Boy In Darkness (Signature) [Paperback]

Mervyn Peake (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 1997 | Series: Signature

Tired of life in the palace, Titus escapes for adventure and is captured by Hyena and Goat - a mysterious pair who hate each other. Taking him into the mines they present their sacrifice to Lamb. Now Lamb has a fresh young soul on which to use his diabolical art - so the ceremony begins.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An illustrator of the caliber of Goya, Cruikshank, Tenniel, Daumier, Doré, and Cocteau. . . . one of the most sensuous and mysterious English writers, a fantasist so concerned with color, sound, and light that they become actors in the fiction. Does anybody else write like this and so well?"  —Booklist

"[Peake's books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience."  —C. S. Lewis on The Gormenghast series

"There is no really close relative to it in all our prose literature. It is uniquely brilliant, and we are right to call it a modern classic."  —Anthony Burgess on The Gormenghast series

This extravagant epic about a labyrinthine castle populated with conniving Dickensian grotesques is the true fantasy classic of our time."  —Washington Post Book World on The Gormenghast series

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) was an English modernist writer, artist, poet, and illustrator who is best known for his pioneering Gormenghast series, which have become classics in the literary fantasy genre. He was also a noted illustrator of classic children's books including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Treasure Island. Sebastian Peake is Mervyn Peake's eldest son and the cocompiler of Mervyn Peake: A Man and His Art. Joanne Harris is the author of Blackberry Wine, Chocolat, Five Quarters of the Orange, and The Girl with No Shadow. Maeve Gilmore is Mervyn Peake's widow.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square (April 23, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340678224
• ISBN-13: 978-0340678220
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,863,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Boy in Darkness, July 10, 2001

By 

Ann Ahnemann (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boy in Darkness (Literature for life series) (Paperback)

This novelette could fit somewhere in the middle of Peake's _Gormenghast_. Titus Groan, on his 14th birthday, tired of ritual and "the eternal deadly round of symbolism", leaves home. He is captured by two semi-human creatures Hyena and Goat. These creatures will take Titus to their Emperor the Lamb, who sits alone in what can only be described as Hell. C. S. Lewis wrote to Peake admiring Gormenghast. Lewis said of Peake that he was a true maker of myths. Lewis spoke with authority, having written the great myth of the world of Narnia and having friends such as Charles Williams and Tolkien. The Peake myth, however, is hellish and dark. You'll be interested in how Peake the artist-illustrator draws images in words. You'll be faced with Peake's grave view of religion and symbolism gone wrong. If your only exposure to Mervyn Peake is the BBC production of Gormenghast, Boy in Darkness may give you a deeper perspective of the brilliant fantasy of horror that Peake was capable of writing. I gave Boy in Darkness four stars instead of five only because the end of the story seemed rushed and somewhat unfinished. But then, nightmares often end that way.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars astounding, dark, visionary, April 7, 2005

By 

odysyoracle (los angeles, ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boy In Darkness (Signature) (Paperback)

I read this story in a compilation entitled sometime, never. I had been daunted by the length of the Gormenghast trilogy, so when I found this I siezed it to indulge my curiosity in the much-lauded Mr. Peake. I was not dissapointed. This is my favorite shorter-form fantasy story of all time, and I've put in a decent ammount of investigation into the genre. Highly recommended.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Black, Oneiric Masterwork, April 3, 2007

By 

Carnamagos "Carnamagos" (Northeastern U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Boy in Darkness (Hardcover)

For a while, now, I have resisted reading the work of Mervyn Peake. My brief prior exposure to his famous *Gormenghast* trilogy gave me the sense that his work was more grotesque than weird, and that it would require more than an opium-tinged Dickensian nightmare with Gothic overtones to hold my interest.

I had mentioned my views (or prejudice, if you prefer) regarding Peake during an online discussion at a Clark Ashton Smith forum, and one of the forum members recommended that I start with *Boy in Darkness*. A few years passed before I was able to take his advice, but I recently read *Boy in Darkness*, and my prejudice regarding Peake has vanished.

*Boy in Darkness* describes the boy Titus's escape from one living nightmare, his absurdly ritualized existence at the family castle, into a nightmare of another order. Impelled by a pack of silent, ominous hounds, Titus crosses a river into an even stranger realm, a depopulated land of strange animal-human hybrids, only two of which remain. The two surviving creatures, a darkly sly and sycophantic Goat and a brutish, bone-crunching Hyena, compete for the favor of a Dr. Moreau-like figure, the Lamb, who rules the land with a demiurge's omnipotence. The Lamb has plans for Titus, as well....

Thomas Ligotti once wrote of H.P. Lovecraft that what he most admired about Lovecraft was his creation of fiction that portrays the world as an "enchanting nightmare". In that sense, and contrary to the assertion of another reviewer, Peake and Lovecraft have much in common.

Peake's evocative, complex, and rich descriptive language creates a horrific yet marvellous atmosphere, one that simultaneously repels and attracts. The creation of such atmospheres is obviously Peake's aim, and not the delineation of detailed characters and the weaving of intricate plotlines. It seems to me that one ought to critique an author by how well he succeeds in realizing his apparant intentions, and not by how completely he panders to the reviewer's preconceptions and narrow-minded expectations. By the criteria I propose, Peake thoroughly succeeds in his aim. That said, I do agree with those who feel that the ending is somewhat rushed, but that flaw, to me, is a minor one when compared to the tremendous power that the book as a whole conveys.

In conclusion, if you are any of the following, then you should avoid this book:

--A person who rushes to judgment because the author misuses a word (which could well have been the fault of the editors or the proofreaders, by the way; have such textual nitpickers actually examined Peake's original manuscript, one wonders?);

--A dullard who, failing to understand that the essence of the finest horror is its *power of suggestion*, requires that every detail be made expilcit, and that every loose end be neatly tied;

--A person who makes unfounded (to the point of idiocy) judgmental remarks, such as the author "was mentally disturbed";

--A person who expects a *Great Expectations*-level of intricacy of plotting and characterization in a 114-page book.

Those, on the other hand, who appreciate elegant, poetic, descriptive writing, and dark atmospheres, will relish the book, as I have. Highly recommended.