The trilogy finally comes to a close, and while I loved the first two books in this entry, this one might actually be my favorite. It’s less driven by the castle and its rituals, with Titus making many decisions, but not necessarily having a ton of agency. With an entirely new setting and a whole new cast of increasingly erratic characters, this final entry in the trilogy is a wild ride from start to finish, as Titus is anything but alone.

The next entry into the Horny Goth Novel Craft Study is either going to be a novel or theory, depending on which I finish first.

Buy link: Barnes and Noble | Unabridged | Libro.fm

Previous parts: Titus Groan, Gormenghast

Why I decided to read this one

• Final book in a trilogy considered a classic
• Titus left the series’ eponymous castle and I simply had to know where he goes next
• Heard it’s the weirdest of the three and oh boy does that hold up

Review and Learnings

Content warnings: violence against animals (many animals), blood, gore, depression, grief, death by drowning, blood, PTSD

Titus Alone is such a misnomer of a title. Yes, he left his birthright and everyone he’s ever known behind. The central conflicts and plot progression, however, stem from the fact that Titus is anything but. In fact, he’s chased by a mysterious pair, gets picked up by the lovelorn Muzzlehatch, has several girlfriends, and navigates political systems more organic than the myriad and nebulous rituals he cast off like a cloak. There’s other strangeness too, both from the perspective of Titus’s lived experience and the fact that there are technologies contemporary to the fifties, more than the vague medieval setting that is Gormenghast. In fact, so many of the new players have never heard of the castle, despite its enormity, despite its heritage.

The setting is at once far simpler and more dynamic than the castle had ever been. There’s far more movement between different spaces, and a greater variety of characters to interact with. Titus has only ever known people to bow before him or escape to ritual. He hangs on the lowest rung of the political ladder, to the point that people think he’s a delusional fraud. No proof, no friends, he stumbles from interaction to interaction, even witnessing fantasy fare like his first bona fide duel and murder. The way he shifts from having no agency because of his age to having no agency because of his lack of political and social sway in the new environment. The lack of decorum and lack of sophistication, especially in the way it echoes Steerpike’s ascension but he doesn’t have the same tenacity for survival or clear sense of purpose. The parallels are uncanny, and the inverse ways they navigate their new surroundings are fascinating. One might argue it ends better for Titus, but as the book ends with a new pursuit of independence, there’s no way to tell.

Throughout Gormenghast the trilogy, the women have in general been my favorite part. I am still haunted by Fuchsia and Nanny Slag, but the new women in Titus’s life are at whole new levels of agency. Juno and Cheeta are diametrically opposed, where Juno wants something quieter from Titus, Cheeta seeks to further her status by making sure this castle Titus claims to have a title to actually exists. The adolescent way they approach their relationship is also fun to see because otherwise, Titus navigates as this amorphous blob of a former ruler and a boy who’s never had a true childhood. The level of characterization he gets in this book from his point of view absolutely contributes to why I love it so much. The gothic veil gets lifted a bit, but the transgressions of being out of time and place persist.

The introduction talks about how the decline in Peake’s mental health and faculties to dementia might have contributed to the divorced strangeness of this second entry. It’s far more efficient than the previous ones, but because Titus is the main character and the rest of the cast is either dead or left behind, there’s a stronger sense of focus on his development, both as a character and as a young man. Did I expect there to be sexual content in this series? No, but it makes so much with his journey, and it is a shame that it all ends with him alone, once again.