[Matrim]

I have to say that I really enjoyed reading "Tigana" maybe not as much as "The Lions of al-Rassan" but still I regard it as one of the best fantasy books I have read.
Kay's style is, simply put, beautiful, and the book would deserve praise even if it was the only good thing in it. The story is also quite original, something rare in these days. But I think Kay used a bit too much retrospective scenes.


"The novelist Milan Kundera fed my emerging theme of opression and survival with his musings about the relationship between conquered peoples and an unstable sexuality; what I have called the "insurrections of the night." The underlying ideas, for me, had to do with how people rebel when they can't rebel, how we behave when the world has lost it's bearings, how shattered self-respect can ripple through to the most intimate levels of our lives."

Well, I think GGK achieved just that in "Tigana", although I also could live without the sex-scenes.
Miriamele has described the pros of the books very well and I agree with most of these points.
The things that bothered me in the book are:

Brandin's character. I like gray characters but this one was too strange. I would understand if in his rage he had done these horrible deeds against the people of Tigana but he even stayed on the continent just to get his revenge. And in everything else he appeared to be a wise ruler and a man to be admired. Why was he so angry for close to twenty years for the death of his son who invaded a country? If they had assasinated him without a reason or something, it could have made sense.
The battle scenes paled in comparison with "The Lions..."\
Anyone elsle get the impression that "deus ex machina" helped Alessan and co a bit too many times?


Anyway, the level of emotional intensity more than makes up for these flaws.

[Yobmod]

I loved this book. The writing was beautiful, the characters interesting and realistic, the magic understated.
I could believe in the actions of all the characters. Sure Brandin was over-reacting, but doesn't everyone know someone who overreacts even to they're own detriment, and the other characters opinions of him showed it wasn't normal behaviour.


I almost wept with relief when Sandre gives Tomasso the poison before he has the chance to be tortured, because I really liked Tomasso, and it was a very touching scene because Tomasso thinks his father is a ghost.

I wasn't relieved by this scene, i was enraged! How dare the duke value his own life (and later Caterina's) over his very clever, talented son's, all because he was gay. But this isn't a criticism of the book - i thought Kay pulled it off brilliantly.

My favourite parts were those with Dionara, her inablity to kill was a refeshing change from most fantasy characters, who seem to to take to murder like a duck to water (i'm a farm boy that's never hurt a fly, ooh, a magic sword, let's go kill people!), and she was shown to be at least as strongly minded (and cleverer / better looking / more dedicated) than her brother. At the first chance he abandonned his family to follow the prince like a puppy, whereas she devised a plan and followed it up.

I also found the scene in which the prince enslaved the wizard to be very powerful. It was basically like an ongoing rape, and i truly wanted to see the wizard escape and kill the prince. I showed that the prince thought the ending justified the means, and that he was just as arrogant as Brandin.

Overall, i thought it was brilliant, and it's still the best i've read by Kay. Looking forward to Lions of Al-rassan and last light of the sun now.

[fluffy bunny]

I'm currently a third of the way through Kay's Tigana. I'd forgotten how large the page count of some of these books could be. So far I'm in 2 minds about the book. On one hand I really like the style of Kay's writing. He takes his time allowing you to take in his well crafted world piece by piece. Unfortunately this attention to detail can get annoying - why does he have to explain EVERY single detail as to who the characters are and how they got to where they are today? It's fine until you get to yet another character when you just want the plot to get moving.

When events unfold, they can be gripping (eg the scene in the cabin on the eve of the wake), but we go from that to yet more character exposition (Dionara grumble grumble).

Hopefully this'll get moving soon. Anyway, on I plod.

[Evil Agent]

I agree with you. Although I found Tigana to be a wonderful book (and much better than his Fionavar Tapestry), I also found the same flaws. Dianora, in particular, drove me crazy...and her sections were often incredibly long.

As much as I enjoyed Tigana, I don't think I'm loving Kay as much as I thought I might. True, I've only read the Fionavar Tapestry and Tigana so far, but he definitely gets too wordy and overdoes some of the melodrama. The problem I have found so far, in all of his writing, is that he just expects you to find everything as tragic as he does. If, say, you don't find Dianora's situation as tragic as he does (or any other tragic situation he writes about) then you're in for a long slog!

That being said, I still have most of his books waiting on my shelf, and I hear nothing but good things about Lions of al-Rassan...

[Yobmod]

The problem I have found so far, in all of his writing, is that he just expects you to find everything as tragic as he does. If, say, you don't find Dianora's situation as tragic as he does (or any other tragic situation he writes about) then you're in for a long slog!

This is true. I loved Tigana, but Song for Arbonne and Sailing to Sarantium just left me cold. I didn't give a damn about their supposedly tragic stories, and the forced melodrama of scenes that had no emotional impact on me left me feeling annoyed.

Luckily, this didn't happen for me with Tigana. Maybe because their situation was so extreme, i rarely thought "stop whining and get over it" or "grow up". Which is strange, as i usually have very little sympathy for patriotism. Somehow Kay kept me from thinking "why don't you all just leave lower Corte, and set up life elsewhere."

[s271]

Same here. I loved Tigana, but can not finish whatevere else I've tried by Kay.

[SusF]

I read Tigana about two years ago. After the story got started, I could not put it down. I love Kay's characterizations and storytelling. My only beef with his writing is that he takes a while to get started, in all of his books. Lions of Al Rasaan is excellent, too.

Susan

[fluffy bunny]

I'll stick to my thought that Brandin was just misunderstood and Tigana really wan't worth the chosty revenge quest. A number of the freedom fighters can't even remember Tigana. You could argue that it smacks of political activism - either (1) Performed by people who have nothing better to do with their time and will fight for any cause just for the sake of it or (2) people enraged by the injustice and the robbing of their birthright wanting to change the world one piece at at time.

Good characterisation and world building, but is there too much at the expense of plot? His use of point of view in this book did annoy me- he dwells too much on the past when switching characters - a recap from their perspective which isn't that different to what has been said before (eg swap to Alberico near the end, and he goes over all the events of the past few years yet again as every character has done this and how things haven't been going his way). I'd have preferred it if Kay hadn't felt the need to flesh out every character to such a high degree, leaving one or 2 underdeveloped to increase pace (and sometimes it's the stuff that you don't see that frightens you more - Alberico wasn't that interesting anyway. Would he have been better shrouded in mystery?).

[Yobmod]

I'll stick to my thought that Brandin was just misunderstood and Tigana really wan't worth the chosty revenge quest. A number of the freedom fighters can't even remember Tigana. You could argue that it smacks of political activism - either (1) Performed by people who have nothing better to do with their time and will fight for any cause just for the sake of it or (2) people enraged by the injustice and the robbing of their birthright wanting to change the world one piece at at time.

I mostly thought (1). The aim of the group was to replace two despots with a third (the Prince). Also, I remember it being quite explicit that Duke Sandir's family were monstrously autocratic in power in their time. It reminds me a bit of one of the Dicsworld books (Wyrd Sisters, hence also of Macbeth) in which its not executions and the burning down of villages that the populace mind, it that they aren't done by the rightful, local, king.

But even so, i saw this as a plus point in terms of realism - selfless altruistic heroes generally don't exist IMO; if there is no material gain, they are satisfying some neurosis. In Tigana they do both.
Also Brandin's actions while unreasonable, clearly have real world antecendents in terms of disproportionate revenge, so i appreciated it even more.

[Evil Agent]

I know this is the Tigana thread, but...

In response to my earlier comments, about having mixed feelings about Kay's writing... I just read A Song for Arbonne, and loved every page. I thought it was pretty much flawless, and even better than Tigana. So far, I find that Kay has gotten better with each book. Hopefully A Song for Arbonne winds up as the bookclub selection, one of these months (although I see that there has already been a fair bit of Kay in there).