Customer Reviews

Tigana

5 star:		(157)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I was hesitant to review this book, because I'm not sure I can do it justice. This is one of those stories in which the very extremes of human emotion can tear the reader apart. And no one does it like Guy Gavriel Kay.

The ideas are revolutionary in a genre whose readers normally subsist on casual magic and Sword & Sorcery. Themes of memory, identity, destiny and freedom are seamlessly interwoven in a breathtaking tapestry; identity can only be founded on the recovery of memory, and it is only with a sense of identity that one can attain the freedom to fulfill one's destiny. 'Tigana' features characters who have had their identities brutally torn from them, and the result is that they are left empty and searching for a way to fill the void in their souls. Their desperate attempts sometimes lead them in the wrong directions, toward things which are cruel or unnatural, but provide temporary solace from the emptiness. The tragedy of their existence is especially wrenching in Kay's portrayal of love, as he shows that it cannot exist as long as there is no sense of identity, and hence, no freedom. Without these things, it is only a selfish grasping for rescue from emptiness, turning the act of love into a degradation.

Kay's portrayal of the characters is one of the high points of this book's brilliance. Who is the enemy? This is a question difficult to answer in a book which has characters on the 'good' side committing terrible acts, while the designated 'enemy' is a wonderfully complex character; and the fact that Brandin inspires such loyalty in his followers--and such love in Dianora, who had sworn to kill him--is totally justifiable, and may be shared by the reader. On the other hand, the soul-deep pain for which he is responsible--and for which he has no remorse--makes a strong case against him. There are no evil people or good people in this book: there are only evil actions, bringing this book into a realm of 'grayness' in its approach to good and evil which most fantasy avoids.

In addition to his skill in characterization, Kay knows how to plumb the very depths of human emotion, yet somehow without once lapsing into melodrama. All the extremes of pain and suffering are there, as well as the extremes of love and tenderness. And there is no better vehicle for these powerful emotions than Kay's gorgeous writing.

The ending fit perfectly with the rest of the story, tying together the themes of identity and destiny which the riselka had come to symbolize all along. Like a graceful end note to a piece of music, the last lines rounded it off and trailed away, softly.

For anyone who enjoys an unconventional fantasy with ambivalent characters, this is a must-read. Fans of George R.R. Martin should have no trouble with this aspect of the work. It is also recommended to anyone who wants some depth and power in their reading fare, regardless of the genre.

A quick warning for all of you into the more visceral, fast-reading fantasy authors... this book may not be for you. Tigana is one of those rare fantasy novels that transcends the genre to become a pure work of literature. Compared to most modern fantasy authors today, Kay writes very carefully and makes an extra effort to force you to care about all his characters and the situations they find themselves in. This extraordinary novel can force you to redefine your expectations of fantasy writing.

Tigana's world is based loosely on Renaissance Italy. The Peninsula of the Palm has been split down the middle by two separate conquerors from larger countries. The conquerors were able to subjugate the peninsula easily due to the rivalries between the seven formerly independent provinces of the Palm.

The final province to be conquered, Tigana, managed to kill the son of one of the tyrants. In a fit of wrath, the tyrant descends upon Tigana and crushes it utterly. However, he also takes the extra step of erasing the country's name from the minds of every citizen on the Palm except for the survivors of Tigana. Non-citizens cannot hear or speak the name; instead, Tigana is renamed after its most bitter rival in the old provincial struggles. Years later, a small group of Tiganese rebels begin a campaign to bring their name back to the Palm and expel both tyrants...

And this just doesn't convey the subtleties and character interaction the plot has. The use of Italian linguistics and political situations gives the book an atmosphere of plausibility but doesn't ram it down our throats (as Jordan's Aes Sedai mythos or Goodkind's descriptions of the Mother Confessor's office tend to do).

The characters, though, are what drive the book. Even those characters that only make a brief appearance are startlingly well-crafted and at times even touching. An episode early in the book which examines very closely the relationship between a proud, authoritarian father and his doomed son moved me to tears- and it happened in the first one hundred and fifty pages.

Bottom line: if you enjoy fantasy that is literate, well thought-out, and exquisitely crafted, then buy this book. If your taste leans more toward the Jordan/Goodkind/Feist vein, be warned that Kay takes his time getting to where he wants you to go... but for me, that makes him the finest living fantasy writer.

Tigana is possibly the best work of fantasy I've ever read, and one of the best books of all genres. I enjoyed Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, but this was even better.

Very few fantasy books can make you feel sorry for the villain (purest evil, maniacal cackling and callous cruelty are the order of the day generally), fewer still have heroes whose decisions at times are distinctly morally ambiguous. Tigana is one of them. Brandin of Ygrath, one of the two main villains (foreign sorceror-conquerors who have split between them the land in which the story is set, a large palm-shaped peninsula with a society similar to the Italian city-states) of the book is revealed as a human and positively kind man at times, who commits what amount to atrocities in revenge for the . He's certainly nicer than Alberico of Barbiador, who is merely avaricious and cruel (but still not just pure evil - he has motivations other than simply killing people for the fun of it). The good characters' use means justified by ends in their attempt to remove the two tyrants and rebuild their land, which has been ravaged and its very name torn out of people's minds by Brandin's revenge.

The story is well-crafted (the ending reminded me of a Shakespearian tragedy) and filled with multi-dimensional characters. It is also non-stereotypical - there are no axe-wielding dwarves or other Tolkien imitations, unnecessary magical pyrotechnics and suchlike. My only gripes were one slightly extraneous plotline which possibly could have been lost, and the epilogue, which I didn't like for some reason which I can't put my finger on. Apart from this, Tigana is a fantastic book and a must-read for all fans of good fantasy.

Tigana is that rarest of books; one that dares to transcend its genre and aspire to great literature. It is not plot driven or even primarily character driven, though Kay develops both plot and character with a deftness that is a wonder to behold. Rather, this work is driven by themes: it exquisitely balances cruelty and compassion, conscience and necessity, love and tyranny, honour and betrayal, memory and loss; and it accomplishes all this with a lyricism that verges on poetry.

There are few outright villains in this work, and just as importantly, few outright heroes. In this, as in so much else, Kay seeks to reflect the complexity of life. Just one finely balanced contrast must suffice.

The key antagonist, Brandin, is a supremely complex man. Unlike the antagonists of lesser works, we come to empathise with him. He is deeply flawed - he would expunge an entire culture from human history for the sake of a bitter personal vengeance. At the same time, he is worthy of praise, of devotion, even of love. Except for the land that he has sworn to destroy, he seeks to rule wisely, justly and, within the limitations of his Machiavellian world, compassionately. We come to understand him not as a bad man but as one who betrays his innate goodness first for glory and then for a grief filled hatred.

Brandin's consort, Dianora, must live with a betrayal of a different sort, for she betrays her homeland, her family and her oath of vengeance for the love of this man. As the story unfolds, we understand why. We cannot condemn her. She sees the nobility that is in him. And the measure of that nobility is the sacrifice he is prepared to make, renouncing his larger inheritance and willingly reducing himself to the rule of an insignificant island kingdom, simply that Dianora may become his queen. Only a heart of stone would fail to be moved by the fate that eventually befalls these two.

This is only one of many intricate threads at work within the book. Yet, the whole flows with such a refined balance that to read Tigana is to sense a master storyteller at the height of his calling.

I would not recommend Tigana to everybody. It is a work rich with layers, undercurrents and deep subtlety. Those who read fantasy only for the clashes of armies, the duels of wizards, dragons, demons and vigorous action will find this book disappointing. But if you prefer your fantasy leavened with wisdom, pity and humanity, Tigana will fill you with a sublime compassion for the human condition that will have you dreaming about this haunting world for perhaps the rest of your life.

I have often said that GG Kay is intent on taking all of the magic out of fantasy literature. Starting with the Fionavar Tapestry, where you get Loren Silvercloak, the average, everyday, Gandalf-inspired, gray-cloaked, staff-wielding wizard...to the Lions of Al-Rassan, where the weirdest thing is a little kid with minor -I repeat MINOR- psychic abilities. Both extremes are very sad specimens. However, Tigana sits astride all that, by far the greatest Kay novel. Most of the punch in this book comes from sentiment, and Guy is a master in the field. He just wraps each character's whole world around you every time the perspective changes. Tigana, rather that what you'll read in the back cover, is about how the world makes men and women out of us, but pain -others' as well as our own- makes us human. Kay will not presume to name good guys and bad guys. That is for you and me to decide, not according to who wears black or who sounds nicest, but to what they have done, and most importantly, under what conditions. Better still, Kay has great understanding for the currents of politics as well as commerce, but also makes so sure you know where the common folk really fit in, he could lecture Karl Marx. Some have blamed Kay for using common, utterly non-heroic characters in his books. They better quit watching the X-Files, they should get their Lords of the Rings posters off the walls, snap out of it and get a life in this world. Otherwise, they'll never, ever get any notion whatsoever of the heroic. Kay has, and that's that

Having read all of Kay's other books, I have to say this is one of the best. Unlike other people, I think the characterzation in this book was particularly good, because the characters were much more...three-dimensional(?) then those of other books.

For one thing, Brandin, one of the villains, isn't strictly evil. He's human, who lives and loves and is loved by others. The act that made him the bad guy was out of love for a killed son. That's one of the saddest parts of the entire book.

Also, I thought the minor characters were wonderfully detailed. Kay gave each of them their own personality, rather than being part of a faceless mob.

Characters aside, the storyline is great. The book is impossible to put down, and you feel like you're part of the story. Surely I wasn't the only one who laughed out loud at Aleis and Catriana's discussion of Aleis's younger sister, had a queer feeling of loss when you learned Adreano(a character only in a few pages of the book) had been killed, or felt their eyes widen in shock when they learned Rhun's true identity? Probably not.

Over all, this is a beautiful and extremly moving novel. Whether you read it or not is your decision, but I would recommend that you do.

Tigana is a rarity in modern fantasy, not only for the fact that it is an entire story contained in one volume. There are several other fantasy molds it dares to break, and as a result, it provides a refreshing change of pace from the standard quest fantasy that pervades the science-fiction/fantasy shelves in the bookstores today. But with these innovations, one has to accept a few failings of the story as well.

One of the best things about the book is that finally, at long last, we are given a villain that is not a cardboard cutout evil sorcerer. In fact, we are presented with two villains of the piece, and each is unique in his vileness. On the one side, the sorcerer Alberico is a sick, twisted individual whose evil rests on the motivation of his ambition to the throne of his native land. Alberico is contemptible, but at the same time pitiable in the way circumstances seem so far beyond his control and his ambition. Brandin, the sorcerer from the other kingdom, and Alberico's rival, is a sympathetic villain, powerful and controlling, yet not wholly evil. We see a great deal of his human side and in the end, respect him even as we hope for his downfall. This dual opposition keeps the reader rapt in the story, devouring the book to see just where it goes.

And if the villains are complex, the heroes are doubly so. Each character finds his or her own story arc, and the right and wrong of their goals are constantly questioned. That good and evil are not so clear cut is unusual for a fantasy novel, and Mr. Kay earns my respect for the boldness that it takes to write such a story. The main characters even question their own motivations for pursuing their goal, something we usually take for granted in such a tale.

Though this was a unique fantasy experience, I did find some drawbacks that detracted somewhat from the pleasure I derived. These points are relatively minor, and I can't even describe them fully without giving away too much of the book. But one thing that I did find somewhat irritating was that the Heir of the lost province seemed too much of a superhero. He had too many exceptional abilities. In any other fantasy novel this probably wouldn't seem exceptional, but the rest of Tigana gave me such high hopes that the "do-anything" characteristics of the heir made it difficult for me to accept. Other character problems were the inclusion of seemingly major characters that eventually came to so little that you have to wonder why Kay made them seem so important. There was also the inclusion of relatively major supporting characters that weren't even introduced until fairly late in the book.

Also, there were too many shifts in the point-of-view. This is a flaw in the writing style, not the story, and many people wouldn't really care, but I found it hard to follow when I didn't know whose eyes I was seeing events through. Kay mostly managed to keep the shifts limited to separate sections, but in one place, he starts a section in one character's point of view, then two paragraphs later makes an awkward shift to another.

All in all, the relatively minor flaws are worth working through in order to enjoy a book like Tigana. If I could give it four and a half stars, I would. It was the best fantasy novel I'd read in ages, and has me eager to read more from the author, and more fantasy in general.

While it's quite interesting to read and compare the opinions of readers, there is danger in basing your decision of whether or not to read a book on somebody elses idea of what makes a book. For one thing, we all read for different reasons. More specific to books like "Tigana," is the fact that genre readers (and I am one myself) tend to have very specific likes and dislikes -- and we judge books not on their merit as literature, but on how many of our fetish buttons they can press, (i.e., magical, horror, swords & sorcery, sci-fi, etc.). Also, amatuer reviewers often mistake conventions or even language they don't understand as flaws. That doesn't mean you shouln't read a book and comment on it. But please try to enjoy the books you read on their own merit, and avoid comparing them to books by other authors. "Tigana" is a book that transcends genre as few others do. The idea that the memory of an entire country -- its people, its landscape, its history -- can be struck from the consciousness of an entire race is so perfect, painful and universally understandable is what sets this book apart from others. Kaye is a writer who loves all of his characters -- and writes in such a way that his characters defy pigeon-holing as simply "good" or "bad" -- in fact, I'm afraid that many of the people who object to being confused about who "the good guys" are supposed to be have been spoiled by reading lots of bad genre, and watching too much television. Read something outside of genre! You'll be amazed at the insight it gives you when you go back. Anyway -- sorry to preach. "Tigana" has been one of my favorite books for about 15 years. I've read hundreds and hundreds of fantasy books, and there are very few authors apart from Orson Scott Card and maybe Storm Constantine (there i go go comparing) that can elicit the depth of feeling that Kaye can. I chalk this up to complicated and complete character development and a command of the language that goes beyond poetry. Finally, the story is almost overwhelming in its depth -- even though it evolves from a single premise: What if everything I know and love disappeared tomorrow, and there was nobody to tell, no one who remembered. Read this book. Read all of his books, and also read everything by Orson Scott Card that you can get your hands on. And don't forget about Joan Vinge (wo of her most under-rated books are extremely hard to find but worth the search, "The Summer Queen" and "The Winter Queen."

I certainly cannot add anything beyond what other reviewers have written here. Tigana is one of the most compelling books I have ever encountered, and is extraordinary in the fantasy genre for several reasons.

One, it's a work that can stand alone. You needn't make a commitment to read 9 other books in a series as in, for example, The Wheel of Time. Secondly, the characters are portrayed with all the genuine ambiguity that is inherent in being human. None, even Alberico the Tyrant, is a black-and-white charaterization.

Many books have moved me, made me cry, and made me jump on to amazon.com to order all the author's other works. However, this is the first book that had me exclaim aloud at a plot twist (for those who have read it -- when Rhun's past is made known). This is the first book that I have begun re-reading as soon as I finished it. This is the first book that I have bought a second copy of to loan out to my friends because I could not bear to have my original leave my hands.

Read the other reviews, then enter the world of Tigana. You will not come out the same as you went in.

"Tigana" is an ambitious novel; it is a big hefty tome that is immediately appealing to lovers of the fantasy genre, it has a land which has been cursed in battle, never to be spoken of with its riches despoiled and its people killed or scattered, and it has brave heroes fighting forever an evil despot for its renewal and independence.

At least that's the premise, and an entertaining one at that. But somehow the premise just doesn't have that ring of truth and "reality" that makes a good fantasy novel a great one. There are really only two really interesting characters in the entire book - the evil despot Brandon, who has the potential to be really, really bad, but he is painted as simply too wise and even handed to carry off the evil that is supposed to emanate from him. This is a major flaw in the book - we readers really shouldn't like him. And then we have Dianora, a senior member of his "harem" who is Tiganan (but is pretending not to be), and who originally came to kill him but grew to love him. She is interesting yes, and painted as a strong woman who battles constantly with her conflicting feelings for Brandon, but in reality we know little about her, or Brandon for that matter.

And here I guess we come to the crux of my issue with this book. We know so little of the characters who strive for the return of Tigana, in fact we know almost nothing of them, good or bad. A great novel of any genre encourages us to identify with the characters, yearn with them as they yearn, grieve with them over their losses. Frankly I didn't care anything about them, and I knew so little of Tigana that I couldn't really identify with what they had lost.

This is an entertaining novel nonetheless, but only mildy so. The writing is fluid, but the story lurches along without much detail (which seems a rather funny thing to say about such a lengthy novel). You can enjoy it, but it will leave you wondering what it was all about, and who were these characters that you had just spent so much time with.