets lost among his other work. But that doesn't mean it's bad just different.

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Next Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

 

[Silver Owl]

Titus Alone (1959)

This final entry of Mervyn Peakes in the marathon has been my favourite book of all time since I read it about 4 months ago.

This is - i am aware - a very unusual opinion. Peake is a fairly obscure author among the general public and even among his greatest fans there is an overwhelming consensus that he dropped the ball here. This is often attributed to his Parkinson's disease that eventually killed him.

The plot follows Titus - who is the same age I was when I read it - as he leaves the castle where he grew up to explore the world on his own terms. He finds a world much like the 20th century in our world where no one has ever heard of him or Gormenghast. He meets some odd friends on the way like Cheetah and Muzzlehatch, both are unique characters that only Peake could have come up with. All the time Titus is being pursued by two faceless police men.

I think that the change of setting and intense feeling of isolation the book gives you is extremely effective. Titus doesn't know where he is and neither does the reader. As the novel progresses Titus begins to doubt his past and question whether any of it was real. And the revelation at the end makes the book for me. He didn't want proof of Gormenghast so he could go back, he wanted proof so he could go foreword with his life, content with his identity and sense of self.

Some have suggested that this book is a dream sequence all in Titus's head. Which is a cool reading that I don't think I quite agree with. Its detractors do have a point when they complain about the prose being not as rich as it was in the earlier books and about the book feeling disjointed. To me though the rich imagery makes up for that and the just because it's different to the first two doesn't mean it's worse.

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I'll do a post on finishing Peake in the marathon and overall career thoughts.
And then move onto Free Fall by William Golding.

 

[hitmouse]

I think Titus Alone is a brilliant book. It is misunderstood and dismissed by many because it is so different from the first 2 books. Very haunting.

If you are partial to Titus Alone, then it is also worth trying the recent "4th Book" in the series, Titus Awakes by Maeve Gilmore, Peake's widow, which continues on from the end of Titus Alone, as Titus walks away from Gormenghast again. It is an affecting elegy to Peake, who appears as a thinly disguised character towards the end of the book.

 

[Bick]

Just a quick post to say that (perhaps like quite a few on here), I'm enjoying reading this thread despite not posting in it to date. I like reading list undertakings. I'm impressed how quickly you're getting through them. how do you find the time?

As to what you have read so far, I've not read much of them (you've not overlapped with what I've read from PKD yet), but I have enjoyed some Golding. Both LotF and Inheritors I liked. I particularly liked his Rites of Passage books - I don't know if you plan to read those? I keep meaning to get to Peake...

 

[Silver Owl]

^^^
hitmouse: Titus Awakes is something I intend to get around to reading eventually.

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Mervyn Peake (1911-1968)

Mervyn Peake is a really odd yet important figure in genre fiction. He was almost - but not completely* - unconnected to Other genre writers and existed in his own sphere.

And yet he was one of many influences for much of the British new wave. He also unwittingly began a significant counterculture in genre fiction that has continued in writers like Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison and China Mieville. All three parrot the importance of Peake whilst often, especially in Moorcock's case, being critical of Tolkien.

Now to people like me who adore this thread of writers, Tolkien presents an odd dilemma. The dilemma being that whilst undeniably Tolkien wrote some of the greatest fantasy ever put to page, it was so good that it ruined the genre forever. So in my view even though Tolkien's stuff is probably objectively better its legacy has ruined it for me whereas Peake's writing represents the first in a long line of boundary pushing, experimental, non conformist writing.

Tragically though a lot of the general public have absolutely no idea who he is. It's also easy to forget that he isn't just the creator of Gormenghast but an interesting poet, artist, author and playwright. There's a big difference between good and interesting however as I don't think he was particularly adept at any of these roles. Everything he's ever done is however unique, interesting and out there in a way few writers can hope to achieve**.

Parkinson's disease killed him in in the late 60s and Titus Alone was - I believe - the last thing he managed to finish. From the late 50s of a man who'd completely forgot about the worlds he created. This sick and cruel condition finished of one of the best writers of 20th century Britain. By comparison William Golding was born in the same year and was writing up to the very end in 1993. Sadly in this marathon the premature death of the author in their late 50s is very common.

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* He knew Michael Moorcock socially in later life.
** I heartily recommend Peake's Progress a big brick with loads of non Gormenghast bits and pieces created by Peake.

 

[Silver Owl]

Just a quick post to say that (perhaps like quite a few on here), I'm enjoying reading this thread despite not posting in it to date. I like reading list undertakings. I'm impressed how quickly you're getting through them. how do you find the time?

As to what you have read so far, I've not read much of them (you've not overlapped with what I've read from PKD yet), but I have enjoyed some Golding. Both LotF and Inheritors I liked. I particularly liked his Rites of Passage books - I don't know if you plan to read those? I keep meaning to get to Peake...

Nice to hear your enjoying it. I'm getting through them because I've read a few already and because I've been working from home this summer so I've been able to read more.

I do plan to read the Rites of Passage books. When I get to them... In 2050

 

[Silver Owl]

Free Fall (1959)

Golding's fourth published novel Free Fall follows Sammy Mountjoy, an English POW and famed painter in Germany in WWII as he relives his life and attempts to examine his inner self and what made him who he is.

I really loved this. It's the equal of Lord of the Flies IMO. The book looks at some pretty big questions. Are you the same person as the kid you used to be and when do you change from that person to the adult you are now?

Free Fall is all about trying to pinpoint the end of innocence in life and the beginning of guilt. The book also looks at the influence the people around you have on who you are and the consequences of certain - pretty horrific - actions.

Weirdly its not an enjoyable read. It's important and very rich and rewarding without being enjoyable and I'm finding this to be a common factor throughout Golding's books. The prose is also very accomplished without being overly dense, I'd say it's almost relaxing. The novel is also very funny in places which certainly prevents it from feeling to pretentious which is a trap these sort of self examination books often fall into.

Golding doesn't even attempt to answer the questions he asks in the novel. I'm not sure right now if the book is better for this or whether it's more hollow? It would be nice to see Golding give us his views on the subjects of predestination, innocence and choice but the I suppose the resulting quality would depend on whether I agreed with him or not.

I am fairly confident saying that I think this is the sort of book which if I revisit in 10 or 20 years I will have far more to say about it and will probably appreciate it a lot more.

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I'll hopefully get Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan finished by the end of the week.

 

[Silver Owl]

The Sirens of Titan (1959)

Kurt Vonnegut has really hit his stride in what is only his second novel. The Sirens of Titan is a weird and wonderful sci fi adventure around the solar system for the protagonist.

The plot follows a very lucky man named Malachi Constant and his wife and son as they are manipulated and controlled by Winston Miles Rumford, who after an accident can move himself around time and space with his dog. There's more to it than that and it's very convoluted, perhaps too much. Oh and it's also written by a historian studying the events from the future.

Vonnegut satirises religion and other aspects of society but I didn't get into analysing it too much because I was having so much fun reading it. It's nice to see Sci Fi made lighthearted as I'm used to it being taken deadly seriously and a refreshing change of approach is very welcome.

I did however think the book could have done with a larger page count to accommodate all the ideas and flesh out some neat scenes. The ending was a bit of a disappointment, once the cast actually arrived on Titan the book just sort of petered out.

So in summary there are probably too many ideas to fit into the page count and the ending is a bit lacklustre but it's really funny in places and just enjoyable to read which is all you can ask for really.

This is definitely a big improvement on Player Piano and I'm looking forward to seeing how Vonnegut's writing progresses into the future.
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Next is Time out of Joint by PKD

 

[Silver Owl]

just a situation update. I'm returning to Uni today and unfortunately due to my commitment to *cough heavy drinking cough* rigorous study I will be much slower reading than I have been and updates will be infrequent.