Boy in Darkness by Mervyn PeakeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Lovely hardback edition. It's a tough task to illustrate Peake's prose, as ultimately he's the best illustrator of his own worlds. The illustrations here (by P.J. Lynch) are wonderful all the same, and maintain the sense of frenzy and claustrophobia present in Peake's own scratchy spider-like scrawls.
This is set in the Gormenghast universe, and centres on the escape of Titus, and subsequent adventures. It is an excellent companion novella to the main trilogy, and would also be a nice introduction to children who might not be a ready to tackle the colossus of the Gormenghast whole. The language is fabulous, Peake relishes bizarre and idiosyncratic adjectives and words, and the resulting text is lavish, rich with the grotesque and clandestine. Peake excels at creating unsettling human/animal hybrids, animistic entities with attributes more commonly seen amongst people. The Hyena for example, shaves his face with a cut throat razor every five to six hours - as he is something of a dandy. The filthy goat stinks of ammonia. These are ominous and threatening presences, a far cry from often twee anthropomorphic animals featuring in children's literature - these are sinister and troubling.
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