In the vast, gloomy castle hidden among towering mountains, there is both commotion and great joy: an heir has been born into an ancient family—the seventy-seventh Earl of Gormenghast. His astonishing violet eyes will witness many strange and terrible events, but for now he is only an infant, trembling with excitement in the arms of his old nurse.
He is the subject of everyone’s attention. Stern and thoughtful gaze—his father, the Earl. Detached—his mother, the woman with huge fiery hair. Irritated—his sister, the closed-off girl in an crimson dress. Curiously and cheerfully squinting— the court physician. And from the shadows, someone tall and thin watches with ill intent, head bowed, with sharp shoulders raised.
Life in the castle is governed by a web of strict rituals, yet beneath their solemn measured pace, primal passions rage: hatred, envy, thirst for power, thirst for love, thirst for freedom.
A whirl of grotesquely and vividly drawn characters swirls through dark corridors and halls.
Reader, you will witness many grim events. Titus’s birth was not their cause, but it is precisely with it that everything began…