Reading Gormenghast

I have been reading Titus Groan all day, as my illness, previously having held back any possible investment, has moved to a distant background rattle enough to make the read, in this period of idleness after some few days of hard labour, finally click with me. It had already been picking up speed this week but today I've been sucked in.

And in the unending ritual of the daily life in castle Gormenghast we have arrived at the first birthday of lord Titus Groan. And as this is at the end of the year that events have been set in motion by the coming of ambition, a lot of things have happened.

And the most calamitous of these has lead here, to the reason for this post; the breaking of a mind.

We are witness to the scene wherein various of the most important characters of the narrative are gathered around the table where through stagnant, mindless, repetitive ritual young Titus (but really, it is ritual itself which) is honoured. Literally no-one has their mind on the proceedings as everyone has their own worries, obsessions or grievances. In this scene we are introduced to almost every character's reverie of the moment, one after the other.

From the stupidly obsessive, to the narcissistic, to the worried, to the annoyingly silly, each of these characters reveries is devoid of punctuation, in order to convey a mind skipping from one thought to another, frequently dabbling in repetition, constantly hitting on a cherished phrase of comfort or admonishment, repeated over an over for the self or for an unhearing other.

One of these is also a mind skipping from one thought to another, but where in the other reveries there is repetition and recurring phrases to break up the flow, to serve as punctuation where there is none, with this one there is a forceful cadence that is terrifying, because it rolls smoothly and steadily ever onward, where nothing is repeated mindlessly unless it's in service to this momentum, adding force and rhythm. There is a theme to all these thoughts circling in an inward spiral upon themselves, where one idea leads directly onto the next, perfectly logical, without a single beat missing.

And don't misunderstand. When I say logic, I don't mean rational. I don't mean reason. But there is a certain awful logic to the avalanche of thought, relentlessly progressing, blundering ever onward from its self. 

Reading it aloud makes of these thoughts a spell, an incantation, building up to something horrific that is lurking at the end of this perfectly logical inward gazing, as if the thoughts are water spiraling in a whirlpool down a drain, and we know that when the water finally goes something dark and mad will inevitably come clouding up. It is a mind sliding down in itself, like pudding, and the moment when and where it does finally go, and something else steps in its place, is dreadfully apparent.

Though short, it is an intense scene and not something I was expecting.

So far the read had been propelled forward because I had rather been interested in the machinations of the central antagonist, if antagonist is strong enough a word for a dangerous and blatant sociopath who's been scheming to upset every ground tenet of this world, out of sheer ambition. This needs some elaborating.

The weird thing is that as this world, this castle Gormenghast, is so rooted in stifling and stagnant ritual, so that every relatable character is at least a little resentful of that same level of ritual, that this antagonist becomes also, if not our protagonist, then also our main character.
The world, the books of Gormenghast, can not be without its ritual, or at least, the novels can not be the same without it. But it can not also just remain as it is if it is to progress (and I'm already thinking ahead, looking, hoping for some overarching narrative here). So this means that this character and his ambition must be incompatible with the setting. This is why antagonist is such a mild word to use, because besides being inimical he is also absolutely necessary for the plot.
He's definitely evil but as he makes all the choices, where every act might be evilly manipulative but also forward thinking, geared towards the breaking of convention but for his own gain, and as without him there'd be no plot to speak he is the one I find I'm rooting for.
Without him we might as well be reading a tour guide to some fictional realm, completely without value outside of its covers and mindlessly pointless within them. It makes me wonder; is the conception of one, also the conception of the other?

Premise: Ancient Castle, locked in self-important cycle of stagnation is violently kicked into healthy new life by machinations of evil genius.

No idea where the trilogy is going as of yet. I'm broadly aware of Mervyn Peake and some of the background to the novels but I'm in the dark on most of it. So all of the above is conjecture.

I just wanted to write a bit on it and give an idea as to the power of the dinner scene.

EDIT: Like pudding?