Titus Alone

The third novel is Titus Alone (1959), where Titus casts off the shackles of duty and steals into the real world. Written during Peake's terminal struggles with dementia, it is broken, jagged, but made up of moments of artistic clarity. (It was a lipless smile. It was made up of nothing but anatomy. TA, 34. -- he wrote THAT while ill.) I listened to the original publisher-approved version, and read the most recent re-RE-worked version and they both feel like drafts, at times like napkin notes. The jerky movements, like that of a child's viewfinder toy, hint of recursive content, mirrored characters, and metafictional play, with strange differences in the two versions (the original omits all mentions of "the scientist" and "the scientist's daughter," for instance). It's still pretty damn wonderful. (There is a fourth novel, Titus Awakes, written by Peake's widow, that I decided to skip.)

See Titus Groan for full review