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Imagine a state that ceased to exist. It has been swallowed on the map by hungry neighbours, swept away by winds of history and not even an empty space remains to bear witness to what once was. Things like that have happened before. Take Poland, partitioned by her three neighbours and for 123 years disappearing from the face of the world.



But where the state had vanished, the people survived. And so the people of Poland cultivated their language, their arts, their traditions, their culture. They nurtured their collective memory and so the memory made it possible to resurrect the state even three generations later. What if the invaders erased these memories along the physical borders of the state and its landmarks? Would the idea of their country be able to live in the hearts and souls of its people?

Now, imagine a different land, a peninsula shaped like a human hand with third and fourth fingers curled. Welcome to the Palm divided into nine proud provinces incessantly engaged in the political dance of alliances, betrayals, wars and conflicts.



It is not surprising then that when two powerful sorcerers arrive to the Palm, one from East and one from West, they conquer the divided peninsula without greater problems. The most prominent of those is the defiant stand the people of Tigana make at shores of River Deisa against the army of Brandin of Ygrath led by his son Steven. Unexpectedly, they win, but the victory is short lived as the sorcerer unleashes the whole might of his power in wrath and vengeance. The army of Tigana is obliterated, its Prince and his two sons slaughtered, its populace savaged, its cities and cultural heritage destroyed, and, worst of all, its very name cursed into oblivion. He made it as if they had never been.

“Let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul.�

The book follows the footsteps of the descendants of those who fought and lost on the Deisa and their allies as they strive to save one nation and province from being forgotten and liberate the whole peninsula.

But before you will fall in love with the amazing variety of characters, you will be awed by the mastery of the prose. The language is so beautiful and the same time ascetic without going full-fledge flowery baroque. Each sentence is just perfect and even the most meaningless background details contribute to the overall picture. When reading, I kept thinking about the impressionist pictures where the separate blobs of paints from up close do not make much sense but create a masterpiece the moment you step away. Or perhaps, it is more fitting to compare Tigana to a piece of music, especially that main protagonists are musicians sharing with the world “the notes of grief, the sound of love, held fast in the spell of a music shaped by loss.�



In the grand canopy of the main story, you will find a breathtaking richness of the the minor strands, some motifs balancing each other, some repeating the slight variations of themselves just like in Bach’s toccatas and fugues, the same at core but so very different. You will have a motif of a person living in disguise, both becoming the disguise and transcending it. Of a son trying to meet expectations of his parents. Of a final reckoning between somebody who dies and somebody who needs to carry on. Of a revenge carried out through love (and against it). Of being ready to die for dreams larger than things so achingly small by which our lives are measured and marred. Of family. Of tyranny. Of many other things touching upon the deepest and darkest corners of human soul.

The question of evil committed on political as oppose to personal level is particularly interesting in Tigana. The very question political scientists have been asking all the way from The Prince down to The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of its Traditional Defense. On some level Kay is doing what Hannah Arendt did in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil or more recently Slavenka Drakulic in They Would Never Hurt a Fly: War Criminals on Trial in The Hague after the Balkan war (I do recommend both books to those interested in this theme). That is, trying to show that you can be good father, caring husband and still able to wipe out the whole nations and/or ethnic groups, precisely the very difference between personal level and the impersonal sphere is crucial here. This is one of the main arcs of the tale, told with a voice of Dianora who planned to kill the Tyrant but instead, fell in love with him. Somehow Dianora obliterated this difference in her mind and heart and soul and personally, I cannot excuse this very thing.

(view spoiler)[ I hated Dianora. Not because of the "sleeping with enemy" act. This is deplorable, but I can see beyond the surface. No, what made it impossible for me to warm up or connect with her is the absolute lack of integrity. The girl was not some silly chit. She devised a cunning plan, she seamlessly executed the first part, then, she survived in a hostile environment for more than a decade and has risen to the top. You need to have a set of formidable cojones to achieve something like that supported by intelligence and perceptiveness far beyond average. And yet this not stupid girl, keeps lying not only to the around but mainly to herself. And this not so stupid girl falls for her own stupid lies. Still, I would be OK with this is she were "I-will-kill-him-tomorrow" version of Scarlett O'Hara. You know, like these women who treat themselves with a full set of Dunkin' Donuts every day and promise to go on with the diet come Monday. But then, the bode-after moment comes. I'm talking about the assassination attempt she foiled. This was something that should help her face her own lies and either accept them or confront them. She does neither. She keeps lying to herself. Throws the tantrum when she is, oh dear me, deprived of the privilege of being summoned that night and for ma moment yields to petty revenge. She is played like a haps with professions of love. She keeps lying to herself and keeps believing in her own lies before, during and after performing ritual that effectively empowered Brandin. And this is what I cannot stomach. I was very happy that her brother was spared the knowledge of what she has become. Even if I think she got an easy way out. In fact, much too easy. (hide spoiler)]

In the end, personal qualities notwithstanding, the man she loves is still a genocidal monster consumed by revenge. Interestingly, while Brandin is painted in bloody hues, it feels like the Tyrant occupying the Eastern Palm, Alberico, is even worse. But that made me wonder because in the end, they are precisely the same when it comes to methods of governance only Brandin seems more refined, more cultured as it were. Where Brandin is sophisticated, Alberico is crude. One has an eye for beauty, appreciates arts and artists, the other runs an utilitarian state where mercenaries are the ultimate courtiers. But Brandin exhibits is merely a veneer of civility, a wrapping. And yet, it seems that the wrapping makes him somewhat more acceptable. As if Kay wants to absolve the Tyrant who did as awful things because “he loved much� while condemns the one who was driven only by his own greed for power.

Do not expect fast-paced action, gory battle scenes and fighting; this is kept to minimum. You will get excellent story telling, retrospective narrative and very nuanced character development of superb quality. The weakest points in this overall exquisite read is the fact that at times plot-pace slows down to weakest trickle, and the random sex scenes (that stand out as disjointed, albeit very well written). The final scene was very well done by Kay in an uneasy, not obviously neat way.

And the epilogue.

And the last sentence especially!

We will never know how Tigana ends and this is the power of this last sentence that it hides three new tales we will always be dying to hear.

More standalones like this please!

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If you liked this book, consider reading Kay's duology set in Byzantium-like world: Sailing to Sarantium and the Lord of Emperors.