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Tamara's Reviews > Tigana
Tigana
by
by
Tamara's review
bookshelves: male-protagonist, female-protagonist, a-bunch-of-lonesome-heroes, you-can-choose-your-friends, ideologically-annoying, fantasy, secondary-world, politics, travel, unfinished, flung-with-great-force, author-male
Jun 07, 2011
bookshelves: male-protagonist, female-protagonist, a-bunch-of-lonesome-heroes, you-can-choose-your-friends, ideologically-annoying, fantasy, secondary-world, politics, travel, unfinished, flung-with-great-force, author-male
This is a review with pictures in it. I see people doing this, and I want to as well. I can haz cats also, yes?
Anyway, this ye old secondary world fantasy, with maps and kingdoms princes and things and everything.
No, not like that, silly. It is Deep and Melancholy and Meaningful. Like this:
Do you SEE? It is FUZZY and PASTEL COLORED and there is BOOBS. That means it is PROFOUND.
Women in this book are not marginalized onto these pedestals replete with bizzaro stupid sexualization for no discernable reason (except BOOBS) like this
but for complex things about THEMES. IT IS LIKE FUCKING SHAKESPEARE, YO.
Themes:
Doctor Who has Themes.
(Look, I believe in equal opportunity eye-candy, yes?)
This all the MORE DEEPER, because it is PURPLE.
There are also other themes, except BOOBS.
For example, there is FREEDOM and IDENTITY and NATION-THINGY-NESS.
[image error]
This is INEFFABLE and SAD, because, you see, once there were SONGS, and now there are NO MORE SONGS. And there is MEMORY. SECRET MEMORY. And it is SAD.
BUT! Fear not, brave readers. Where there is PROFOUND SAD and BOOBS, there are...
No, unfortunately there are no X-Men.
But there are MEN.
REAL MEN.
But also not like that. Not ALL testoroney and nasty and things.
No, these real men SING.
And are NICE TO ANIMALS. And are NICE TO WIMMINZ. Whom they make CRY. But with JOY.
Well, SAD JOY. This is DEEP.
So, folk, it's ok - we can sit back and marvel at these men be men. Sometimes, they kill people or take people prisoner or are generally nasty and shit, but it's OK because IT HURTS THEM IN THEIR HEART.
Poor Troy.
The point is, a little bit of judicious forgivable killing is what forges the MANLY HEART.
Forged on the CRUCIBLE. Of WAR. Into MEN.
And it SAD. But with JOY, also.
(This book is very long.
All right, it is also very thick.)
So we have the MEN who weep INSIDE, and the WOMEN, who weep OUTSIDE, and the LAND that weeps to be REDEEMED.
Oh, the GLORY of the PAIN. And the RESOLVE. The STEELY resolve. Tempered by the CAMRADERIE. Of WAR. Of MEN.
[image error]
BUT! I don't know if they win. Because I didn't finish the book. Because I was overwhelmed.
Yes, also because I swooned with all the TRAGIC MANLINESS,
but also because,
well,
fuck the fascists.
Also,
well,
Purple.
Over and out.
Good god this takes forever.
Since I'm here anyway, hot-dude-spam, k? It's like a palette cleanser and makes me feel better after this book.
Sexy George Orwell. And he didn't even sing.
I would have stayed in tiny Paris garrets and drunk cheap red wine with you while getting tuberculosis anyday, Eric.
Commodity fetish, you say, Young Karl Marx?
Jaquen H'ghar is the sexiest ASOIAF character it is known shut up ok?
Anyway, this ye old secondary world fantasy, with maps and kingdoms princes and things and everything.
No, not like that, silly. It is Deep and Melancholy and Meaningful. Like this:
Do you SEE? It is FUZZY and PASTEL COLORED and there is BOOBS. That means it is PROFOUND.
Women in this book are not marginalized onto these pedestals replete with bizzaro stupid sexualization for no discernable reason (except BOOBS) like this
but for complex things about THEMES. IT IS LIKE FUCKING SHAKESPEARE, YO.
Themes:
Doctor Who has Themes.
(Look, I believe in equal opportunity eye-candy, yes?)
This all the MORE DEEPER, because it is PURPLE.
There are also other themes, except BOOBS.
For example, there is FREEDOM and IDENTITY and NATION-THINGY-NESS.
[image error]
This is INEFFABLE and SAD, because, you see, once there were SONGS, and now there are NO MORE SONGS. And there is MEMORY. SECRET MEMORY. And it is SAD.
BUT! Fear not, brave readers. Where there is PROFOUND SAD and BOOBS, there are...
No, unfortunately there are no X-Men.
But there are MEN.
REAL MEN.
But also not like that. Not ALL testoroney and nasty and things.
No, these real men SING.
And are NICE TO ANIMALS. And are NICE TO WIMMINZ. Whom they make CRY. But with JOY.
Well, SAD JOY. This is DEEP.
So, folk, it's ok - we can sit back and marvel at these men be men. Sometimes, they kill people or take people prisoner or are generally nasty and shit, but it's OK because IT HURTS THEM IN THEIR HEART.
Poor Troy.
The point is, a little bit of judicious forgivable killing is what forges the MANLY HEART.
Forged on the CRUCIBLE. Of WAR. Into MEN.
And it SAD. But with JOY, also.
(This book is very long.
All right, it is also very thick.)
So we have the MEN who weep INSIDE, and the WOMEN, who weep OUTSIDE, and the LAND that weeps to be REDEEMED.
Oh, the GLORY of the PAIN. And the RESOLVE. The STEELY resolve. Tempered by the CAMRADERIE. Of WAR. Of MEN.
[image error]
BUT! I don't know if they win. Because I didn't finish the book. Because I was overwhelmed.
Yes, also because I swooned with all the TRAGIC MANLINESS,
but also because,
well,
fuck the fascists.
Also,
well,
Purple.
Over and out.
Good god this takes forever.
Since I'm here anyway, hot-dude-spam, k? It's like a palette cleanser and makes me feel better after this book.
Sexy George Orwell. And he didn't even sing.
I would have stayed in tiny Paris garrets and drunk cheap red wine with you while getting tuberculosis anyday, Eric.
Commodity fetish, you say, Young Karl Marx?
Jaquen H'ghar is the sexiest ASOIAF character it is known shut up ok?
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Reading Progress
June 7, 2011
–
Started Reading
June 7, 2011
– Shelved
June 9, 2011
–
0.0%
"Y'know...Kay writes really well, and he evokes certain things really well, and my god, i've forgotten how unbashedly sentimental his books can be. These are all by and large good things, but...y'know...i'm from a place where history, and memory, and names matter a very great deal."
June 12, 2011
– Shelved as:
male-protagonist
June 12, 2011
– Shelved as:
female-protagonist
July 9, 2011
– Shelved as:
a-bunch-of-lonesome-heroes
July 9, 2011
– Shelved as:
you-can-choose-your-friends
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
ideologically-annoying
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
fantasy
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
secondary-world
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
politics
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
travel
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
unfinished
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
flung-with-great-force
January 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
author-male
January 16, 2013
–
Finished Reading
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by
Justin
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rated it 5 stars
Jun 07, 2011 05:37AM
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I always felt a bit... pensive, about Tigana. didn't really like it, even though i could see it's good points. Maybe part of it was the rather uninspiring swedish translation, maybe something else. Some of the concepts were neat but it just never quite worked.
about half way: its all a bit naive. oppression, occupation, stockholm syndrome, etc...its all terrible, yes, but so charming and melancholy and elevated. Its a bad comparison, but I was falling asleep at one point and thought 'gosh, its such a pretty holocaust.'
Did you finish? I agree about the sentimentality--it worked for me here, but bothered me in other books of his.
not yet, i'm totally stuck, but I want to push on through so I can be all critical about it though...
I have the strangest feeling that you were profoundly moved by this book ;)Also does it really feature WWII Croatian fascists?
Yeah, Kay's not to everyone's taste, he's a bit over the top in the melodrama line sometimes. I liked a lot about Tigana - I regarded it as brilliant but deeply flawed. I think you found all the flaws ;-)
I have liked, or at least tolerated, the other Kay that i've read. I don't know what it is about this one that tipped it over, but GOD GAH NO MORE DIE ALREADY ALL OF YOU.
Hah, that was exactly how I felt about Lions, which made no sense to anyone since I loved Tigana and read them around the same time. But Kay is so easy to OD on for all the reasons you mention... I think I'm permanently off his work now.
I'm wondering if I grew out of it or got more critical or what, but, yeah. TOO MUCH.
You were overwhelmed by Little Women? :p I know Kay's prose tends to deep purple, so I just go along with it. Suspect he'd rather be writing poetry, except that this pays the bills.
Goodness, yes! I suspect Kay would make much more sense if he turned every 900 page book into a 200 page long epic poem. It would probably still be unreadable though.
Kay's love for his own use of language > the quality of Kay's language. Most of the time anyway.
One of the funniest reviews I've seen.
Thanks ;-). I think this book deserves to be mocked much harder than it is being currently.
Have to say I found your status updates more helpful than your final review, which, sure, funny pictures. But it doesn't have much useful in it unless you're desperately in need of a Tumblr oasis in the middle of Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.
Yeah, I know. I admit I had this whole half-composed review in my head that would have been magnificent. I'd been working on it for months, you know? It would have been scathing, acidic, witty, insightful - perfectly deconstructing the books many flaws, grounding them in a firm theoretical basis of both marxist theory and contemporary fantasy literature and making a brilliant coup de grace that would have prevented anyone ever reading it again. But then I realized that the worst problem the book has it that it takes itself so. damn. seriously. Is so convinced it has something profound to say that it's in love with it's proto fascist musings. So it seemed that the nicest thing I could do to it was not to take it seriously at all. It's a bad, bad book, and it deserves to be mocked and reviewed the way people review Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey, with pictures and snark and capital letters and gratuitous hot dudes. So I did.
I read some reviews by someone who really loves Kay's work in part because they take themselves so seriously--the reviewer saw them as somehow a celebration of adulthood, because one's choices really MATTER, or something. I don't really buy it, especially after reading Sailing to Sarantium, where nothing really happens except Kay telling us how DEEP and MEANINGFUL and COMPLEX everything is. (Hah, maybe I should write a mocking review of that one. I already wrote a serious review, but GR will let us review multiple editions...)Oh well, I would be interested to see the abbreviated version of your Serious Review, though--or at least the fascist part.
The fascist stuff is kind of obvious no? It's that combination of nationalist rhetoric and national pride (complete with justified executions of traitors and so on) being at the heart of the story and the sense that there's something inherently ennobeling about (armed) struggle, something that makes a man into the man they're supposed to be and all that.I also think the writing is just flat out bad, but it also contributes to the fascist thing with it's telling-not-showing. Because the book is so into emotion - so sappy, so weepy - and yet strangely does not feature any particular emotions. It's about the act of feeling, rather than about feelings themselves. What matters in the story is that Dianora is in love with whatshisface, but it doesn't matter why she's in love with him, or what it is he said and did to make her fall in love with him, or how being in love actually feels to her or whatever. Allesan is inspiring, and his men are inspired - but it doesn't matter why or how. The mere fact of having a strong emotion justifies anything else, because things just ought to be grand and emotional - everything else in the story just gets ground down under that.
Finally, and this may be personal, but, um, i'm from Jerusalem, you know? I have strong reactions to questions of national identity, and oppression and being wiped out as a people and who gets to name a place what and occupation, from several directions, all of them sensitive and uncomfortable. Around here, people - good people, anyway, people who are not deliberately trying to be incredibly rude and deliberately hurtful - do not talk about this stuff just like that. I've been in co-existence dialogue blah workshops where people just barely manage to force the words "Palestine" or "Israel" out of their mouth after months of talking, and those were the really effective ones. Kay is just throwing this stuff around like it's just so noble and simple, and I keep wincing.
Anyway, maybe I have an eccentric reaction, but there it is. I really think it's also just a genuinely bad book - sloppy plot, awful pacing, blah worldbuilding, terrible, stupid sex scenes, tepid characterization, under all the histrionics, and tooth grinding prose - as well as being really problematic.
Tamara wrote: "The fascist stuff is kind of obvious no? It's that combination of nationalist rhetoric and national pride (complete with justified executions of traitors and so on) being at the heart of the story ..."I don't know if that is fascist as such, you know dolce et decorum est pro patria mori goes back a fair way, although I think that fascism grows well in that kind of soil, Veblen would probably link it to triumph of the ideal of domination and link it to playing competitive sports but then he had a sense of humour.
I do make a point of calling it proto-fascist, but theres also the closing ranks around a charismatic leader, and that kind of duality of forcefulness and weepiness as expressions of manliness that are also sort of tripping off that for me.
OK, ok, I surrender!I admit it does sound very dodgy :)
I loved Tigana, but I have to say that your review is all kinds of awesome. :)
Never read the book but I am seriously thinking of creating a dummy account just to LIKE this review again! And the GI Joe on the squirrel, best internet picture ever.
Tamara wrote: "The fascist stuff is kind of obvious no? It's that combination of nationalist rhetoric and national pride (complete with justified executions of traitors and so on) being at the heart of the story and the sense that there's something inherently ennobeling about (armed) struggle, something that makes a man into the man they're supposed to be and all that."Thanks for that. It was non-obvious to me. You make good points, which I think apply to a lot of the fantasy genre: nationalism when faced with some Evil Invader, a charismatic leader, justified executions of traitors and glorifying armed conflict seem pretty common. And it seems like the majority of epic fantasy judges the worth of characters (especially if male) by their ability to do violence to others.
I can see where it stands out here more, though, because Kay takes his themes so seriously by comparison to most epic fantasy authors, who are just trying to entertain.
Very very very funny review, thank you!
That made me smile! Thanks for that :D
Emma wrote: I think apply to a lot of the fantasy genre: nationalism when faced with some Evil Invader, a charismatic leader, justified executions of traitors and glorifying armed conflict seem pretty common..."I think it's the romanticism that actually makes it stand out as fascist-creepy though, to me. I mean, even the cheesiest, most low pretense sword and sorcery book is going to have a bit of this-is-sad and war-is-hell interospection before it gets on with slashing 800 orcs to death in loving detail...Tigana doesn't have that as commentary, in Tigana the commentary is the point. Kay writes violence so characters can reflect on how bad violence is so characters can be seen reflecting on how bad violence is and what a tragedy it is that they have to do it anyway and how awesome that makes them.
ok. you've convinced me to read this one next. i'll run it through the herf/lemkin meatgrinder.
Maybe you can tell me what happens in the last quarter too.
Well reviews with pictures kind of irritate me, but I got sucked in; not only was your review hilarious it also persuaded me to try it. Not sure if I will be thanking you or cursing you, but hurray for Jaquen H'ghar either way. :D
Did I persuade you to try the book or persuade you to write silly picture!reviews? Because I was only trying for one of those...;-p
Just the reading: I'll leave the silly picture reviews to the experts!
I've not read the book but that truth you wrote at the very end... ;-)
Best. Review. Ever.And not that I love hyperbole (which is why I also hated this book; ugh, I can't get the taste of the evers and nevers and alwayses out of my hair) - I just really enjoyed your DEEP because it's PURPLE photo.
Kay seems to love the sight of his own voice, yeah?
Yeah.
Best. Review. Ever.And not that I love hyperbole (which is why I also hated this book; ugh, I can't get the taste of the evers and nevers and alwayses out of my hair) - I just really enjoyed your DEEP because it's PURPLE photo.
Kay seems to love the sight of his own voice, yeah?
Yeah.
I'm only halfway but I agree completely - and I really really liked others by Kay.
I just DNFed the book and your review is the single most entertaining thing about Tigana.
Absolutely dead 😂 this is the best review I have seen. I'm only halfway through, but had so many angry thoughts about the writing that I have pre-written the review I will give when I'm done (unless it manages some drastic salvage effort in the second act), and came on here to see if everyone is really raving about it as much as I had heard. My expectations were set so high by the fantastic things I have heard about Kay as an author, and I have been bitterly disappointed. Should I try something else of his, or is it all this silly and overcooked?
I have got to save this review, so classic. Still have not read the book tho lol
