The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 2: Titus Groan Pt. 2 (Emotional About Pinecones)

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

This week, part 2 of our recap of ‘Titus Groan’.Smoke! Ribbons! A Picnic!Find us on the internet:BlueSky: @makeyefretpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on BlueSky @2hatsjo and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Announcing the Discworld Graphic Novel Universe - Terry Pratchett Genre Creators for Trans Rights in the UK and SA - 32 AuctionsThe Last of Us: S2, E1 - "Future Days" - A Storm of Spoilers on Audioboom ADUMBRATE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster The Crowborough Players event tickets from TicketSource Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com  

Oh, I'm sounding good already, aren't I? I'm going to make a little, maybe I'll make a limpsit. Have you got D&D tomorrow, eh? I have my first ever proper D&D game. That's exciting. Have you got your character ready? I have. My partner who's DMing helped me make the, come up with the, I came up with all the cool backstory and stuff. Obviously.

But helped me do the like things where you roll dice and decide what class you are and all of that stuff. Give me the basics. Half-elf, Sage, Bard. Obviously. Because there's only three of us in this D&D game plus my partner Diemeng. And the other two were going fighter and barbarian and I thought I should probably play something that can heal.

And obviously you want to be the dekad trying to seduce the enemy. Yeah. It's like, oh, what cantrips do you want, Vicious Mockery? I don't know much about D&D, but I know I want Vicious Mockery. I want Charm Person, Vicious Mockery. You do realize that's in-game, right? And then based on my skill rolls, I'm dumb as a brick. No wisdom, no intelligence, but really high charisma. Well, you have to keep us posted on the campaign.

Yeah, I'm quite excited. We're doing something, Dragons of the Storm Wreck Isle. That sounds sufficiently fantastical. Yep. But that means I'm going on a very steep learning curve because I'm very self-conscious of the fact that I've never played before and I'm playing with people who have. So I'm sort of panically saying to my partner, how do I do things? How do you do the things? Just tell me what to do with the... You tell me when to do the things and what to do. We have Discworld news. The Discworld graphic novel universe was announced on the 18th.

Thief of Time, We Free Men and Monstrous Regiment are all being adapted. The story is being adapted by Rihanna Pratchett. The artist I think has not yet been announced but they are due to be published in 2027 and that's for a puffin. I will link that in the show notes. The other disqualified adjacent news, there is an auction, a silent auction on at the moment and ongoing until the 2nd of May, which is raising money for trans rights in the UK and South Africa. That's a response by two activists to the UK Supreme Court ruling last week and to the withdrawal

of vital international aid that's affecting trans organizations in South Africa, where one of the organizers comes from. But lots of very cool people in the narrative world have donated things. Rhianna Pratchett's offered up three signed copies of Tiffany Akin's Guide to Being a Witch. Rob has definitely put up some, oh, three signed copies of Terry Pratchett, A Life in Footnotes. There's like this very cool Good Omens electronic music box. Nice.

Yeah. There's various things like that. And we'll link to that as well. I know a lot of our listeners are affected by this. Oh, the lovely UK Supreme Court ruling. Yeah, that's been a fun week for everyone mentally, I'm sure. Yeah. And the one bright spark here is that all the people who are very cool within the thing we are fandoming at are doing the small things they can. In case we haven't reminded anyone of our dance on the podcast for a while, we're very much pro trans and fuck JK Rowling. She falls down a well.

I fucking, yeah, it's been a, oh, goodness me, I don't think we talked about it much last week, but just the last few months, right? Yeah, no, it's just not fucking great, is it? Yeah. But yeah, anyway, I'll link to all of that stuff. As always, Rhianna Pratchett and Rob Wilkins are doing very, very cool and good stuff. Is there any other nerdy news happening? Telly is good right now. Last of Us Season 2, Andor Season 2 just dropped on Wednesday, which is between Last of Us and Andor, I realized I need to stop letting my partner get into things because now I have to wait

to watch stuff. Oh no, yeah. Yeah. So Andor dropped like three episodes at once, but I only had time to watch one. I personally had time to watch all three. Very specific for me, exciting podcast news. I think I've mentioned on here before there was a podcast I really liked called Storm of Spoilers, that was Game of Thrones podcast and then they did Lost. Were you on that? No, I was on a Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones was the Game of Thrones podcast I was on.

Hey, it's the crossover. No, Storm of Spoilers was one I was a big fan of and then they switched to Covering Lost and The Storm and then The Three People because one of the hosts is Joanna Robinson, who I listen to a lot of podcasts by. When she went to The Ringer, they did a podcast together that I've mentioned quite a few times, Trial by Content, which was like pop culture debate stuff that was very fun. But that got cancelled and I was very sad. But Dave and Neil, the other two hosts, have resurrected the Storm of Spoilers podcast feed and they're covering MasterBest right

now. And it's an absolute delight for me. I was very sad. I wasn't going to get to listen to the two of them anymore. Oh, I'm glad. Oh, and exciting personal news. I wanted to play something I could just dip in now of the other day and I managed to complete the first level on Tomb Raider 2 in six minutes. Oh, well done. Yeah there's a tri-fee if you can complete the whole game in under six hours so occasionally going on and chipping away at how quickly can I speed through a level.

Be proud. Because I am a normal person with normal hobbies. I know it's a I really think we've got the right kind of audience for this brag. Yeah that's good. Speaking of normal people doing normal things, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The True Show, Make You Fret, a podcast in which we were reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discord series. Currently, we're talking about

Gormungast and I still need to edit this intro. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today we're talking about the second half of Titus Grown, the first book in Mervyn Peake's Gormon Gars trilogy. We are. It's been a hell of a ride. It has been a hell of a ride. Not on spoilers, I guess. We're not planning on spoiling any Discworld, we might. No Shepard's Crown, we promise. No spoilers for The Shepherds' Crown and obviously we will be heavily spoiling the second half of Titus Grown as you dear listeners come on this journey with us. Through the ever dangerous, ever horrifying corridors of the castle. There are so many corridors, Francine. A couple of little bits of follow-up. One of which goes all the way back to Pyramids,

a book which I think might come up today once or twice. Joshua writes in to say to us, in reference to our first episode on Pyramids, I thought you'd enjoy this extra nugget, when they lament the decline of the New Kingdom and describe the plague of Frog, this actually connects to Jewish exegesis of the biblical 10 plagues because in the original Hebrew, the verse describes the second plague by saying, the singular frog covered the land of Egypt. And this is interpreted to mean that the plague started as one giant frog that when struck spat out thousands of smaller frogs which covered the land. I'd leave that to be biologically plausible. I'm sure I've seen it happen in a Spyro game. So of course that means it could happen in real life.

I like it. I like this interpretation. I like this fact. Thank you very much, Joshua, for bringing this to our attention. Delighted by this. It's not your fault you weren't listening years and years ago when we covered Pyramids. And it turns out that it's extremely relevant to what we're talking about now. If you ever get to this stage in the podcast, I hope you'll please be read it out. JG And now binding on Reddit, this one's more recent from our last Gormengast episode on Icabod. LW Ooh, yes.

JG The relevant Bible bit. Basically, I've just done the TLDR. I won't read out Bible verses because I get itchy when I do. A woman gives birth prematurely in shock after major military defeat where her husband has been killed, her father-in-law has died of shock, and the most holy national symbol has been captured and calls the child Ichabod, meaning no glory or where is the glory? So interpretation, an Ichabod of masonry is falling down and has lost all its glory." Super. All right. Yeah, perfect. Thank you very much, Nalbinding. Ichabod as un-glorious. Yes.

I'm going to start throwing that into everyday conversation to make people find me even more cringe. This is truly, she says, taking the slightly burnt dinner out of the oven, the Ichabod of roasts. Very much so. How dare you accuse me of having my roast dinner, Francine. I can't think of any other activity, I'm sorry. That's fine. Francine, do you want to tell us what happened previously on Titus Grown? I'll certainly give it a go. Previously on Titus Grown, Gormengast, vast and peculiar, is laid out in front of us. Its rituals permeate every fiber of its residence whose inner turmoils come second always to the iron wheels of

tradition. The Isle and Countess care for their books and rooks respectively, while more or less ignoring one another. Their daughter lives in an inner world within an attic and the castle's senior servants lay in swelter stoke a mutual burning hatred. Into these unchanging labyrinthine corridors are released two catalysts, a violet-eyed groan and an ambitious apprentice. The baby can't do much of anything, save a little light blasphemy, but the young man lays dangerous plans in weak minds. We leave them preparing for arson." JG Foreshadowing with a brick. Let's crack on with part two then, which starts with the

chapter The Grotto, in which Stearpike tries to make inquiries of Fuchsia before sudden rain requires a cave, the visit to a cave calls a fall, and the fall requires a doctor. I was a particular fan of all of these fucking chapters have a beautiful bit of weather description, obviously. This is clearly like the crowning glory of Gormenghast, I would say, is a weather description. We know that weather is incredibly important. This bit, I'd say, sounds more Shakespearean than anything else. The Midsummer Sun and how much less this autumn light had no power to mitigate the dreary character of the region that surrounded Gormenghast. The midsummer sun and how much less this autumn light. Nice.

That's very, yeah. Very Shakespeare. Right, characters then. Well, let's start with Fuchsia. Yeah. So this is where Fuchsia is up on her own. It's a horrible day. Well, she's not hanging out in the attic anymore. Because now that Steer Pike has intruded on the space, it no longer feels like hers and she's kind of accepted that it's now part of the castle. I really feel for her in that. She has a real loss there of not having a space that is entirely wholly hers the way she did before. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there's a real parallel universe type thing and then it turned out not to be.

Yeah. So now she's trying to find in nature. Steer Pike just gives me the ick. Turning up again like a bad fucking penny. Nasty. When he's sort of, oh, you don't need to look at books, you just know things, ladyship. Yeah. Patronising, gross. Yeah, totally telling her what he thinks she wants to hear. And he's not quite as good a judge of character as he thinks he is. And she wouldn't have fallen over if he hadn't been there is the thing. She looks back to make sure he's still there and then she falls over. And then it's like, oh, the poor lady

fell over, gotta help her, right? Yeah, and the picking her up. And she finds, and she, I don't like how she thinks about herself. She's thinking, well, he can't learn anything from her because he's already clever and she's not clever. Yeah. You are clever, Fuchsia, maybe. You are clever, Fuchsia. Yeah, you're certainly a lot less specifically insane than some of your co-hosts. Yeah, it's a low bar. It's a very low bar. But we do in this section get some insight

into her history with her mother and how she knows the Grosso and used to walk with her mother and see the birds. The Countess redemption arc is only slowed by her odd dislike of girls. Yeah, it's very not like other girls kind of energy, isn't it? Yeah. If anybody can pull it off, it is the Countess, but even so, because it's upset Future, we can't condone it. I will say now that most of my character points in this book are about Future. I care about her more than anyone else by quite a long way.

That's absolutely fair. I've decided to latch onto the weather as my favorite character. So between us we'll cover everything important. I've got Steer Pike down here as the anti-moist von Litvig, due entirely to this little passage. As he ran on alone, he made jumps into the air. Life was amusing, so amusing. Even the rain had played into his hand and made the rock slippery. Everything he thought to himself can be abuse. Everything.

And he clicked his fingers as he ran, grinning through the rain. Now tell me that's not the Wario version of Moist von Litvig, skipping like silver down the streets of Ankh-Morpork as he spins his fantastical narrative. Yeah, no, it's very that. Something about constructing your absolute own reality and feeling like the whole world is yours for the taking, but in a way that makes me want to throw him down a well.

But yeah, definitely riding this wave as... Yeah. What in a way that makes me want to throw him down a well. But yeah, definitely riding this wave as... Yeah. Filling everything to himself. Yeah, synchronicity. Yeah. And then we go forward to Knives in the Moon, in which Cader bears witness as Rantel and Bregan fight each other at midnight and both lose their lives.

Yeah. Oh, Oliver. Yeah. Did you have the scene from the OC going through your head? Very much so. Yeah. Oh, Oliver, did you have the scene from the OC going through your head? Very much so. But there's also, I was just thinking about the fact that we have this duel here and I know this is sort of the middle of the book, but then we have another duel towards the end of the book, which I'll talk about that along when we get there. And there's something about just having these two very different duels and this one is very poetic and honest and completely about physicality and there's no anger between these two men.

No. In fact, one of them feels sick at the thought of doing it and one of them is just lost in the physicality of it and there's certainly no malice. It's completely bare and it's in the moonlight. I think that's fun to think about when we get to the other duel, which absolutely slaps. Yeah, it does. It absolutely slaps now, reached the point where we as 30-somethings can use it. I feel so. I think so. Yeah, I didn't immediately shy away from that when you said it. I just thought

I'd double-check before we went into it. I think we can go with it. I think it's been long enough, Francine. No cap, let's go. I'm not sure about no cap. We'll see how it feels. Next up, The Sun Goes Down Again, in which on the day before the burning, Stearpike discusses fairness with Fuchsia after remind the twins of their duty. Yeah, you've got something I mean about the... I have a lot of thoughts and feelings. A quote from this section when he's overly flattering the twins. There's glorious is a dictionary word and we're all imprisoned by the dictionary. In truth, we need fresh sounds to utter, new and franchise noises which would produce a new effect in dead and shackled language, my dears, you are glorious, but I will give vent to a brand new sound that might convince you of what I really think of you. Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia."

That's the one bit of that I highlighted. I mean, I don't disagree. Life is definitely too fleet for onomatopoeia sometimes. Sometimes. I don't know. I feel like that's a really nice sentence to the point where it distracts you from being absolute nonsense. Life is too fleet to not on a matter, Pia. Also, actually, that's more true. That's more what I agree with. Just completely changed my tune there. Steer Pike though, I enjoy looking at the sort of overwhelming flattery of the twins here and how much his character changes towards them after the burning. This is the last moment we have really of him being totally obsequious to him. But his politics as well. The problem with Steer Pike is that I do agree with him. I just also hate him.

It's not over critical to agree with some facets of the person's politics and also think they're an absolute arse. I also think he's lying. I think he maybe believes that he believes in equality, but I don't believe that somebody can walk along pulling the legs of a beetle actually does believe in anything good. No, and his whole thing is trying to gain more power. He's not trying to bring other people down to so everyone ends up on an equitable level. He's trying to get to the higher level. Niamh Yeah. I did very much like the description

of the aunts here. Arms about one another, faces cheek to cheek, gazing up at Steer Pike with a row of four equidistant eyes and there's no reason why there shouldn't have been 40 or 400 of them. It's so half and there are only four had been removed from a dead and endless freeze whose inexhaustible and repetitive theme was forever eyes, eyes, eyes. If that doesn't sound like somebody having a very bad time after a substance, I don't know what. Eyes, eyes. Merle Just so many eyes. Sarah It does make me think of like the mirrors in which of the brawls. Merle Oh, yeah. Sarah Actually, the twins made me think of which of the braw Witch of the Brawl. Oh yeah, reflections everywhere.

The twins made me think of Witch of the Brawl more than once. At some point, I think it was probably during the reveries, their eyes being blank and glassy reminded me of the ugly sisters. Oh yeah, very much so. Meanwhile, which happens to be the name of the next chapter, Future and Nanny discussed the attendees of the gathering while Sepplegcrave perform some rituals and the rest prepare in their own little ways. So we have Seppelcrave, whose general melancholy has eased off a little bit because he's got the child, the line will go on, which is kind of an upsetting

foreshadow for later when he pretty much gives up on everything because, oh, there's a kid now, it'll be all right. Yeah, yeah. But a little reprieve. A little reprieve. I'm fastening a jaw pin at his collar. He sighed, and within the doomed and dark sea murmur of that sighed was the splashing sound of a less mournful billow. He's still sighing, just slightly less depressed. I rather liked the ritual he does with the dagger and the half moon. Oh, and the temperaments of the dukes as they've done this particular ritual by the drawing of the half moon. Yeah, which I think worked out to be 368 years that this has been going on.

worked out to be 368 years that this has been going on. For why? Who cares? That's not the important part. I have a lot of feeling about the ritual stuff. There's this line, they don't know what the significance of all these rituals are. The formality was no less sacred for being unintelligible. That's not direct inspiration for pyramids. I don't know what is. Just so you don't have a clue what's going on doesn't mean we're not doing it in the right outfit at the right time. Fuchsia discusses her ruby and when she will wear it with Nanny. I love this line, I'll only wear it when I'm alone or when I meet a man who reverences me. Not reveres me, reverences me. Not reveres me, reverences me.

Fuchsia, I believe, has the right idea when she thinks about what she wants in a suit. I do. I agree. Somebody who's absolutely head over heels for her while she maintains an air of aloofness. Maybe this was some of the inspiration for all of the wonderful wife guys, the Pratchett. She deserves a Pratchett wife guy. She does. Nanny Slag, by the way. I just wanted to call her out for her wonderful terms of endearment throughout this section and through the book really, but I just picked out one from this and a couple from other chapters, talking about his little lordship as an innocent

notion, the innocent notion that he is, calling in this chapter, Fuchsia, you will look as pretty as a flowering lamb, my big untidy thing. I have started calling my dog my big untidy thing. And calling Fuchsia a few different times her caution. I just thought it was lovely. That's beautiful. I don't know where else I've heard it sounds very old fashioned. But I have heard it as a term of endearment before. Yeah. I feel like my great aunt used to say that actually. It's time I went. Yeah. We should try and bring that back, I think. I think we should. Oh, and quick numerology before we move on to the next chapter. It's eight to attend the gathering. Oh, well then.

Keeping an eye out for eights when they crop up. I definitely haven't got all of them. We've decided eights are fortuitous. We don't know how. Nines are not. Quite possibly. Seven we can't remember. One of those. And somewhere in there, there's a horse.

Oh, we're speaking of, because we're nearly at the point where we've got the next chapter is the burning and after that the horses took them home. And when I saw there was a chapter title and horses took them home I thought that's what Fuchsia needs. Fuchsia needs a horse. He said get the horse briefly. She's on a horse a couple of times but I feel like she needs like a horse friend. She could be a really good horse girl, yeah, no you're right. She has, but like dramatic horse girl energy, not like hangs around in stables horse girl,

like riding dramatically over moors sort of horse girl. Definitely, manages to tame a wild mare kind of horse girl. Yes, I agree with that. Yeah, a wild stallion probably, that's the dramatic one isn't it? Yeah. But yeah, no definitely, because I was thinking, I wonder if a pet would do her some good, but she's not. She's not a little dog. She's yeah, she's too aloof for a dog.

Yeah. Obviously, cat. That's her mom's thing. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like that. Yeah. Horse. Yeah. Start a petition to get future dramatic course immediately. Dramatic course. Anyway, the burning in which the gathering is at hand. Sourdust leads the proceedings until heavy smoke intercedes, laying the old man to rest and sending Fuchsia climbing until a face appears at the window. L! This chapter was beautifully tense. Just really, I felt sick reading it. G! It was so good. When just Irma starts coughing and then slowly, slowly more characters start coughing and then they start actually slowly seeing the

smoke and they can't work out where it's coming from and we know about these oil soaked cloths that have been laid, but they don't and then Nanny trying to sort of get Titus to breathe through the keyhole. LARES Yeah, oh god, yeah. But has it in her head that he's going to get sucked out of the keyhole because Prune Squalor is not very good at articulating things sensibly. No. And yeah, RIP Sourdust. I had to because I was the thing is, I'm very claustrophobic. And I was having to read this quite quickly,

quicker than I've read most of this. I did miss the bit at first where Prune Squalor confirmed that Sourdust was dead. Then I thought they'd accidentally left him in there. Prune Squalor was like, well, he's dead now, but I had to go back and it's okay. He did cough himself to death before he burnt. Out of the two options. Out of the two options. Out of the two options. I'm with you on the claustrophobia though. It was tough reading this. That feeling of being enclosed, of not being able to get out and the building panic. It was so well done. It was really well done. Same when we get to the duel between Blaine Svelter later.

He's fantastic at tension. He really is. And he doesn't overuse it as those two chapters that are just whining with tension. Which considering how much of the book suddenly spans across long periods of time. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of stretching and snapping of the concept of time, isn't that? It's all seasonal to kind of orient yourself as the book goes along. Yeah. Here's a paragraph that spans a couple of years in his 10 pages describing the exact temperature this morning.

And Sapplecrave, his thoughts on his wife? this morning. Yeah. And Seppelcrave, his thoughts on his wife? Yeah, I really like... So Seppelcrave, I would say not a wife guy, obviously, but has a hint of the wife guy that makes him likable. He knew at once that it was not Gertrude who had screamed, it was Emma. But the very idea that it might have been filled in with sickness and they raced through his mind the thought that for all his wife's uncompromising, loveless weight of character, it would be a grim and evil thing were she to change.

Oh. I might write that on a Valentine's card next year. It would be a grim and evil thing if you were to change. I love that. I do. We were talking about it at length last week, Where the fuck are we? And a little bit of the monologue about the lord of these tracks of country that stretch on every hand in the north to the wastelands, in the south to the gray salt marshes, in the east to the quicksands and the tideless sea, and in the

west to knuckles of endless rock. I just need to orient us in this horrible landscape. Of marshes and wastelands and knuckles of rock. Sounds like pretty bad in each direction. Tideless sea might be a best bet if you're trying to escape. But then how far are you going to get without a tide? I would also like to ask, and I don't know if we're going to find out in the next book, in which kind of system does this section

of the aristocracy exist? One surely cannot be an Earl without a king. But there has been no mention of any kind of power outside of this castle. Obviously, don't tell us if it's spoilers. Oh, do tell us. I don't care much. If we never find out, I very much encourage reckless speculation. If you don't know yet, I encourage reckless speculation. If you do know, actually maybe don't tell us yet. Because we are going to get there eventually. Yeah, we'll get there.

We'll get there. And horses took them home. Horses did take them home. In which Steerpike performs a rescue, cats flock to the Countess, Fuchsia brings the horses and Sourdust is nothing but bones. Yeah. Well, at least he died somewhere fun for him. MG I feel like in the reactions to Rescue there's a description of the Countess that feels like it's inspired some of Lady Sybil a little bit. For all the contortions of her great frame, for all the ungainliness of her egress, A slow dignity pervaded her which gave even to the permultimate view, that of her rear disappearing hugely into the night, a feeling of the awesome

rather than the ludicrous." I do think there's a great respect for Countess being large, which I appreciate. Yeah, it is given galleon at full sail. Yeah, it's not the grossness in which Swelter's size is described with. No. Which is, you know, it's about the character of the person as much as the size. Definitely, yeah. And Seppelcrave, we kind of see the moment he completely cracks in this as well.

Oh, yeah. Where he's sort of trying to think about grabbing the books and then stops and goes to the ladder and says, I'm sorry to have kept you. And then just keeps saying it quietly to himself and a thin laugh like the laugh of a ghost. Yeah. You could almost see him coming back from this because it seems like the kind of gathering behavior people get in disasters. You get paralyzed with indecision and you try and pick things up because that's somewhere deep in our evolutionary self. But in this case, it is a very deep foundational crack.

Yeah, I don't think there's any coming back from that for him. No, in fact, we know there isn't. On account of a few chapters time. On account of him becoming an owl. Moving forward, Svelter leaves his card in which weeks pass, winter comes, and Flay finds a cake at dawn. Yes. Do you want to take a turn at describing some weather? Yes. I struggled not to put more weather descriptions in it. I think we've both done quite well.

The gale seemed to hurl itself to a climax and then to cease utterly, but the interim of dead silence was over as soon as it had started. For a few seconds later, as though from a different quarter, the storm unleashed another of its armies of solid rain and hail, pouring its broadsides against the castle from the belly of a yet more riotous tempest." Eee. That's some real personified storms. Yeah, I wonder how long that storm had to study, practice, do some small work up in the mountains before it could come down for the big castle.

I think Gormengast is Broadway. Yeah, this is the big one. If Lanker is a decent sized stage that you go to after you've performed. Maybe it's like Lanker is the West End and then Gormengast is Broadway. Yeah, yeah, perhaps. And yeah, the threatening cakes from Swelter, which is such a weird little threat. It's a wonderful little threat though. I really, really enjoyed that.

Specifically pretty ominousness. Yeah, and the because everything is beautifully described, obviously the cake was as well, but also disgustingly described because there's a swelter and anything he touches must be disgusting, even if it's delicious. So the letter S lay lying coiled like a worm of cream. That's why it's being the perfect little cake. At this point, I would like to ask you as a chef and a baker and a master of etiquette, what would be the correct cake to leave as a threatening calling card in such a situation? It does depend on threat level, social standing of the person you're threatening in relation to you and such things. A cupcake is more insulting and threatening, I will say.

Right, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think a slice of Battenberg. A slice? Very good threat. A slice of Battenberg. Not one of those mini Battenbergs, but like a full size, but just a neat slice of it. Showing off the cut of your div slice, the sharpness of your knife. Yes, exactly. Very neat slice through a Battenberg. And a Victoria sponge. A Victoria sponge. This is all very simple.

Yeah, I do think threat cakes can be simple. If you do want to go really complicated, you can go for something that sort of has a reminiscence of a French fancy to it, much like this. But I think for most people, you know, not everyone has the time to really work from scratch making their own threatening cakes these days. And I don't think there's anything wrong with a slice of short-bought Battenberg cake. I really like how inclusive you are with your threatening cake advice. Yeah, I feel like you have to. There's nothing wrong with shop-bought every now and then. Well, that's good to know. And please keep an eye outside your door this week.

Oh, and carrot cake, obviously. But that's another story. It is another story. And one we shan't be going into. Inappropriate. Moving on to the unearthing of Barchantine. Yeah. Can we just before I do the in which are we agreeing on Barchantine to pronounce

this? Barchantine I was thinking but I'm happy with Barchantine also. I could go Barchantine actually I feel like that's better. It is a type of boat. Is it? It's yeah, it's a sailing vessel, Wikipedia says, with three or more masts, with a square rigged foremast and fore and aft rigged main, mizzen and any other mast. You could tell the point in the sentence of which I became absolutely lost.

Yeah, I think I was a bit at sea there. In which, Sour Dust's son, Barc'n Tyne, is dredged from the castle's depths to take over the ever-present rituals of Gormunghast, frustrating stear-pipe. Sorry. I didn't even mean to. You just knew in your bones that this man was sea-based. I could just tell, you can tell when there's a sea-based ritual priest guy. What do you think of Silan? I think because we only see him through the eyes of people who hate him, I'm kind of on

their side. Oh, sure. Because he is so, he's vicious compared to Sawada. Sawada simply wanted things done the right way and was content to see that they were. Barquartina is more antagonistic about things being done right. LW – Yeah, I guess he's really been waiting on it though. He's been studying since he was 20, which by the way, interesting, didn't start his studies until he was 20 considering he's the son of Sourdust. Sorry, he's only been dead a minute and I've forgotten his name. I quite like how angry he is about it all because why? Is there a reason to be so furious?

I enjoy a real pointless but deeply felt rage. pointless but deeply felt rage. I like the Stearpike's frustration as well because he sort of was thinking he could have had this position somehow. Yeah, but he absolutely couldn't, obviously. No, it's the arrogance of a teenager to not think actually this is, you might think it's all silly but that doesn't mean it's not incredibly hard work. Interesting how easily Barkentine is won over to Steer Pike considering Barkentine is clearly very clever. But I suppose the difference is he's not been socialising.

No. Prune Squalor has more of a defense because although he might not be, well, he's quite clever, but he's not like an amazing scholar who knows everything. He has been around people. That's his thing. Yeah, he's supposed to be very affable. But then I think you see Prune Squalor even by the end of this section, like really picking up on all those stearpikes actually a bit. Exactly. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.

But not so much for Park and Tyne. But yeah, as you say, he's got zero social experience. And also I think for Park and Tyne, it's so unfathomable that anyone would want anything other than the ritual of Gormungast to continue. I just don't think he can conceive of it. So of course he thinks Steerpike seems enthusiastic and he needs someone enthusiastic. Yeah. The steady intricate stream of immemorial behaviour is a nice way of describing it as well. Yes. Moving on to first three percussions in which Steerbike makes plans and Flay loses Sour Dust's skull.

Who did you think had bonked him on the head? I thought it was Svelter. I thought it was kind of an opening salvo. Yeah, me too. Obviously, we were wrong. Yeah, I thought it was Svelter trying to get them into trouble by stealing the skull and like leaving a message as well. But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised isn't the right word, but I was like, oop, I was wrong. Yeah, it's nice to be wrong. It's nice to know I'm not good at predicting everything.

I wouldn't like it if I was good at predicting this book. Yeah, I feel like if my brain could latch into that. That would be a bad sign for us. Yeah. So, Fuchsia. And how she feels about Steampike, and I get the ick more and more, everything I read. But she makes the issue observation that he's managed to centralise himself in the castle. Yes. Yeah. shoot observation that he's managed to centralise himself in the castle. He leapt dramatically to the fall by rescuing the family and that deed of valor were all that had been needed

to propel him to the forefront of the picture. LR He's very observant. With a few more years' experience, I think she'd quite easily see through him. But at the moment, she can see what is happening, but she hasn't got the experience to connect that to and therefore, I should be more careful around him. Yeah, because I think a part of her is also he's so alien to her that he's kind of fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, especially when she's so resentful of... The life she's had in the castle to date. And next up, Sourdust is buried, but with

a calf skull and ribbons. Stip, I can fuse you, go for a walk. I would like to really underline how pleased I was at the calf skull being swapped out for for sawdust missing skull and Flay went to Mrs. Slag's room to procure some blue ribbon. Barkentynah procured from somewhere other several extra lengths of varying colors and his father's skeleton boasted a variety of silk bows. And just the the picture of this human skeleton with a calf skull and lots of pretty ribbons tied all over it. It's a really rare aesthetic and one I think should be treasured. I would very much like to paint this. This entire book was me going, fuck, I wish I was good

enough to paint this. Yeah, I could see that. God damn. A bit of it made me want an actual decorative, baribund calf skull. I don't actually want a physical calf skull. This isn't like the time you ended up with a rat in a jar for a bit. No, it's hard to have an unobtrusive cow skull. Obviously I would prefer a fake cow skull as well. I'm not sure I want a real one. Yeah. I mean, obviously I would prefer a fake cow skull as well. I'm not sure I want a real one.

If it's around, I mean. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, if it was just on offer, if it was going to waste, then obviously I'd have it. I have a wonderful selection of Rippon. If you want to talk more about Fuchsia. She's so painfully 15 in this section. When she's watching this funeral take place and she's building up her loathing of Barkentine and she was beginning to hate everything that was old and then she makes this sort of little gesture at the steer pike. They sort of make eyes at each other across the grave, not so much romantically, but a kind of, oh, isn't this silly? What if we kissed over the be-ribboned cow skull?

I'm going to write that in a Valentine's card. Oh, I hope I get a be-ribboned cow skull for her. I think I could probably make myself paint just the skull and the ribbons. So if I remember, expect a Valentine's card next year. I'm already delighted. But yes, future, just painfully teenage. And I hate it because I remember it. Because I would have probably also been somewhat delighted by Stare Pike. Yeah, absolutely. Of course. We can tuttle, we like, but we know who we dated. Not at 15, but a little older even. Yeah. And with one would think

a little more experience of the world than fuchsia has had. Yeah, no, it's a tough age, because you can't imagine ever not being young. I think by the time you're 17 18, you're like, okay, I'm on the cusp of something different here. But at 15, you're never going to be 16, let alone 18. Exactly. And something I do like Fuchsia sort of starting to loathe everything old, she doesn't ever really think of nanny slag as in that box. No. Because I think nanny slag is a constant. She is and she's almost a fellow child. Fuchsia is almost older than nanny slag now in ways. almost a fellow child. Fuchsia is almost older than Nanny Slag now in ways. She's very much tolerating Nanny Slag acting like a toddler at certain points here, while at the same

time allowing her to tidy up her room and make her tea and crumpets and whatever. But just behaviorally, I think. Merle She has in some sense a bit more maturity than Nanny Slag does. And she loves her, you know. Oh yeah, she does. That's the other thing. It's just a human thing of that Nanny Slag is her parent more than anyone else.

She loves Flay. Oh, her love for Flay makes me sort of happy in a very sad way. Sad in a very happy way. One of those. All of it at once. All of it at once. Moving forward to the twins who are restive in which Steerpike promises Cora and Clarisse golden thrones.

I hate these fucking twins. Now I hate them. But something I did want to talk about, we talked about it last week. You were saying like for Mervyn Peake, this would be a massive insult, this idea of you do not have the soul of an artist. Someone who understands it technically. When the description of Stier Pike, deciding he's going to draw these throne designs, and then getting very into learning how to do it, he became interested in the process and sped over the table with the compasses, protractors and set square neatly placed in a row at the side of the table, the beautifully sharpened pencil travelling along the ruler with cold precision. I can feel waves of loathing from Mervyn Peake coming off the page as

she's doing this. This feels very insulting in a very specifically artistic way. It does a bit, doesn't it? That was my only real thought on that chapter, rather than, like you said, fucking hate the twins. I don't think they're meant to be likeable to be fair. No, they're not. They very quickly eclipse Prune Scholar for me as most annoying dialogue. Yeah, I come round on Prune Scholar a bit in this section. Yeah, me too. Moving on to Half-Light in which at the Pine Tree the Earl and future recreate the library.

Sadly, the Earl is a death owl. Yeah, would you like to read your beautiful quote? Yes. I recognise those first few words and I imagine I can settle down for a minute. This is Andrima, the lyricist, the lover. He whose quill would pulse as he wrote, and fill with a blush of blue like a bruised nail. His verses open out like flowers of glass, and at their centre, between the bristle petals petals lies a pool of indigo translucent as huge as doom. His voice is unmuffled. It is like a bell clearly ringing in the night of our confusion. But the clarity is the clarity of imponderable depth so that his lines float on forevermore, on and on and on forevermore."

A little hint of Poe around the edge there as well. I don't know if that was intentional or not. C. Definitely a hint of Poe. That's a gorgeous passage within a very upsetting little chapter. L. The way Fuchsia is thinking to herself, it's the first time she's ever felt like she was a daughter and she didn't care if her father was going mad because she finally has a father. And it's very much, again, he's in the child's position. She's taking care of him.

Yeah. Pinecones making a surprisingly heartbreaking return to screen here. I just did not expect this book to make me emotional about pinecones multiple times. Yeah, multiple moments of pinecone anguish. It's a thing, apparently. Pinecone anguish, band name. And then where are we next? A roof of reeds in which we go to Cader, who has been journeying and she walks by a blasphemous rock on her way to the brown father. So we're now going back to Cader after quite a long interlude away from Cater. I suppose we could call her the interlude, but no, let's say she's the main character. I'm sure that'll be fine, don't worry about it.

Yeah, and we get this, again, a bit more geography description of all the places she's been going and how she's been working. And now she's starting to sort of lose her grip a bit and realize she's speaking to herself slightly. MS. Yeah, she's definitely had a tough few months, sort of that way. Oh, by the way, another blasphemous finger of rock. MS. Yeah. Rocks are just blaspheming all over the place in this one. MS. Yeah, you know, only twice, but it's weird that it's happened. Is it something to do with it being so tall, so close to the sky and it's sort of blasphemous because it's reaching too closely to God?

I think so, yeah. In a lot of cultures I think you're not meant to point at the sky for sure. Yeah, or go like build above a certain height or something. Yeah. Yeah, it's Tower of Babeling itself. The rock's probably fine. Tower of Babel, that's what I was thinking of. I think as well the root in the attic was described similarly, not as a blasphemous thing, but as a bingo, weird, twisted word, right? Oh yeah, I think you might be right. Yeah, it's another little weird motif. Did you have a favourite quote from this bit? Yes. And her heart faintly at first and then more loud and louder still began to sing like a wild bird.

And though her body heaved suddenly with sickness, the wild bird went on singing. I love that. Very Dickinson, very Mary Oliver, very beautiful. Yeah. There's a little recurring motif with her and the sound of a wild bird. That's just a... I love a heart being described as a bird. Specific thing to like, but it comes off in lots of poems and I like it. That's fair. Character stuff, you've just written goat. Oh, you mean the actual goat? Yeah, no, I like the goat.

I'm always a big fan of a goat. You like, you know, hearts and birds. I like a goat in fiction. Yeah, absolutely. I think this was actually in the next chapter though, Siva, I got a bit mixed up because these three chapters go into each other. So I'll just skip ahead slightly. The white goat moved out the shadow and it was like an exquisite toy, so white it was with such curls of hair, such a beard of snow, such horns, such great yellow eyes. This feels very symbolic to me. I'm not sure what it's symbolic of. And then it sits there with its four hoof culled into itself. That seems very much like it's a moment like it's a it's been taken from something. Yeah. Like a tarot card, or a shield, or something. And if anybody knows about goat

symbology, please let us know. Answers on... Not on a goat. No, not on a goat. Answers on a tarot card. I like goats, but I can't keep on. I've considered a goat a couple of times. Thank you. In this bit, in this chapter, there's a sort of interesting way where she realizes she's been talking to herself and her lips were giving vent to the occult and telling herself to go to the the old brown man. And she had not been frightened for the reality of the supernatural was taken for granted amongst the dwellers. We haven't really had any truly supernatural things happen in this book, so I thought that was quite interesting. And then kind of let the next couple of chapters blur together because this is all sort of one chapter. We have fever in which she rests

in a bird cries with joy and then farewell in which during the springtime she recovers and will be heading home on a horse. Yeah. I like the brown father. It's almost a character trope, but I'm not sure if it is yet. The thing about reading something from the 40s is that I can't tell... What's tropey and what's the foundation of a trope. Yeah. I think probably this is a bit of a trope, but the old man living in the woods or in the mountains or in the... G. Provides healing and respite. L. Yeah, could be an old woman. Nice that it is an old man in this case, I think, because

you get the kind of contrast between the young woman and the old man and the... Yeah, it feels neat. G. It's different from the way Cailor has been treated by other men, which is all been so very specific. Really great weather description again in the Fever chapter. All was stillness, the sun seemed to be fixed forever as though it was a disk of yellow paper pasted against the pale blue wintry sky. Yeah, beautiful stuff. And then in Farewell, she's looking at the blasphemous finger of Rocca Anne and says, what does it mean, Father, that thin and dreadful crag? If it is dreadful to you, Cader, it means that your death is near, which is as you wish and what you have

foreseen. For me, it is not yet dreadful, although it has changed. When I was young, it was for me the steeple of all love. As the days die, it alters." I just really like this interpretation of divination. It's divination, as I'd say you and I understand it, which is divining meaning through how you're interpreting a sign. So we quite like the idea of tarot as a way of organizing our thoughts. Yes. As a way of stepping into the self thoughts. Yes. Which I think is really cool. I also thought it was interesting and almost pleasant how accepting he is of her wish to die. Yeah. and how accepting he is of her wish to die. Yeah.

Considering she's not ill. This isn't a tangible illness thing. This is a, which is what makes it odd. But she feels that she's done. She feels this in her core. And he knows that she is going to go and die by her own volition. And he's like, that's what's gonna happen.

And he heals her. He spends weeks healing her to go and have the baby and then to die. And it's just, it's weird, but it's not unpleasant to read. Yeah, you don't feel like, oh, someone needs to be there. He should be talking her out of it or not healing her. It's all very calm. And it's sort of, well, if you're going to die, you're going to die well having had your last piece of health. And I was sort of jumping back to the fever chapter and Kader's thinking about wanting to die. And, you know, saying, beauty can die suddenly and all will crumble for you. And there's only the child to be born and

you know what to do. I thought it was interesting kind of paralleling to the Earl a little bit of sort of an acceptance of this is done and this time is over. Like almost a freeing madness. Yeah. Yeah, she's definitely a bit saner with it. Yeah, I mean, she's saner than the Earl. Yeah, yeah. So is- All certainly presents that way, she's saying that the Earl. Yeah, yeah. So is. Oh, certainly presents that way.

Let's say. Yes. We are rather accepting the supernatural ourselves because she's so sure about it in the old manner agrees with her. Yeah. But yeah, I suppose if we're taking a rational, and why the hell would we? Let's not get rational. This is not the book for rationality.

Should we jump forward? We shall. Early one morning, I would like to, before we even inwich, note that we're in the present tense now. Yes. We will be for a few chapters and I think that's a very interesting switch. Yeah. And it's not just about the way the book jumps through time. It's the immediate action almost. How many have you thought about it? We're in present tense now and we won't go back to past tense until presage, in a few

chapters time. Excellent. Early one morning then, in which it is summer and it's the morning of Titus's ceremonial breakfast, spelled to catch his chat chatty apprentices but chastisement is interrupted by the ringing of a forgotten bell. The Earl is an owl and the doctor is summoned. The Earl is an owl. I'm afraid. I was pretty sure I read the second half of the book before you did because I read it like literally the weekend between recording the first half and releasing that episode. And it was so hard not to text you anything about owls. I didn't want to spoil it for you. I felt like you needed to really experience it for yourself, but I just, I couldn't stop

thinking about the owl. Doctor, doctor. I think I'm an owl. Sounds like a hoot. Incredible. Knock, knock. Who's there? Who? Hi, dad. Right. Fuck, sorry. He does not listen for an answer is the first bit of your favourite quote. Oh, this is a short swelter moment when he's chastising his apprentices. He

does not listen for an answer but yawns, his face opening ludely upon regions compared with which nudity becomes a milliner's invention." LW- Ooh! Again with the- G- Ridiculously good sentence. LW- Again with the smile being an awful thing in the hands, in the face of this man. G- Yeah, there's a description of his laugh later that says something about a gastricly distressed cow. LW- He's having a go at his underlings at this point, isn't he? Yeah. So I'd just like to quickly shout out Fly, Craken, Renpatch as Gorm and Gar's names.

Excellent. I'm having quite a nice time putting random syllables together to make my own Gorm and Gar's names. Just in the course of the day. Yeah. Like if you think, walking past a farm, you've got a green trough. That's a good one. Yeah, it's surprisingly satisfying and easy to do. And I recommend it to everyone. I will massively apologize now my favorite quote is long, but it's just the most dramatic thing I've ever read. And so I'm going to try. to try. Had the flesh, the fibres and the bones of the chef and those of Mr. Flay been conjured away and away down that dark corridor leaving only their four eyes suspended in midair outside the Earl's door, then surely they must have reddened to the hue of Mars, reddened and smouldered

and at last broken into flame, so intense was their hatred, broken into flame and circled about one another in ever-narrowing gyres and in swifter and yet swifter flight until, merged into one sizzling globe of ire, they must surely have fled, the four in one leaving a trail of blood behind them in the cold grey air of the corridor, until, screaming as they fly beneath innumerable arches and down the endless passageways of gore and ghast, they found their eyeless bodies once again and re-entrenched themselves in startled sockets. I'm so glad you read out that whole thing. It's so good. It's ridiculous. The best part is in this extended metaphor or whatever the fuck it is, we end up back

where we started with the eyes back in the sockets. For some reason that makes it so funny. It's so fucking pointless and yet it is clearly incredibly necessary. Heather It's ridiculous. It's great. Well done, Mervyn Peake. That made me laugh properly when I read it. I'm not sure if that was the intent. Flay and Svelta in this chapter, because we've had the threats, but this is our first time seeing them directly interact since the threats threats have started. I find it really interesting. You have, Spalter's hatred of Lord Sepulcro's servant had ripened into a fester patch and his one desire is to stop the breathing once and for all of a creature so fleshless. There's

some great descriptions of Flay throughout this. I think the Countess calls him the long servant at one point. Which is lovely, I love that. That sounds like a tarot card. But then you have Fle, this is when they're both summoned to the Earl's door at the same time. He was in no mood to be terrified at the white mass before him, although he hadn't been able to sleep and everything, presented with the materialisation of his nocturnal horror. He finds himself hard as iron would. Because Flay is a primary obsession for Swellter, but for Flay, Earl is always first above everything, even this lingering threat of death.

LW – Yeah, yeah. By the way, just the description of the Earl being an owl is fucking terrifying, isn't it? The mouth might as well not be there. The fine acryline nose appears to be more forceful and the source-like shape of the eyes hold within either sky or vacant moon. This is, this verges on the supernatural and that he believes so much he is an owl, like his eyes completely change it. But whether that's just like holding them open in this kind of rictus, unnatural, stair kind of way or whether he almost does transmogrify. Yeah, in my head, it was more he has just taken on the aspect so much rather than he

is literally transmogrified. Yeah, he is what those drama students want to be when they spend a year pretending to be an animal. Yeah, exactly. And then jumping forward to a change of colour, in which the counters are slag about Steer Pike, who is occupied assisting Peryn Squall with the Owlish Earl. And I don't have a tonne to talk about in this section, I just want to talk about Flay not being able to decide what to do with the twigs, because the Earl has told him to go and get twigs so we can build a nest and the Flay is so torn decide what to do with the twigs because the Earl has told him to go and get twigs so we can build a nest and the Flee is so torn between wanting to do

what the Earl says and this is ridiculous. My master is not a fucking owl. He's distraught, wandering up, he's gathered them and flung them away and gathered them up again. Poor Flee. I wasn't expecting Flee to be so sympathetic when you meet him in the first chapter and he's just kind of a dick to rock God. There have been a lot of redemption arcs and a lot of whatever the opposite is. Condemnation arc. Condemnation.

Yeah, I was about to say condemnation. That's definitely not a word. A bloody cheek bone then. Bloody cheek bone. In which Steer Pike and Fle meet among the countess's cats and stear pike makes an owlish mistake. A feline flung by flea leads the countess to call for the man's servant's banishment while the doctor prepares the owl for the breakfast. Very nice. Thank you, I'm very proud of a feline flung by flea. That was almost peakish.

That's what I was going for. Thank you. A little bit whimsy. But Flay, I was just starting to root for you a tiny bit, Countess, and then you do this. Yeah, I mean, neither of them covered themselves in glory here. No, no. I mean, yeeting the cat. He didn't throw a cat in the wall. Oh no, he threw it at Svelte. No, St. I mean, yeeting the cat. He didn't throw a cat at Wal. Oh no, he threw it at Svelte. No, Stearpike. Stearpike. He deserved it. Not for what he did, which was just make his eyes look a bit outlish for a second.

But he was trying to torture Flay. But he was trying to wind up Flay and also just Stearpike deserves to have a cat. The cats don't deserve to be thrown but Stearpike deserves to have a cat thrown at him. Yeah. I think it would be completely out of the Countess's character not to banish Flay for this. No, that's very true. I can't blame her, but I do also feel terrible for Flay despite his cat chucking. I do find it quite funny that Steer Pike is in the background watching this banishment

take place. And the main thing he does is make a mental note, cats for projectiles. Yeah. Yeah. The Countess, by the way, worth noting, hate Steer Pike as well. Yes, and all of her little asking nanny where he's come from and keeping an eye on him I really enjoy. I'm glad someone is not taken in. Fully not taken in, yeah. And back to the twins. The twins again. Again. In which the twins make the most of their matching profiles and Steer Pike appears to play escort.

Yeah. And I need to read out this sentence from this chapter because it's incredibly funny. Seeing an owl as an owl on a mantelpiece and having part of one's face removed by a cat, both on the same morning, can temporarily undermine the self-control of any man. It's very understandable. That sounds a bit pratchitian, doesn't it? That kind of. Yeah. They're just underlying silliness. I think there is quite a bit of like, I know I'm being silly in a lot of the book. Definitely, definitely there is. I mean, the man is clearly very clever and talented.

You can't be that clever and talented without realizing that you sound insane in quite a fun way. Yeah, it's very tongue in cheek a lot of them. But yeah, I loved that line. What about you? Do you have a favorite quote from this bit? Yeah, it's another kind of artistic perspective weirdness. Just when the twins are receding down the halflet corridor, two identical profiles facing one another and floating as it were in the mid-air shadows, diminishing and diminishing as they drift away until the last mote of light has crumbled from them. Oh, that's good.

Either way, that reminds me. You know, we've talked before about Lovecraft and his top words used. I would like to think about which words are most used in Mervyn Peake books, and crumble has to be up there. Crumble, crumbling. Which coincidentally was one of our favorite not quite onomatopoeias from the Suceration discussion of Tiffany. for it, not quite on a matter of hears from the saturation discussion of Tiffany. G! Oh yeah. Something I did find sort of interesting, if you're interested in this sort of thing, to where I put quotes into my notes, I have the book on Kindle as well as a physical copy

so that I can just copy and paste the quotes from Kindle. But obviously I'm not going through Kindle page by page and my book page by page. So when I get to, oh, I want this quote, I'll type like two words of it into Kindle to find it. And what I found interesting is that generally it is only two words. So there's not a lot of repetition in the book. Oh, interesting. Yeah. It's very easy to pick out, okay, those two words are going to take me and very rarely did I get duplicates. That's cool.

So yeah, fun fact. And then yeah, then the twins, I could not stop laughing at this bit where they're kind of using each other as a mirror. That was a take a turn, bickering. Awful. Turn your lovely head to the right so I can see what I look like. Why should I? Why shouldn't you? I've got a right to know, so have I if it comes to that. Like I said, it's not Nanny Og and Granny Weatherback's, but it is two old ladies bickering and this feels like two old ladies you'd meet on a bus. Yeah, they definitely belong on a bus, unfortunately, not in Golden Thrones or Gilded Characters. Yeah, no Thrones, just bus.

No throne, bus. Anyway, and then the Dark Breakfast, in which breakfast begins with procedure and formality are plenty and stair-pike listens from underneath. And the endless mind-numbing ritual. It's painful to read at points, isn't it? And that's the point. The description of it is great. The eating's done spasmodically. Whenever a gap of time

between appears between the endless formalities, tiresome and the extreme for all those present, it would hardly be less tedious for the reader to be obliged to suffer the long catalogue of breakfast ritual. It's like, hey, as a writing device, it's great. This is boring, so I'm going to tell you what people are thinking instead. LW – He very rarely does that as well, doesn't he? Addresses the reader like a reader. I do like how he feels comfortable in just dabbling in writing devices and not making them a big part of the book. G – Yes. It's sort of an element of, I'm figuring out exactly how this book works as I go, which means I can change it every couple of minutes.

LW – Yeah, definitely. Much like Gormengust. And then ritual as a villain in this story in a very different way to Steer Pike as an antagonist. Because it is villainous. The stagnation, we know ritual and stagnation and doing things just for the sake of things are never changing. It's not a good thing long term. It's not good for people. But ritual is this long, boring, tedious evil as opposed to stearpikes and antagonists who is so immediately ruthless and uncaring. Yeah. You're right that it's a villain. I'm not even sure evil is the right word because I feel like if ritual personified were able to talk to us, it would have no motivation other than keeping the castle going.

It's the bureaucracy is villain thing. It's unknowing evil. Yeah. I think it's a precursor to the bureaucracy is villain thing that Pratchett used quite a lot. It's uncaring. Like the auditors, not quite in the same way, but it's just sort of... Yeah, they want stability. Yeah, definitely. Humans are a sort of... A spear pike is too time. Yes, very much so. Do you want to take a break? Yeah, I forgot about that.

Also, the reveries. The reveries. This is one of my favourite chapters of this whole book. Again, a unique little dabble in another writing style. Yeah, and I love an internal monologue. I love a run-on. Oh yeah, big run on sentences. So just to sort of come out these reveries and take them in order, we start with Cora, the rambling competition with her sister. I do like that when it comes to Clarice, it

says it's the same as before, just what the names. It's so silly with her mouth open. Not like me, my mouth isn't open. Yes, it is. I've left it open. Now I shut it and it's closed on my side. I might nod to Birkentine so he knows I've done. He's done well, but I'm still above him. Really, he's much more essential to the running of the castle than Cora or Clorace. Of course. Then we go to Dr. Prunesquall, and this is where I really start getting less sick with him because of his genuine concern for Fuchsia.

Yeah, because we were talking before about how we didn't see anything from his perspective, and now we do, and we can tell he actually does give a shit. He cares. And also he hasn't carried on the creepy line of thought about her being a woman. So that's nice. Yeah, which is nice. You know, low bar, but we'll take it. We'll take it. We'll take it. I must comfort her if I can, though what in the name of tat can I say to

Carmen, intelligent and sensitive child who has seen her father hooting from a mantelpiece? I look quite... But he thinks of her as intelligent. Yeah. And he gets a lot of points for that purely because I don't think anyone else does. Yeah, that's a good point. I think he does seem to know her very well. Yeah. So yeah, he gets points for this. And then Fuchsia, who is clinging to Prune Squalor's finger and eventually, obviously, faints. And the recurring thud on the table.

I was going to say, that's great, isn't it? That's really cleverly done. Because it tells you to start with who's sitting where, and then futures like in the middle so you don't have to go the whole thing working out exactly who's fallen on the table, obviously. But you get the first couple of ones, you get to go back and go, ooh, who fell? It's really good. But the oh, it's so hard to read with this sort of childlike bargaining for her father to be well. And I'll bring you flowers and speckled stones and fans and beautiful things and I'll find books for you. And I'll read to you and never let you know I'm tired and you'll become happy. Yeah, that properly have me bawling. It is the the kind of magical thinking that you go into when you're bargaining for somebody. Yes. And she builds herself into eventually fainting. She's so overwhelmed. She's had

a morning. She's had a morning of it. Yeah, she has had a morning of it. And nobody gets to eat. And nobody gets to eat. There's so much food waste in this book. Oh God, I hate it so much. Do you know the price of ham? I'm a prune squalor and I haven't talked about her much, but everything about her, feeling she's not a proper lady anymore.

Sorry, sorry, Karen. Feeling like she's not a lady anymore because of how she acted during the library fire and then trying to become a proper lady once again and in her internal monologue is just her reminiscing about some guy she used to fancy called Mr Spog-Frawn. Yeah. Again, what? Spog-Frawn. I know it's just a spoonerism but it is. Who had beautiful adventures among the people he redeemed from sin. Spogfron is the Christian

character in a fable. He's a missionary and she thinks that he just wasn't writing properly when he was putting passionate parts in his letters. Passionate parts, I feel like also is just a little two word phrase that may have stuck in Pratchett's subconscious somewhere from this. I think so, right? I think that was used in maybe Monstrous Regiment. I think some of the Tiffany books as well. I said, do you have passionate parts? Yes, that's it.

Whiches don't have any passionate parts. That is literally, oh, fantastic. I thought it sounded familiar. And then the Countess, again this is when I, you know, the Countess redemption art check-in, she does want Titus to find something of himself outside of Gormunghast and she wants to teach him, it's written really beautifully, how to live his own life as far as it is possible for one who will find the grey stones across his heart from day to day. It's written really beautifully, how to live his own life as far as it is possible for one who will find the grey stones across his heart from day to day. She very much accepts the necessity of Gormenghast's horrible ritual reality. She's a part of it and she's a slave to it as much as anybody

else but she more than anybody has a separate internal life from it. And she realizes the importance of sharing that. Yeah. And she says, you know, Seppelcrave has done it but he did it wrong because books. For what use are books to anyone whose days are like a rook's nest with every twiggered duty? Oh, yeah. By the way, a little check in with the early pond foreshadow or the fishing foreshadow. If I have the time before he's 12 years old, and if it's a pleasant evening, I might take him to the pool that is as green as my Malachite ring with the silver setting and let him watch the lesser fly-spotted wag-catchers

building their soft-grey nests out of moth wings and dew-trium. This pool, the green pool is surely the one that we were talking about fishing in. I thought it was a green river he was fishing in. You're right. Well, maybe it goes into the pool. No, I agree with you. There's a connection. Yeah, you're right. It was a river. But I don't think it's literally the same body of water. Damn it. Okay, fine.

It still connects though. Yeah, yeah. Let's say it's around the area. And then Nanny's monologue is just very, larks are plenty. Oh, the larks. Goodness me. Larks are mercy, but I like Lorcs aplenty. Thank you, Lorcs are mercy. Owen bless him and I've wrapped him up in his little thing I have, and there he is lying there. I'm paraphrasing that one, that wasn't a direct quote. No, no, but again, nobody loves me except my darling Caution.

No, no. But again, nobody loves me except my darling caution. Oh! Oh, my darling caution. And then Seppelcraves. And this is just me cheating and cramming in a bunch of quotes because these are all beautifully written. The long dead branch of the groins is broken into the bright leaf of Titus. It was the fruit of me. And there shall be no ending, and the grey stones will stand for always, and the high towers for always, where the rain drifts weave, and the laws of my own people will go on forever." Again, it's sad. It's this acceptance that he is no longer needed because he's done his job and now Gormunghast can continue. Even his son is so tight. It's not about a love for his son. It's about this is the next Earl who will do all the things I've done.

LESLIE- There's a little contrast at the end because one of his last thoughts in the reverie is that, my fuchsia dusky daughter bring me branches and a field mouse from an acre of gray pastures, which although, you know, a little bit owl, little bit owl around the lack of ears, does, you know, prioritize his lovely daughter who has been with him through this terrible journey. But at the same time, there's no recognition for the thud. By the time Fuchsia faints, he's gone from this reality, even if he'd taken the idea of her with him. The reality of his daughter fainting next to him is not acknowledged. I think it was actually technically the chapter before, but I just realized I forgot to mention the fact that Nanny gets a chair at the table and it's a specific chair that says, For the

servant on it. Yeah, like the opposite of the one with the star on it. Yeah. For God's sake. Yeah, amazing chapter. I love how it's done. Yeah, yeah. And we go forward to here and there.

Yeah, forward and sideways I love how it's done. I'm going to go forward to here and there. Yeah, forward and sideways. Forward and sideways in which Svelter plots, Steer Pike watches legs, Barkentine walks through the breakfast and the assembled make their exits. Just oh, dearie. It's nice to watch the swan's legs beneath the water. There's something I really enjoy about, I'm going to describe a group of something by one specific feature they all share. I'm not even sure I can call it a trope, a device.

A device, yeah. I don't see it very often. But perhaps it'll do it occasionally, things like the style of hat everyone's wearing. Yeah, yeah. GW Yeah. And so yeah, I like that here. The description of Irma's leg specifically, who have entered upon the last stages of a suicide pact, each one strangling the other in an ivy-like embrace. LW Oh, I very much relate to Irma's twisting of the legs and hands in times of her worry.

GW Yes. For me, it was the future sitting on one. It was just this one leg dangling because I'm bisexual and can't sit in a chair properly. I think we've done this before, but that meme of people shaking hands for its bisexual ADHD inability to sit in a chair like a normal human person. And then Barkendine in this section stomping through the breakfast table and again the waist and it's such a good, all of this ritual is so nonsense, look at everything being thrown away. The particular line, a dull soggy note followed by a squelch betrays the fact that his withered leg has descended ankle deep into a terrain of tepid porridge, but it was not for him to turn aside in the

promulgation of his duty." LW – Threatful! MG – The tepid porridge! LW – I, um, obviously I agree, but Artinine's not the most lovable of old men, but I really enjoy his swearing. Yes. Light, scum cat, light, curse and split you. Nice. I love a good bit of vitriol.

Scum cat. Scum cat is good. And then we go on to presage. Presage? I don't know how to say this And then we go on to presage. CK Presage? I don't know how to say this. ALICE I'm going to say presage. CK Okay, we'll go with that.

ALICE Because presage sounds like it's something a horse does. In which a sense of expectancy falls across Gormengast as Cader arrives back at the dwellings. And there's something, again, everything in Kada's sections is very peaceful. There is a sort of light. Niamh Yeah, even the fight. Ange Even the fight, even the anguish afterwards, even the horrible travelling while feverish and pregnant. Niamh You're taken out of the horrible atmosphere of Gormengas, in which we know there is this constant tension and waiting for the other shoe to drop. You're taken out and put in

nature, which is just nicer than... Yeah, you're getting a fresh air. I think it's the fact that you're not waiting for the other shoe to drop either because you know there is a foregone conclusion. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I like the description, this nostalgia she feels when she goes back to the mud dwellings

and she knew that there was horrible stuff that happened there. She knew she didn't have a particularly happy life there, but she remembers all of these positive things about the light and the dogs. Yeah. We don't have to watch the negative bits where she's driven out again, which we assume she is because she thinks she will be. And she seems to be right about everything. This is about to happen, but we get to see the evening light. We get to see the moment of peace in it and the evening light. Yeah. And as you pointed

out, we've returned to past tense in this section. Back to the past tense. And this is almost like there are only a couple of chapters really, where it's really split between the viewpoints to like A and B plotter. Yeah. And this is a nice, nice point to turn back to past tense, I think it's almost another and here you are on the map. Yes, we are now and here we are now. Shout out here by the way for Hesper, which is mentioned all at once an eyelid of the rich dusk lifted and Hesper burned over Gormenghast. I didn't really know what Hesper was. I had to look that up.

Hesper is Venus but seen in the evening. Oh. So Hesper is the evening star. It is the same star as the morning star, but in the evening it is Hesper is the evening star. It is the same star as the morning star but in the evening it is Hesper. I think I've got that right. I did look this up very late at night and now I'm worried. If anybody has a correction for me, answers on a star chart please. We're getting answers on tarot cards and star charts. We're going to be rightfully yogurt weavery.

Yeah. The fear of change, again, this is the ongoing theme that I really enjoy talking about in this. And yeah, Irma is the one who picks up on what this feeling is that's sort of laying over the castle. The others were involved with counting the portentous minutes before their own particular clouds broke. This immediate trepidation grew, this intangible suggestion of change, that most unforgivable of all heresies. Irma can see it because A, she's somewhat outside of it all being off the higher social rank but not actually part of the family. B, Because she's already gone through her big change moment, which was screaming in the library and briefly being a ladylike. Niamh And can we once again appreciate just how in their own heads all these people are

and how much their inner turmoil is blown out of all proportion and occasionally made everyone else's problem like with Swellth and Flay. But I don't think anybody else has given it another thought apart from maybe her brother. Yeah, no one else really gives a fuck about Irving Preen Squalor in any way, shape or form. Yeah, A, that and B, it was a horrible fire. People were screaming all over the place. Nanny Slag was convinced the baby was going to be sucked up through the keyhole. Nobody was like on their A game.

Gabbard No, not entirely. L to kind of does a little aside to Fuchsia saying like she's trying really hard to be a lady, which means she's not because if you're really a lady, you don't need to try to be a lady. And it is a very funny like middle class versus upper class thing. Like Fuchsia is a lady despite the fact she never runs around looking particularly clean or neat or tidy because she's born to it. Whereas Irma is middle class and has to do all of the proper things. Send all the listeners to read Watching the English again as if we haven't referenced that book enough on this podcast. I know, God. Every year it becomes slightly more dated. Although I think there has been another edition since the one I've got in which

mobile phones were just introduced to the equation. As I move forward, in preparation for violence. Oh yeah, what's happening now, I wonder? Summer lies heavy, the Countess is thinking back to the burning. On a moonlit night, Flay binds his knees and sneaks to the cloister, the sword in hand. Love the knee binding as a detail. It was really cool because I didn't think about it straight away because I've also been reading a very, very different book where a character has to bind her knees a lot because she otherwise, her knees dislocate quite a lot, fourth way, and decided to reread it. So I was sort of going,

does Fle actually have to do this all the time and he's so lanky and he's actually got joint problems and then realized it was the clicking. Yeah, – Yeah, I mean he clearly does have joint problems. MG – Well, obviously he does have joint problems. LW – Yes, in this case the problem is audio. MG – But yes, the anticipation in this chapter as Fle starts making his way to… It has been banished but has been sneaking back into the castle because he's still in that weak period post-banishment and going to squeeze in another weather description. I'm not going to read this whole book because it's very long.

I was going to say this is the longest description of a season I've ever read and that includes Terry Pratchett's introduction to summer in Angkor Bhorg. There is a good line before the main bit of description of Dre Ritual turned its wheel. Yeah. We're just Gormengast going on. The summer was heavy with a kind of soft grey blue weight in the sky, yet not in the sky for there was no sky but only air. The sun, however brilliantly the earth reflected it from stone or field or water was never

more than a rayless disk this summer in the thick hot air, a sick circle unrefreshing and aloof." It's so evocative. If you couldn't tell he was English before, that description of a humid English summer. Fucking hell, yeah. Summer on the roofs of Gormengast, it lay in there like a sick thing. It's just what a... He's so good at weather. GER And while we're on this bit as well, the description of the moat, which I feel must have inspired the river rank, what was left of the water in the moat was like soup. A rat floundered across it, part swimming, part walking. Thick sepia patches of water were left in the unhealthy

scum where its legs had broken through the green surface." Oh no. That feels like Summer and Ikemore Forks and the Riverank. Yeah. Aside from the weather, we get a little bit of Flay thinking of his youth here, don't we? It's so strange to read because we don't know any of Fley's backstory or how he came to work at the castle. But it's really beautiful.

Very little of anyone's backstory. Yeah, true. He's in these cloisters and he remembers them from being a youth. It's one of his first memories and it's one of the only places there's really any colour in the memory of his youth. And this description of a giant in gold had given him an apple, the globe of crimson which he had never released from his mind's empiric grasp." The one bit I highlighted from that was he recalled how he had for a moment weakened, wishing he had a friend to whom he might speak of happiness. Oh yeah. Just how alone this character has been for his entire life, which he has

devoted to one man. And then, I have so many feelings about this chapter, Blood at Midnight. Or at the Clannox. In which Flay waits in the dark, a storm begins, and after Svelta's misplaced strike, the pair give quiet chase to the Hall of Spiders after following the Earl. And in moonlight and cobwebs, Flay strikes the Deathblower, lands Svelta in the lake while the Owl watches." I could not for a moment guess who was going to come out on top on this. No, I was very scared. I thought it was going to be both of them, that they were going to kill each other at the same time. Yeah, the mirror of the first duel, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm talking about this. The two duels, this is so wildly different to the first.

The willingness to be fighting in the first place. Svelter doesn't want to be fighting because Svelter thought this was going to be a very simple murder. Yeah. And Flay doesn't want to be fighting. He just simply, I know I know he caused this by pissing Svelter off. I'm not sure he deserved death for it. But yeah, he's fighting for his life. LW – Just from the beginning, just the kind of underlining of various reasons we dislike Svelter. His absolute certainty in himself to the point where it takes him forever to admit to himself that he hasn't chopped Flai's head off. JG Yeah, which at first he thinks the knife is so sharp, it's just gone right through

without him feeling it. And there's a line about it being like the scythe through grass. Also Svelte talking to his knife is just so creepy and gross. It is creepy and gross. And I feel like I'm extra judgy because I've known chefs that were chatty with their knives and they never were creepy, gross humans. Yeah, no, for sure. And then, do you know what? I don't know if this is just like our bias.

I'm going to bring you into my internal monologue. I don't know if it's our bias or whether it's entirely due to Mervyn Peake's portrayal of these two men, but even on the line, if ever man stalked man, Fley stalked Svelte, you're like, yeah, fucking go Fley. MW That whole bit as well, this idea that if any other man was to ever stalk, you need a new word for it now because he's become the platonic ideal of it. And then Svelta, insinuating in much the same way. Insinuate is a lovely word. It is, isn't it? It's very susceration, but like the opposite feeling that comes with it. Yeah. You do not suscerrupt, you insinuate. There's sinew in there,

that's why. Quotes, because it was really hard to just pick one moment from this chapter because it's all so good. But again, weather. The enormous midnight gave up all control, opening out her cumulus body from horizon to horizon. So the air became solid with so great a weight of falling water that Flea could hear the limbs of trees breaking through a roar of foam." That's mad. The senses of scale in the descriptions here are amazing because we go from, again, we talked about the big and the small and the contrast and this and are amazing because we go from, again, we talked about the big

and the small and the contrast and this and that, but we go from these tiny little corridors to describing, like you say, the vastness of the night and the huge halls, but then the tiny little trapped bits within the big halls. G. And these corners surrounded by fallen beams and this claustrophobic mess of cobwebs everywhere. Unsurprisingly, didn't like that bit, spider on the eye bit genuinely made me feel like I was going to throw up. Reading stuff is not as bad as a visual. That was quite intense. Speaking of, genuine question for listeners, because I know a lot of our listeners have

watched the BBC adaptation, which I do plan on watching at some point. How graphically is the spider on the i-bit depicted in that, if at all? Because if it is, I need to know so I can skip it. Oh yeah, good point. Don't forget you can check does the dog die. That usually has it pretty good. Oh yeah, true. I just don't know if it has a random BBC mini-series. That's true, yeah. It's a little niche. It might be niche. What about you? Any quotes that you wanted to? Yeah, just a couple bits of lovely description. Or rather, just lovely cadence wording within descriptions. So even in those areas of the hall where

the moon beams could not penetrate and where great glooms brooded. Great glooms brooded. Oh yes. Fucking internal Rineskeen there, yes. And then similarly, the cleaver sailed from his grasp and circling in the moonlight fell with a fluke of flame in the far golden silence of the lake. Oh excellent. Yeah. Mervyn Peake I believe would have been one of the finest rappers of our era, had he... I believe so. had he been in this era.

I think he would have dropped some sick bars, as it were. By the way, I remember making this note, but I can't immediately spot it and I can't remember in which chapter I made it. But speaking of insinuating being a verb, To swarm in the singular, I very much like if one person swarms, I enjoy that. Oh, lovely. Swarming up a ladder. I also like if one person stampedes, although that's not in this book. Yes. Oh, one other bit from the fight as well that I can't ignore, or sort of two little bits that connect. When they are finally facing each other in the Hall of Spiders, as pirates in the hot brine shallows wading make, another very Shakespearean bit, face to face their coma-hindered lunges, some blind fly agonyed and browed with pearls.

So here the timbers leaned, moonlight misled, and the rank webs impeded. Just ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I can see it. Yeah, no, the visual is... And your visual goes from the pirates in the bright sun sweating and facing each other to this hall of spiders. But then you have this final death blow, which is not really a moment of victory, it's a moment of survival. LW – Yeah, it's quite vines finally managing to take down a foe. MG – Yeah, it's vines taking down Kharsa. LW – Oh my god. MG – Yeah, that's done now. But the description of the sword in Svelte floating, remained like a mast of steel whose sails have fallen to the decks. At the mast head, the circular sword hilt like a crow's nest boasted no inch high pirate." The little pirate connection

there. I don't know. I thought it was fantastic. But it ought to have had the silent fit there, isn't it? Yeah. It should have done. The whirling shaft, by the way. Yeah. Hell of a spinning top, fucking whirling dervish, don't know what was going on there. Yeah, spinning around with the cleaver. Just all of it, you're right, this entire chapter is an absolute masterpiece.

It is. The next chapter, very short, gone. In which Sepulchre and Fl Flay takes Welter to the Tower of Flint as an offering and the Earl goes on alone to be devoured by owls. A common theme in this book, me not realizing that a character has died immediately. I had to go back for this one because I thought the Earl had just actually gone and maybe become an owl slash just want to live in that tower but no one found him. I did not realise he had actually been eaten by the owls until like second read through.

I had to go back and highlight the sentence as the devouring of the two incongruous remains proceeded. Just right at the end of this chapter, what was once Svelte glistened? Yeah. Incredible, but ugh. Yeah. And at this point, I'd like to mention because the sky about the tower became white with the lit bodies of circling owls.

And we've seen already, I think at this point, haven't we, the skull on the stick? Not yet. I think that's coming up. Oh, not yet. Sorry, that's coming up then. But I believe there's also been a couple of other instances that I can't quite remember. But death is white in this book. N. Yeah. The psychopomp is donned robes of white. It is all very... S. It is flying in gossamer and white and yeah, not a... because I suppose it must be in contrast to the dark stone of the process.

I was gonna say if the Grim Reaper's wearing a black robe in this castle, he's not gonna stand out. No one will see him. Is that death or is that Flay? Crack, crack, crack, ah, dude. So moving forward, the roses were stoned in which time passes as Fley builds a life in nature and he bears witness to Cader who steps out. I love this chapter.

But also again, took me a second to realise a character had died. That one I did get because she'd been building up to it for a bit. I knew she'd been building up to it and I thought maybe she had, but then she's there at the earling and then I realised that this chapter goes on so far. It is a beautiful chapter. Well, also I don't think she is there at the earling. She's given the baby to somebody else by that point. Oh, I thought that was her holding the baby before she.

I thought it was another outsider holding the baby. It works either way, so it doesn't matter. But yeah. Yeah. Because this is in theory like post-Earling because this is a long depiction of like living in nature for a while. Oh, that's a good point. Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah, no, you're probably right. But it's lovely. It is a lovely long depiction. I'm really pleased that he's found some peace. Depictions of people living in the wild as well. One of my favorite things in books, like hunting and gathering and learning how to.

LW. Yeah, especially if they do it well. I know it's not realistic, whatever, this or the other, but he taps into this. GW. And he fishes. LW. And he prepares for winter. He's smart enough to do that. Yeah. There's a moment where he questions if what he's doing is rebellion. What he's doing is just living. He cannot think of himself not in relation to the castle and therefore in some way what he's doing is a rebellion. It's a very modern human sentiment, isn't it? I don't know about you, but if you spend

a day just enjoying the world, it feels a little like you're being naughty because you're not doing productive. Yeah, I've not been productive. Yeah, you're not doing the productive thing. You're not doing the wheel of ritual. Exactly. Yeah, very well. I also like that when he's standing in the mouth of his cave with the evening light and again gorgeous just depictions of light throughout obviously. Behind him his swept cave yawned a million prawn coloured motes swaying against the darkness at the entrance. Motes as well. We get a lot of motes in this book.

We get a lot of motes. We get a lot of rattling, which is a word I've never seen outside of this, I think. There are a lot of words in this book I've not really seen outside of this. I might make a little list. We'll try and make a little list of Gormengastian words. I don't want to be too accurate and control F through the Kindle. I just want to scan my notes. Yeah, and then Cader's death scene. I'm really glad we switched to her point of view and we don't just witness this third hand through Flay's eyes, that we get this last

moment with her. Yeah, yeah, but just for a second, yeah. And also just a small thing I love is seeing words I think of as being very modern used in older books in sort of their earlier context. And in this, she stepped outwards into the dim atmosphere and falling, was most fabulously lit by the sun and the moon. Darlings you are most fabulously lit. My brain goes into that but I really enjoy it. It makes me happy. Yeah me too. This moment by the way I thought was like the perfect climax for her because

it's very much Cader between two worlds and so she's lit by the moon and the sun on either side here but her entire thing has been she stood between two men she stood between the outsider and the insider and she's the pivot rather than the catalyst in a lot of things and I yeah she's a really lovely character for somebody who doesn't seem to have that much impact, but clearly does. And also, we don't know what this baby thing is about yet. So, you know, holding off on that. But, and you know what, even if her main contribution to the overall story ends up being the baby, I like that she's not treated like that kind of character usually is, which is a fontine. G. Yeah.

A. Although she does die young and although there is some heartbreak involved, it's very much she is in charge of it. G. Yeah. A. Yeah. It's not that there's no tragedy, she's not overwhelmed by tragedy. A. Yeah. G. Which is rare for a character, exists to provide milk and then a child. And then we move forward to the Barcantile and Steer Pike, as they move forward slash back, in which a nine-day search takes place for the Earl led by Steer Pike. After, Steer Pike takes on a traditional apprenticeship. Nine days, another number moment. Barkentine and Stairpike are all very interesting. Barkentine wanting control over Titus.

Titus should from the very beginning be under his control and Tutelage was his only sop. NK Yeah, I don't like the look of this. NK No, I don't like this. NK Poor Titus. Hopefully future will steal him away to an attic or something. NK Again, it made me think of pyramids quite a lot. This idea that you must be molded from a young age to be exactly what we need you to be and nothing more. Interesting if you bring stearpike into the equation as well, that Barquentine also is motivated by having power.

His power is very specific and a very different flavour to steerspikes. Yeah. We've got another reference to the continuation of the castle as it is into the Grown Family as a river, the course of this great dark family river, obeying the contours of hallowed ground. Nice little bit there. Speaking of rivers. GK By Gormengard's Lake. In which Nanny, Titus and Fuchsia take in a picnic and are joined by the prune squalers. The twins make an approach and Sterepike takes a swim. We begin with Fuchsia, who I love in this section. But again, it's really hard to read the way she's now dealing with grief and loss. The fact that she went and looked for her father by herself. Because

we're always rooting for future very much, but something that she's had to learn from having to grow up too soon, from having finally experienced love and having lost it, she began to be conscious of a vague pride of an awakening realization of her heritage. Yeah, there is a kind of physical effect that the... Like a gravitational pull of the castle and she's finally accepting it. And I feel like that's a path that can only lead to disappointment for her because there isn't really a role for her within the machinations of Gormungast. N. No, and she's not as stupid as the twins to settle into a side character role.

L. Yeah. Then we have Nanny and we learn the story of Mr. Slag. N. Yes. L. This felt like an og moment. Nh It did feel a bit of an og moment. Sarah Mr. Slag married me. He died the same night, and no wonder. Niamh And then later, or possibly earlier, I don't remember, I've just got her highlighted saying, oh, my weak heart, naughtiness and spleen. We died the same night, no wonder. Also, the moment where she's decided she's not talking to Fuchsia and then forgets and

calls her my caution. I'm not talking to you. Then Fuchsia leaves her arm in place so that Nanny can get to it to smack it. They are children, aren't they? It's ridiculous. Yeah. When they're all sitting together, by the way, they were all sitting upon the rug in between them, creating a monumental group of unusual grandeur. The little Gustave was still leaping through the wood, ruffling through the lake.

I worked it out when I was saying in the last part about play and slag and fuchsia all sitting together and having crumpets. I worked it out when I was saying in the last part about play and slag and future or sitting together and having crumpets. Like it reminded me of something back and think about, I'm not sure it reminded me of something so much as it was conjuring up this image. I couldn't quite grasp that this bit is as well, which is that when they're grouped, it somehow makes them seem even

smaller against the landscape and the architecture. Like when it's one person alone or even two, that can always be small, but when there's a group dwarfed like that, it seems more consequential. It seems like that zoom out moment of the little people against this ancient monumental architecture that they're not quite a part of, but they live amongst like... Yeah, there's no hope for them to look like anything but dots in the foreground because the background is so huge it can't help but overwhelm everything. Yeah. Yeah, I see that.

Yeah. I don't know why this particular moment got me like that, but they did. There was something about the visual of it and all of them sitting on the picnic blanket. Of course, then you have the moment of Steer Pike seeing them and like... But I get why he's charming in that moment. I do understand that it's charming as he's leaping into the river and swimming across and future things. It's ever so bold. And then him sort of eye rolling and shrugging over the twin shoulder while telling them off. And a final sort of little joke to the doctor. The doctor says something about go away, we don't want to look at you shirtless and he does this sort of, I'll forgive its magnetism.

Yeah. I liked, well, I kind of liked, I thought it was good that Fuchsia's kind of internal description of Stair Pike, her melon column was like a darkness in her, but when she thought of him, it seemed that through the darkness a forked lightning ran. I think that's a very good description of him not being a good thing necessarily, but it is a feeling amongst the dreariness of this depression and ritual. Yeah, and she describes that he's alive, so alive. There isn't a lot of that around Fuchsia. I suppose mentioned as well, this that around Fuchsia. I suppose I should mention as well, this is where Fuchsia and the Doctor make a plan to meet. And the Doctor allows her the discretion, which I think is a very nice detail. Yeah, I agree. And Gertrude.

Gertrude, very short chapter and the Countess plans to hopefully thwart some kind of evil she feels approaching. Yep. And the Countess, yeah, Countess Redemption, check in. Yep, how's she doing? She's doing, I mean, she's very protective of Titus in a way you wouldn't expect from the first scene of sort of, what the fuck is that? I don't care about him bringing back when he's six.

And there's another really good Shakespearean bit. Let them touch him for every hair that's hurt, I'll stop a heart. If grace I have when turbulence is over, so be it. And if not, what then? Right? Yeah. If God doesn't want me afterwards, so fucking what? Yeah. I will walk back. What was it? That Tumblr quote that seemed weirdly epic? I will face God and walk backwards into hell. Yeah, that's very much that. The thing is, one of those ones that's from a dream someone had about Obama. Yeah. You can't kill me in a way that matters, mushrooms.

Decay exists as an extant form of life. Emma. Fuck. But yeah, an extremely odd but powerful type of mother's love from the countess. Good work. Niamh. Yeah. On the redemption arc check-in, that one's a bit on the up. Emma. Oh, here we have a skull on a spike in the next one. Niamh. Here we have a skull on a spike. The apparition in which death visits the twins and Steer Pike follows and also Steer Pike's death. I've got to say, having just briefly said, okay, I get why Steer Pike's charming and shit, causing the death of a man, then hitting another man over the head to steal that first man's skull, keeping it,

using it for what amounts to a prank, like also some blackmail and shit. And taking glee afterwards, the moment where he briefly acts 17 and kind of wriggles around on the bed laughing. Yeah, I love that that only comes after he's scared two women almost to death. With the skull of the man he killed and then stole. He stole the skull, not the man, because the man was dead. Sorry, I've forgotten how to sentence at this point. No, it's fine. Yeah, we're getting to that point in the book. May I note that dusk is crumbling outside the window. Of course it is.

Not everything that crumbles, but a lot of the things that crumbled aren't things that traditionally crumble. Such as light, dusk, etc. Just to heavy out the crumble. This is also the section where Fuchsia goes to speak to the doctor and she wears her ruby. This is after we found earlier in this, I shall only wear it for a man that reverences me. I think she does. Part of it's got to be that, you know, she's showing him he appreciates the gift. Yeah. But I think it's also it's not so much like she fancies the doctor or maybe thinks of it as him fancying her. He is the only person who can give her affection that she cannot

take for granted. She's not shown affection by anyone in her actual family. She's shown affection by nanny slag, but that's very much taken for granted. And she cannot trust any affection shown by Stearpike. So the doctor is kind of based on the social standings and has known her for as long as a parent because he probably delivered her. He's kind of the only family she's got. Yeah. Lovely that this whole thing basically was just talk therapy as well. Considering he's obviously going to be, well, I don't know, I was about to say he's a bit of a quack, but I don't think he is. I guess the medicine he's given people is a little odd and does turn one slightly green.

But it does seem to work largely. And he's also a decent therapist by the sound of it. Yeah. And he's not immediately just going, know, hello dear have some lithium. Definitely done a 180 on the doctor, if not quite a 180 then certainly a sharp angle and I'm not sure if that's partly because I now dislike the twins and stirp heights so much and I only have so much room for hate in my heart. I think the doctor has also just mostly been less annoying in this section.

He has, yeah. Because when you compare it to how dreadful everyone else has been, suddenly his jokes at the picnic seem like kind of a much-needed moment. And then the earling. The earling. In which after preparations sackcloth from platforms in trees, Titus is declared earl on the chestnut-bell raft and he cries along with Cade's child. I'm just gonna throw my quote in straight away because I think I've actually been very restrained

when it comes to lists. Okay, list away. So I think I get to do this one. This is obviously the cantus and her birds angling and disputing for positions at her feet and over various parts of her accommodating body were a white throat, a field fair, a willow wren, a nut hatch, a tree pipette, a sand marten, a red-batch shrike, a goldfinch, a yellow bunting, two jays, a great spotted woodpecker, three more hens on her lap with a mallard, a woodcock, and a curlew, a wag tail, four missile thrushes, six blackbirds, a nightingale and 27 sparrows. The exact right number of birds, I believe. And a partridge in a pear tree, of course.

Of course. This is the woman for whom that ridiculous list of Christmas gifts is appropriate. Yes! We found it. Take the Pound Lord for leaping. Do not give a fuck. Go leap into the owl tower for a walker. Don't need the drummies, but the swans are swimming. Swans are swimming.

Yep, bring them in. I just remembered on the Curlews, the news article I sent you about the other day about a man who's made a giant Curlew costume. I can't even remember the point of what he's done now. I think it was walking in charity. I'll link to it in the show notes, listeners. Yeah, that's good. Which had the line, anyone who knows me knows that eventually I build a giant curly costume.

That's the kind of man we should be friends with. Yeah, actually, very much so. What about you? Do you have a good line from this bit? Yeah. Monotonous, sullen, grey rain with no life in it. It had not even the power to stop. Oh, so good. The apathetic listlessness of that kind of British summer day. I was going to say it again, it feels so English. Also, this isn't a quote so much as a, what the fuck does this mean? Toil after toil, moil after moil. No idea. Sometimes I do think we're having Peek's just making this up.

Hang on. I've actually just Googled that because I highlighted it and didn't put it anywhere. Oh, work hard. It is like toil, toil and moil. Okay. My mistake. I apologize, Mr. Peek for my tone of voice there. Double, double, moil and trouble. Mubble. This section makes me hate Stare Pike more than any other, more than the skull thing. Because he's plotting about Fuchsia and you can clearly tell exactly what he's plotting. He knew her temperament, simple, painfully simple, headstrong, but a girl nevertheless, and easy to frighten or flatter. He clearly sees

himself as becoming the Earl by way of marrying Fuchsia. The thing about Sniff are great, and obviously we've only read this one book, I have no idea what happens in Gorman-Gastell, Titus alone, but he has this pursuit of power, you can see here, he's eyeing being the Earl by way of Fuchsia. He is the kind of person who does not actually really have an end game beyond getting the thing. And you know full well, if he ever became an Earl, you would have no idea what to fucking do with it. No, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He's not as smart as he thinks he is. No. Which we're talking about, you know, Fuchsia being such a 15 year old girl. He is a 17 year old boy.

Yeah. Yes. And in things like that, he is very 17. He's very 17. And then we mentioned- I feel like half the reason he didn't like Swelter is because there's a few too many similarities. Yes, quite possibly.

Also what the fight's going on with Cader's child? Yeah, she's described as Titus's foster sister, or future foster sister. I wonder if there's some kind of folklore or something about they both fed from Cader. The same breast. It could be. Because I feel like I've read somewhere about some implied bond between two children, like a wet nurse's daughter. I think that's like Milk Brother or Milk Sister.

Thank you. That's it, Milk Brother. Yeah. I don't know if that's all that means, but then I feel like we wouldn't have Cader's story if the child wasn't eventually going to become. No, no, for sure. Yeah. But I'm just wondering if the child ends up living in the castle or not, basically,

or whether that's enough for it to be the foster. Do you know what I mean? We'll find out in September or whenever we're doing that. We're not doing it this year. Are we not doing that? You've told me this so many times and I've read the schedule. We don't have it anywhere scheduled yet because I have not read Gormengast. Well, no, but we didn't read Gormengast until we didn't read this after the schedule. I've got to keep off reading Gormengast for as long as possible for the sake of the bit. We'll do it at some point.

Oh, we see. I'm sorry. Yes, I'd forgotten the bit on account of the hours we've spent talking about this bit. It's all right. We're nearly at the end now. The other couple of bits in this section, obviously, again, rituals and Titus as this unknown quantity, and Parkin Tyne's fury as if the child had a mind of

his own. How dare it! And then of course, trees. Litheral toddler and everybody's like, oh my god, who could have foreseen the toddler putting the objects in the river? Who would have thought the toddler may not enjoy being put on a raft on his own in the rain with a frog? Edith- Everything is so prepared for down to the second of the day and nobody considered that the toddler might not act exactly as he should if left alone. I was expecting him to fall in. I think frankly, we should all just be happy the toddler didn't drown.

JG Very much so. Who is putting a toddler on a raft? I know he's supervised, but no one's on the raft with him. LW Not supervised enough. JG Not supervised enough. LW Nobody was in grabbing reach. JG Yeah. There were two big agents of change. Steerpike is our obvious one, but Titus is an agent of change. He is what starts the narrative, the book. So, agent of change, Steerpike is our obvious one, but Titus is an agent of change. He is what starts the narrative, the book. So agent of change, little rebel toddler. Yeah. And also maybe this third little agent of change, I'm guessing.

Possibly. Baby two. Yeah. If baby two is going to be relevant. And trees. Yeah. I think that Peake was probably describing the trees in detail and the tree species in detail because they are important in that way. Cedars obviously are very long-lived, very important in a lot of cultures and in a lot of mythology. I think those have been definitely picked for a reason, Cedars. I think yous are mentioned a few times as well and obviously you has fucking pages and pages in the Tree Soup tradition

book. Yeah, being plotted in graveyards. Yeah, I just get the feeling that Pika's into this stuff. That's all. I have no evidence for that apart from this one chapter. And then the last chapter, Mr. Rock C God again, in which cats flow through a silent castle and an unfed rock god feels change in the air. Poor man couldn't get his breakfast. I feel so sorry for him.

This fantastic line in this section right at the end, through honeycombs of stone would now be wondering the passions in their clay. There would be tears and the passions in their clay. There would be tears and there would be strange laughter, fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings and dreams and violence and disenchantment." LW that is almost bardic, got very epic poetry level there. I feel like it's very self-aware though because again, it's the departure from the rest of the writing style in a way. I know there's a lot of epic tones throughout but that in particular, yeah, I'm going to stick with Bardic.

Yeah, it's bordering again on silly. He knows what he's doing I think. Yeah, it's very clever. And then I love that we have Mr. Rotkod to bookend the book, bookend the narrative, because he's this unchanging, completely static character. He doesn't realise that the child has had his first birthday, he doesn't realise the other Earl has died and therefore this is a new Earl and this must be an earling until he happens to look out the window and see it. And he serves as our window to change.

Yeah. It's been literally a year since he's seen anybody. He's like, oh, fuck. I did not realize it had been a year either. Maybe this is a problem actually. Maybe I should occasionally leave the Hall of Bright Carvings or ask people to tea at least. By the way, not enough about these fucking carvings. Yeah, we didn't get the Bright Carving Festival during the narrative. I kind of thought we'd get a bit more carving. Oh. I was hoping we'd get the festival again at some point, and we didn't.

Yeah, we didn't even mention the festival. What's going on with these carvings? Why don't we have more about these people wandering the battlements every other month? This seems like more of an important thing than it's been. I guess the point is that everybody's too wrapped up in their own inner nonsense. There's objectively more interesting things going on. Yeah. But we are not fully aware of that. We better find out about these fucking carvings next year. Right, what was your favourite, what was your best obscure word learned in this book, Francine?

I liked adumbrate. Adumbrate. Adumbrate is how I'm going to say that now. But that basically, well, it's from the quote, the passions no greater than candle flames, flickered in thyme's yawn, forgorm and ghast, huesioned and done bright, outcrumbles all." But it means, well, there are three meanings in whichever dictionary I copy pasted this from, Merriam-Webster, to foreshadow vaguely, to intimate, to suggest, disclose, or outline partially, so to Adam Regislan, or to overshadow or obscure and I feel like the castle is doing all three. Amazing. I also would like a special mention to and it was in

reveries. The doctor is talking about the medicine he gives to Sephal Crave. Which as you recall turned him green, but did work. Yeah. And it's called, why have I done this to myself? It's called Hydrofondora Miscromatica. Round of applause please. And so I thought I would have a little look to see if he's actually tried to make something sensible here. Kind of maybe, I think. So hydro, water, obviously, phon, sound, obviously. Dora, I think is gifts, this is all Greek. Miss, incorrect, chromatic color. So incorrect color, that's fine, that's turning green. Hydro, water. I'm not sure about the fondura, the sound and the gifts. If anybody with a better grasp of nonsense Greek shove together, it'd help me out here. Answers on a tattered

piece of parchment, I suppose. It returns the gift of sensible speech to him. Oh, it does, doesn't it? Yeah. I might be... Water giving back the power of speech while turning in the wrong colour. Hey, maybe. But still, answers on a nonsense Greek postcard. Answers on a dodgy-looking prescription. And yeah, that's it. I think I'm officially on the verge of losing my voice again.

Thank you for talking to me so long. I think that is everything we're going to say about Titus Grown. We are going to be back in May. And I believe we are doing the first of something else we're trying new thing, theme revisits, which is we're going to go back to the Discworld and talk about one of the big themes. We're feeling very uncomfortable spending so long off the Discworld. Yeah, it's weird. We need to go back. Jack from Lost Voice, we have to go back. So yeah, we're not sure when that's coming out yet, because life is going to happen at us at some point. We're also not sure if it's going to be one or two episodes. It kind of depends how long we talk for. But yes, that'll happen in May. Before we go as well,

because something else happening in May, Francine, something quite exciting. But what else is happening in May, Joanna? Well, Friend of the Pod and Discord mod extraordinaire PD is directing a production of Masquerade. This is taking place at the Krobera Community Centre from the 23rd of May to the glorious 25th of May. So if you are anywhere near Krobera, absolutely go and see it. East Sussex. I'll put a link for the tickets in the show notes. And there's also for Discworld fans, there is a discount available for the matinee on the glorious 25th of May with the code theyriseup, capital is all one word.

Oh, very good. Yeah. So that's all for now. As I said, we'll be back. In the meantime, dear listener, you can join our expertly modded Discord. There's a link down below. Follow us on Instagram at the true show and make you for it. On blue sky and make you for it pod. On Facebook at the true show and make you for it. Join our subredlst.ttsmyf, email us your thoughts, queries, no castles, thank you, snacks and albatrosses, the TruthShown Make You Fret pod, owls, any birds really, send a bird, the TruthShown Make You Fret pod at gmail.com and if you want to support us financially and honestly why would you, go to patreon.com forward slash the Tuesday I make you fret. You can exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of

bonus nonsense and until next time, dear listener, you have to edit this. Don't let us detain you. Bye. Oh, we did it. I'm sorry. We've destroyed your voice in the process. That's all right. I knew it was coming. This is at least partially my own fault as well because I did discover on the drive home that I can still sing Bon Jovi. You sang a lot of Bon Jovi on the drive home, didn't you? Just one song, but I put Vigga into it. Niamh And Vim? Was there Vim in there as well? Georgie There was Vim. It was this It's My Life.

Niamh Oh yeah, that's where I've got it. Georgie Vigga, Vim and Zip Zest, all of it. Niamh But yes, no, I do feel like the problem is probably more likely the fact that we just podcasted for three hours and not Bon Jovi. Georgie Yeah. Bon Jovi, you're off the hook this time. This time? This time.