“It's the simple truth that mortal men cannot understand why the gods shape events as they do. Why some men and women are cut off in fullest flower, while others live to dwindle into shadows of themselves. Why virtue must sometimes be trampled and evil flourish amidst the beauty of a country garden. Why chance, sheer random chance, plays such an overwhelming role in the life lines and fate lines of men.”

The faculty of memory is one of the most defining aspects of man. It is because of memory that we develop our deepest attachments and allegiances. We remember the people we love, their features, their voices, their smiles, their actions towards us, which are the embers that spark this love in the first place. We also remember all the little facets of ourselves, our opinions, our feelings and our experiences and where we grew up, our homeland, and we attach to them, thus forming our identity, something so deeply ingrained within us, that to let it go would literally imply killing the self. This deep sense of attachment, thanks to memory, is the root of Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.

The political playing field in this story is a very divided one. Our home base, the Palm, is a collection of 9 provinces, which all share the same language but are divided among different rulers. The Italian peninsula during the Renaissance period was what influenced the author when creating this world. Just like Italy during that time, the fact that the Palm was NOT unified is what made it a victim to two great foreign empires, the Empire of Barbadior from the east and the Empire of Ygrath from the west. The two "villains" in this story, two sorcerers, Alberico, a warlord of Barbadior and Brandin, the ruler of Ygrath, mercilessly invade the Palm and take over all of the provinces but one. The Palm is divided between them both and the people are subjugated to foreign rule. One province, named Tigana, put up a fight against its invader, Brandin of Ygrath, and Brandin's son, Stevan, was killed when invading. This unleashed Brandin's wrath, who, enraged and broken by the loss of his son, channels his grief into sadistic rage and conquers Tigana, slaughtering a large number of its people and casting a spell that erases the memory of that province from everyone's mind except the people who were born there. The name of Tigana, the core of their identity, has been lost, and no one can hear the name when it is spoken. The survivors must deal with this loss, and the story follows a group of these survivors, including the son of the prince of Tigana, Alessan, who is their leader, on their mission to reclaim their lost land and break the curse that cast their identity into oblivion.



When reviewing a book, I make sure to consider the date of its publication, since literature evolves through the years and I don't think one must judge a book written decades ago by today's standards. Tigana was published in 1990, so one might expect a very cliche distribution of moral alignment among the characters, with the heroes being unquestionably good and the villains unquestionably bad. However, that was far from the case, and for the longest time while reading the book, I was actually frustrated with the heroes of the story and found them to be quite selfish and hypocritical in their actions, while feeling sympathetic towards the two villains and understanding where they were coming from.

That is one thing Guy Gavriel Kay did well, adding that moral ambiguity during a time where fantasy was strictly divided between forces of good and evil. Our main hero, Alessan, son of the prince of Tigana, was a bundle of contradictions. Yes, he was a benevolent leader, sharply perceptive of people's feelings, and he attempted to be good, and that's a keyword, because in many instances, he wasn't. His kindness quickly switched to arrogance and condescension during certain situations, which left me surprised and I did not truly like him for a large chunk of the book. Brandin of Ygrath, on the other hand, the man who sadistically destroyed Tigana and erased its name from the collective consciousness of the world, was very likeable and not once did he behave in a way that made me truly dislike him. Even Alberico, the warlord of Barbadior, who was clearly more on the stereotypical "bad" side, was a likeable character and I found his motives to be very realistic, very human.

As for their plight however, I was unable to be moved as I would have liked to be. I believe that emotions are to be made felt, as opposed to simply being described. For most of the book, the citizens of Tigana talk about how painful it is for the name of their nation to be lost. It is described in long winded ways, spanning paragraphs, pages and chapters, but it still didn't hit me on any visceral level. Had the author went deeper, perhaps not only concentrated on the fact that people can't remember Tigana, and had instead showed us how painful it is to see your friends and family massacred, innocent people murdered by a foreign invading force, perhaps going deep into the lives of certain people who were forced to see their parents, their children, their relatives, brutally murdered, I would have felt the pain of their wound more viscerally. Instead, we get endless pages concentrating on the fact that no one remembers or can even hear or pronounce the word Tigana. The repetition of this singular point dozens of times in the book downright irritated me, and instead of feeling their sorrow, I saw them as melodramatic and fanatical.



'Tigana!' he cried that all should hear. All of them, everyone in the square. And again, louder yet: 'Tigana!' And then a third, a last time, at the very summit of his voice, with pride, with love, with a lasting, unredeemed defiance of the heart.

'TIGANA!'

Through the square that cry rang, along the streets, up to the windows where people watched, over the roofs of houses running westward to the sea or eastward to the temples, and far beyond all of these-- a sound, a name, a hurled sorrow in the brightness of the air.”

This type of writing puts me outside of the character's mind. I'm simply viewing the character describe the pain in his heart. However, I can't feel that pain, and the loss of the name of their nation, even though it is a painful obliteration of their identity, and their history, doesn't quite hit the mark for me. Of course, we do know that many atrocities happened and that people saw their loved ones massacred, families were lost and homes were destroyed, but for every 1 page talking about that, there are 30+ pages talking about people not being able to hear the name Tigana being spoken.

Despite all that however, we do feel a sense of realism in the story. The world is set on a different planet with two moons, but the people are very much similar to the ones on earth. Their plight is very much relatable, since in our world today, ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide is sadly very common, so the emotional strings the author was attempting to play on are very valid ones, despite the fact that it didn't do much to me personally for the reasons I have stated.

The world is rich and the lore is well developed. The reader will most likely feel the vastness of the world being described and its long history and evolution through the times, even if the story doesn't shed light on those aspects. That is one of the hallmarks of good writing, making the reader feel that there is a large, populated and complex world beyond the scope of the story itself.

However, the pacing of the story can make the process of reading it quite difficult. This is a large book, composed of 5 parts, and the middle 2 parts were very slow and full of detail and continuously shifting perspectives which made it quite difficult to keep up and maintain a steady interest. Most of the pages found in these parts were full of endless repetitions of the same concepts, the pain of the loss of a name and very random sex scenes that felt like they were written simply for the sake of their presence in the story.

Spoiler

There was a particularly random scene where Devin engages in some BDSM activities with a random royal woman they meet on their way, and I still do not understand the relevance of that scene and what it added to the story and it seemed to come out of nowhere. I suppose it's to add a certain flavour to the story, a personal choice made by the author.

The story picks up during the final 2 parts, a much needed relief after endless pages of monotony and lack of satisfying action. This is when I started enjoying the book, since there was finally some movement going on. Adding to the realism of the story, is the fact that we do get some satisfying closure on certain topics, but not everyone has a happy ending and some characters are doomed to very tragic fates, which did succeed in delivering an emotional impact. If only the author managed to infuse some more excitement to the middle part of the book, which is the largest chunk of it and a bulk of the reading experience.

Two points I found to be very good elements of the story however, gave me an overall positive impression of the book which I will always remember, making it an impactful read. I will put a spoiler tag before talking about them since it's impossible to avoid spoiling the story while doing so.

Spoiler

Dianora's fate was beautifully tragic and very nicely written. Her death was very poetic and the fact that she died drowning in the sea, despite having avoided that fate the first time around, was written beautifully, as well as the tragedy of her never reuniting with her brother Baerd, despite the two of them being in very close proximity. I must digress here and mention that I didn't get the point of the incestuous relationship between the two... Was it for the sake of a shock effect? I'm not triggered by incest in stories, since it is very much a real phenomenon that happens in the real world as well, but like the sex scenes, it felt like it was there just for the sake of having it.

The second aspect of the story I very much enjoyed, which was also heartbreaking, was the revelation that the Fool was actually Prince Valentin of Tigana. We instantly remember that brave and charismatic man in the prologue who has been tortured and reduced to that pitiful state for 20 years... He finally succeeds in killing Brandin of Ygrath after all those years, however, his son Alessan never knows that crippled, deformed man lying next to Brandin was his father. The tragic life of the man who was called Valentin, prince of Tigana, ended in obscurity. The message behind that obscurity is very powerful though, since Scelto decided to leave his fate a secret, since it was memory and the grudges of the past that lead to all this tragedy, and divulging that fact would just continue that vicious cycle.

Overall, this was a good book. I do not regret reading it. This was the monthly pick for The Fantasy Guild Book Club and I'm grateful to have read it, since it has many elements that are unique for its time and the ending did not disappoint me. However, the large middle chunk of the book was a struggle to read and I had to force myself to get through it to get to that ending which I enjoyed.

I do recommend any fantasy fan to read it, since it is a popular standalone and many people love it and it is a good book. I would actually want to reread this again one day, with a different state of mind and perhaps once I do, I might appreciate that middle chunk of the book more than I did the first time.

3.5 stars for our proud Tiganians and the very interesting villains and the touching ending!

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”