monumental fugue of volumes

[cimorene]

The library appeared to spread outwards from him as from a core. His dejection infected the air about him and diffused its illness upon every side. All things in the long room absorbed his melancholia. The shadowing galleries brooded with slow anguish; the books receding into the deep corners, tier upon tier, seemed each a separate tragic note in a monumental fugue of volumes.

—Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

Comments

[buddleia]

Mervyn Peake summons me like an annoying moth. I got red in the face once arguing with someone over his prose. They said it was too much.

They were right. But I don’t care.