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People With Violet Eyes

The pupil or the iris?
 
Krepostnoi said:
I'm surprised to see that Titus Groan has not yet been mentioned as another violet-eyed fictional protagonist.
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Funnily enough, I just came across that yesterday after finally getting around to the Gormenghast trilogy. So far the use of language is a pleasure to read!
 
SimonBurchell said:
Funnily enough, I just came across that yesterday after finally getting around to the Gormenghast trilogy. So far the use of language is a pleasure to read!
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Oh, I'm excited for you! It's one of my favourite series, and yes, the language he uses is a joy.

That's the second third minor coincidence (Catseye and I posted almost simultaneously) to emerge from this thread: I used one of Peake's paintings earlier to illustrate his skills in visual art, and hence to demonstrate that he would be well aware of the difference between violet and purple, even if I'd conflated the two. It depicts glassblowers. Then this tangent developed in the Minor strangeness thread.
 
ChasFink said:
I was only saying Titus Groan may not be as well known as you think. Certainly not common knowledge in the U.S.A. - Is it different where you are?
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Oh, I see. I thought you were alluding to the fact that Peake actually describes Titus's eyes as purple, not violet*, and so my post was off-topic, it turns out. Hence my disquisitions on Peake's other talents, ironically suggesting that he wouldn't have taken great care over identifying the precise shade.

I've got to confess, I thought the Gormenghast trilogy was fairly well-known. I can't speak to the USA, having no direct experience of the place. I'm not really in a position to be objective about the UK, either. I've known about it for thirty years; there was a period when I was something of a Peake obsessive, and I would still love a copy of Alice in Wonderland with his illustrations. His life story is a thing of joy and, ultimately, tragedy, too. To be fair, though, I'd never heard of him until I was 19. I'd have imagined, however, that the self-selecting nature of posters here would mean he might be better known on these boards compared with the wider world.

*His sister, of course, is Fuchsia. Ho ho.
 
Actually, I think the Gormenghast trilogy is known among fantasy and SF readers in the U.S. (I therefore agree the reference may not be lost on this forum) and I only know of it because it was mentioned in magazines aimed at that audience. Since I don't hear mention of it in casual conversation or on TV - where other fantasy works do come up - I assume America is generally unaware of it. I do own a paperback set I bought when I was young, but never made my way through it. Perhaps I should dig it out of whatever box it's in.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Peake actually describes Titus's eyes as purple, not violet
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I forgot to mention this:
Although I have generally joined the rest of the world in using "purple" broadly to describe all colors that fall between red and blue, I still get a little annoyed when people don't understand the distinction between the two words. Purple is bluish red, violet is reddish blue.
 
ChasFink said:
Actually, I think the Gormenghast trilogy is known among fantasy and SF readers in the U.S. (I therefore agree the reference may not be lost on this forum) and I only know of it because it was mentioned in magazines aimed at that audience. Since I don't hear mention of it in casual conversation or on TV - where other fantasy works do come up - I assume America is generally unaware of it. I do own a paperback set I bought when I was young, but never made my way through it. Perhaps I should dig it out of whatever box it's in.
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The Gormenghast Trilogy was widely published and distributed in the USA back in the Sixties. Peake's massive and often dense text stylings didn't lend themselves to casual reading, so his trilogy wasn't as popular or widely read in those days as (e.g.) LOTR or the works of E. R. Eddison and C. S. Lewis.

I knew many fantasy fans who bought the Peake trilogy and claimed to have begun reading it, but in the end my brother and I were the only folks I've ever known who finished the set.
 
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EnolaGaia said:
Peake's massive and often dense text stylings didn't lend themselves to casual reading, so his trilogy wasn't as popular or widely read in those days as (e.g.) LOTR...
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Yes, The Lord of the Rings is extremely breezy in style and well suited to casual reading.

EnolaGaia said:
I knew many fantasy fans who bought the Peak trilogy and claimed to have begun reading it, but in the end my brother and I were the only folks I've ever known who finished the set.
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Count me in that number!
 
It might be worth noting that the Alexandria's Genesis condition mentioned earlier in the thread, seems to be entirely fictional.
 
And Mary Sue always has Violet/purple eyes.

Well known fact.

Enolagaia; did you find Edison easy? He is one of the meatiest authors going

(Along with Hodgeson).
 
EnolaGaia said:
The Gormenghast Trilogy was widely published and distributed in the USA back in the Sixties. Peake's massive and often dense text stylings didn't lend themselves to casual reading, so his trilogy wasn't as popular or widely read in those days as (e.g.) LOTR or the works of E. R. Eddison and C. S. Lewis.

I knew many fantasy fans who bought the Peake trilogy and claimed to have begun reading it, but in the end my brother and I were the only folks I've ever known who finished the set.
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I finished it (and loved it) too; the last couple of pages of Titus Alone are honestly some of the saddest I've ever read in fiction, although that book as a whole is very, very odd compared to the first two.
 
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