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20856501 No.20856501 [Reply] [Original]

Are there any books with something similar to Gormenghast castle, I mean, vast, labyrinthine, almost never-ending, always expanding structure? I've read Borges and House of Leaves of course. Any other recommendations?

>> No.20857655

a-anyone? maybe The City & the City? (bump)

>> No.20857780

No, sorry anon. It's entirely unique.

>> No.20857805

>>20856501
A forest, maybe?

>> No.20857812

>>20856501
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

>> No.20858026

>>20857812
This seems interesting and it's new! I will give it a try, thanks.
>>20857805
>>20857780
Yes, thank you. Peake's trilogy is really different, nothing quite like it.

>> No.20858250

Life A User's Manual by Perec

>> No.20858283
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20858283

>>20856501
This is quite close in plot and structure (a rich old man dies and his entire weird family goes to live in a secluded decrepit old Gothic mansion as according to his last wishes). Gets increasingly surreal and mythological as it goes on. The movie version with Orson Welles is also worth watching after you read it

>> No.20858295

Blame! and NaissanceE. The best you're gonna get.

>> No.20858643

>>20858250
I was afraid it was too formal - experimental, for what I'm looking for, but I have to read it. Many people really love that book. Thanks.
>>20858295
I've read Blame!, it was exactly what I needed. Haven't heard about other one. Thank you.
>>20858283
I have that book on my wishlist for years now, but I did not made a connection. Now it seems obvious one! Great rec!

>> No.20858661
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20858661

>>20856501
>You'll never live in Gormenghast
>You'll never be able to save Fuchsia

>> No.20858750

>>20856501
ringworld by larry niven?

>> No.20859040

>>20858750
Very interesting premise.
>>20858661
I wonder if playing old Thief games, or maybe Legacy of Kain, would ameliorate that slightly.

>> No.20859059

>>20856501
Which real life locations would be similar to the fictional Gormenghast?

>> No.20859089

>>20858643
I forgot about Echo. Also a video game. You'll love it.

>> No.20859102

Erasers by Grillet?

>> No.20859176

>>20856501
Part 2 of De civitate Dei contra paganos

>> No.20859227

>>20859059
Versailles comes to mind with how massive it is, along with all the hidden corridors and what not. I don't think there's anything that truly captures the feeling of Gormenghast.

>> No.20859360

>>20859059
El Escorial maybe? Version described in Terra Nostra at least.
>>20859102
Synopsis does imply spiraling structure. I've read two of his books. Experimental but compelling enough. Thanks.
>>20859176
That would surprise me! But you never know.

>> No.20860581

bump for all of the cool recs

>> No.20860845

>>20859059
The vatican archives

>> No.20861589

>>20857812
>>20858026
Seconding Piranesi, it is excellent, if a little short.

>>20859059
Peake grew up in Imperial China during the early 20th century, so the places he lived in there would be one.

>> No.20861592

Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu is going to come out soon

>> No.20861944

>>20861592
I've heard so much about that one. Hype is real. Blinding seems really dense and intimidating.
>>20861589
>>20860581
Maybe short stories by Steven Millahuser. His work is full of places escalating towards impossible, usually through works of idiosyncratic writers and craftsmen. Last third of Martin Dressler is exactly that. Devil may Cry 3 is set in that massive tower, which is also an approximation of all that stuff. In Hellraiser 2, there is that labyrinth-like Cenobite dimension which I found to be really intriguing. Also, maybe, French comic Les Cités obscures.

>> No.20861991

>>20856501
Makes me think of Little, Big by John Crowley.

>> No.20862571

>>20859059
Strange that nobody yet mentioned the main inspiration: the island of Sark.

>> No.20862614

>>20859059
catacombs of paris and other cities

>> No.20862893

Viriconium is a series of novels and stories written by M. John Harrison between 1971 and 1984, set in and around the fictional city of the same name.

In the first novel in the series, the city of Viriconium exists in a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia (partly inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series[1] and the poems of T. S. Eliot).[citation needed] However, variations of the city appear throughout the series (most frequently as Uriconium and Vriko), in an attempt by Harrison to subvert the concept of thoroughly mapped secondary worlds featured in certain works of fantasy, particularly those by J. R. R. Tolkien and his host of successors.[2]

>> No.20862899

You should just read Shakespeare. Mervyn Peake is heavily influenced by Shakespeare (the name Titus Groan comes from a passage of Titus Andronicus). I would also recommend Charles Dickens. At his most grotesque, Charles Dickens caricaturises people in a similar way to Mervyn Peake

>> No.20862930

Dhalgren by Delaney, totally underrated book with an unreliable narrator and an ever shifting city that doesn't really make sense in any traditional spacial way.
Also pretty funny at times, probably the best work by a black author that I've ever read and I never read women or minorities

>> No.20863114

>>20862893
This could be it. I can't believe I've never even heard of it. Thanks.
>>20862930
One of those forever-on-my-stack books.
How hard to read is it really?

btw, anons, bbc did one episode of Bookmark on Peake, there it is: https://youtu.be/HztTSfGozKc