Or All About Grail Hunting: Means, Ends and Time Allotted For:
My admiration of Mervyn Peake is no secret, and I’ve written clumsy but enthusiastic words of praise of his work before.
So, you can well imagine, when asked to contribute a little text for a new book on Peake, I jumped up and down like a Mexican jumping bean hollering “When? How many words? Where do I sign? How much do you want me to pay?! Name your price!” (Okay, actually I didn’t say the last two lines, but I was very excited.)
So I wrote something. And it was even accepted with (practically) no changes.
And to top it all off, I got a cheque! At this point I was torn between wanting to frame it – my very FIRST ever cheque for actually WRITING something, and sporting a prestigious signature too – and cash it, but in the end, mercenary reason (and just plain old-fashioned greed) prevailed and I traipsed off humming to myself and to the bank.
Here it is:
In Search of Gormenghast
When I was about Steerpike’s age, I clambered up a ladder of ivy and through an attic window into Gormenghast. The climb was entirely motivated by a fellow student (who has gone on to become one of Canada’s prominent voices in poetry); he would occasionally, and with authority, thrust books under my nose and say,
“Read this!”
“But what is it ?” I asked.
“Read it. You’ll find out,” he replied. And added cryptically, “Maybe.”
Thus, I owe Mervyn Peake a life-long fascination with windy towers and walls of crumbling stone. I owe him the Gothic yearning for extravagant perpendiculars, an infatuation with horizons, an undeniable tenderness for the grotesque. Curiously enough, I only discovered Peake’s illustrations much later. His texts stoked such a raging fire of imagination that I missed the connection between the exquisite portraits on the covers and the author. Enamoured of the author, I overlooked the artist. Since then I have read nearly everything available by and about Mervyn Peake and sought out his extraordinary images wherever I can, my penance for being born too late to meet the man.
Where is Gormenghast ? When is Gormenghast? What is it ? And, more importantly, how can I get there ? When setting out on a journey, a step in any direction will do. So I enrolled in a college in France, since there was little likelihood Gormenghast would be nestled in the Rockies or tucked away in the outskirts of Vancouver, Chicago or San Francisco. It was obvious enough that the stone for Gormenghast must have been cut from some cyclopean European quarry, so I came to the Old World in 1976, intending to stay a year. The search is taking longer than expected. But then, grails are like that.
I truly believe that those illustrators who owe a debt to Mervyn Peake are legion. Likely far more than any of us realize. Few other modern authors have opened up such a kingdom to wander in. Few authors have painted in such a vivid landscape, and fewer still have created a genre that they alone occupy. Peake paints in words – emotions applied with a palette knife, characters detailed with the finest brush, atmosphere like a watercolour wash. There are no words that are right to describe Peake’s words; only images will do. But when brush is applied to paper, when colours are chosen, architectures sketched out, Peake’s world recedes into mist and shadow, into the realm of the possible and the imagined. Suddenly, any attempt at pigment on paper falls short. There’s nothing for it, then; it requires sketches done in situ, deep in some windswept and ragged landscape of the mind. Whatever it is I am drawing, Mervyn Peake is there to urge me on.
In the end, Mervyn Peake’s world is the invitation and the destination. Wantonly encouraging my bent for beauty askew, elegant decay and lines gone awry, and confirming, with every precious glimpse of Gormenghast, whether by chance or design, that the right path has been chosen.
Gormenghast is a state of mind, an angle of view, a passion for atmosphere and light. Gormenghast is random pages in a sketchbook, odd photographs with an unusual view, a trick of the light or a flaw in the lens. Gormenghast is perspectives that turn out to be suddenly mundane from the wrong angle or when shared in the wrong company or sought out.
Luck affords brief glimpses of Gormenghast here and there – pine forests and
ruins in the Vosges, towers in Tuscany and decaying mansions in the Piedmont or in
Poland, roofscapes and attics in Le Puy-en-Velay, cemeteries in Paris or Prague.
Perhaps one day, I will have found it all, like the pieces of some vast puzzle
without corners or edges. Then I will be standing on that spot where Titus stands at
the end of Titus Alone, but it will be to set up an easel, not to turn and stride away.
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Mervyn Peake: The Man and his Art
Compiled by Sebastian Peake and Alison Eldred
Edited by G. Peter Winnington
ISBN 0 7206 12845
Illustrated Non-Fiction
216pp
cased
£35.00
September 2006
For more information (and to order it, NOW!!) go to the Peter Owen web site.
(In my opinion, the cover could have done with something like “With Modest But Nevertheless Heartfelt Text By John Howe” in metallic embossed 72 point Palatino Bold somewhere on it, but no matter. (There is a lovely quote by Alan Lee on the back cover.) It will be the DEFINITIVE book on Peake, with chapters on his childhood and his last years, his art and illustration and his varied and voluminous writings.)
Author G. Peter Winnington is not only practically a neighbour (he lives just across the lake) but is the foremost scholar of all things Peake-ish. He is equally the editor of Peake Studies, an accessible, readable site (full of links) on the life and work of Mervyn Peake.
He is also the author of “Vast Alchemies”, which is also likely the best biography of Peake, unless of course… the next one will outdo it. Peter has somehow managed to find time to write a critical study on Mervyn Peake: The Voice of the Heart: The Working of Mervyn Peake’s Imagination, which will be coming out this autumn from the Liverpool University Press. It concentrates on the patterms and motifs of Peake’s work, whether it be prose, poetry, verse, drawing or illustration. And better yet, included are fifty reproductions of his art.
Find out more (and order it too, RIGHT AWAY!!) here.
For those in the US, you can find more information here, at the Univerity of Chicago Press.
AND… there will be an exhibition of Peake’s work! The opening is on October 3rd at the Chris Beetles Gallery, London
8 & 10 Ryder Street, London, SW1Y 6QB
Telephone: 0207 839 7551
And last, but leagues from least, there is the official Mervyn Peake site, run by Peake’s son Sebastian.
2007 DRAGONS
No, that’s unfortunately not the number of dragons in this calendar, but there is a respectable number of scalèd, hornèd fire-breathing and generally draconic creatures depicted. I cannot tell you where it can be found (other than in the US, at a bookstore near you…), but more information is certainly available from the publishers.
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MEMBERS ONLY
The webmaster of this site, Dominique Javet, never seems to be idle, and new features appear on the site unbeknownst to me with a regularity that would make my head spin if only I could keep up. For those of you who inhabit the forum, whether resident denizens or infrequent visitors, there is now a Member Map feature.
Pick your portion of the planet and plant your personal pin with precision, please. (The secret plan is of course that once we have a forum member in EVERY country on the globe, we will take over the world.)
