Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay

It is rather striking that in this book’s afterward the author claims that he was in part inspired to write this moving book about memory by the sight of the notorious communist photos where people who ran afoul of the secret police would be erased from documentary history as if they had never existed at all.  To be forgotten and consigned to oblivion is a cruel fate, perhaps the cruelest fate for beings like ourselves who long to be remembered and to live into eternity.  This book spends its time in a region that might be compared with those who have been dominated by nearby empires but where the fire to be free is mixed along with the occasional craven desire to live a peaceful and quiet life in the face of harsh imperial rule.  The author makes even the tyrants of this book somewhat sympathetic characters, so that even if we believe that they must be destroyed, we are aware that we are dealing with human beings with human longings and not mere monsters, which raises this to more than a cut above the normal book of its type. As a result, this book has a lot to say to its readers about the importance of memory.

This somewhat hefty novel comes in at more than 600 pages and it tells a complex story of how a rag-tag group of rebels from Tigana seeks to restore their ancient homeland.  Included in this book are looks at the people left behind, like a dying mother who calls her son a traitor for not having resisted a tyrant in the way that she would have approved of, as well as the sorts of alliances that people can make to gain outside support.  The book also explores some people who are serving the tyrants and are bound to them, including a pampered member of the harem as well as a court jester who is in reality a Tiganan prince.  Whether they are pretending to be merchants or musicians, the rebels find themselves gaining power and seize the opportunity for two tyrants to fight each other and destroy their strength so that the nine duchies of the Palm can rise up in freedom once again and Tigana can once again claim its proper identity in public.  The result is sometimes a bit tedious but ultimately compelling, and clearly has sequel bait opportunity as the story ends at a point where the difficult task of rebuilding shattered societies after the destruction of the power of two tyrants can be told.

In reading this book I had a melancholy feeling similar to the one that Psalm 137 gives me.  A nation that has been wiped off of the map has not necessarily been wiped out of either personal or historical memory.  The fact that a tyrant, on account of losing his son, sought to wipe out the memory of the realm and its people is emblematic of what makes tyrannicide a benefit to humanity.  And yet it is by no means an easy thing when such a tyrant has charisma and has some idea of how to serve the people he rules.  This book provides a look at the difficulty of ruling wisely and well and the sort of complex problems that result from possessing magic and also having the responsibility of rule on one’s shoulders.  The tendency for people to be deeply divided to their own mortal peril is also something that this book address very excellently, and the characters are ones we care about, even if this book does drone on for far too long in some parts.  If this is not the author’s best work, it certainly is a book well worth reading and appreciating.