Book Review: Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay, 1990)

Guy Gavriel Kay is one of only a few authors writing in the "epic fantasy" genre who can come out favorably in a comparison with the genre's daddy J.R.R. Tolkien. He is actually a genuine Tolkien scholar (he helped prepare The Silmarillion for publication), so it's not overly surprising that he writes similar kinds of books. Now by that, I don't mean that he writes stale imitations complete with hobbits, dwarves, trolls, and wizards (although his Fionavar Tapestry, which I may write about another time, has some major parallels that way). No, I mean that he writes grand stories, deeply woven with moral or psychological themes, set in worlds which contain strong cultural and/or mythological elements of specific places and times on Earth and which feel much bigger than the stories set in them.

Tigana is set in a southern hemisphere land reminiscent of medieval Italy: a peninsula and nearby island with a Mediterranean-type climate, composed of nine provinces that share a common language and many cultural traits but have historically existed in a state of perpetual rivalry. For the last couple of decades it has been divided between two foreign sorcerer-tyrants: psychopathic Alberico in the east, there merely to establish a power base from which to make a grab for the imperial tiara back home, and cultured Brandin in the west, who came initially to establish a realm for his beloved younger son to rule and stayed to exact a terrible revenge when that son was killed in the province of Tigana during the conquest. Brandin's objective is nothing short of total cultural annihilation, destroying books and art and sorcerously wiping the very name of the province from the minds of anyone not born there before its fall and extending his lifespan to maintain the spell until no one is left alive of the generations still able to retain their Tiganese identity.

The main story follows exiled prince Alessan of Tigana, last of his line after the war claimed his father and brothers, and his small group of supporters as they travel the country under the guise of musicians and merchants, working to manipulate the balance of power and ultimately establish a peninsula free of both tyrants with Tigana's name restored. We also see events at Brandin's court through the eyes of Dianora, a Tiganese woman who made her way into Brandin's harem on a vengeance mission of her own only to find her heart torn between love of her land and love of the king she came to kill. Her actions provide a number of turning points in the political situation.

The book flirts with but successfully avoids many fantasy cliches. We have Devin, a gifted young singer who learns a secret about his heritage and is caught up in events much bigger than himself, but he is not any kind of Chosen One, nor does he turn out to be improbably good at fighting despite a lack of training. (He is agile and a great sprinter, and decent at picking locks, but no warrior, and in fact is completely out of his depth in the few combat situations he encounters.) We also have Catriana, a prickly young woman his age with whom he instantly gets off on the wrong foot. Must she be his love interest? No! In fact, the plot-relevent sexual encounter they have early in the book causes considerable (non-romantic) tension between them. She isn't a "spunky warrior maiden" either -- she is a strong character with immense courage, but is much more interested in rebelling against the oppressive regime than against cultural gender roles.

A number of themes are explored in depth. Tigana delves into memory, identity, family, friendship, patriotism, and moral ambiguity on the part of a large number of major characters including ones on the "good" side. It also has one of the most interesting thematic uses of sex I've encountered in fantasy literature, instead of the consequence-free promiscuity so prevalent in the genre. Here, loss of freedom and identity drastically affects the characters' capacity for love and intimacy, and so nearly all the sex that happens in the book, whether described or mentioned as happening off-screen, is debased in some way: incest, prostitution, seduction as a cover for something else, or varying impediments to proper consent. The one time it is depicted in a wholly positive light (a literally otherworldly encounter between Baerd and his love interest) marks a turning point both in his character arc and the story as a whole.

The story is engaging, and there are some wonderful moments in the book. Devin's introduction to his heritage moves me every time. I adore every scene with the merchant baron Rovigo and his family. Dianora's ring-dive is wonderful. And the long-awaited triumph of one particular character is one of the most crowning moments in any book, particularly through Simon Vance's delivery of the line in the audiobook recording, and particularly because unlike every other character of significance you never get to see inside that one's head. It's so good I don't want to spoil it. The twist at the end is pretty brilliant, too (again, no spoilers here!).

That's not to say the book is flawless. Alberico is such a complete nutjob that he stands out painfully among the complex, multidimensional rest of the cast. Devin's kinky nocturnal adventure at Castle Borso, while thematically interesting as discussed above especially contrasted with Baerd's encounter that same night, seems out of character for his thoughtful nature and budding affection for Rovigo's daughter, and while Kay's depictions of sex are generally quite tasteful, this one seems a bit gratuitously explicit. Alienor's fabled promiscuity also seems culturally (and biologically) out of place.

But probably the book's greatest weakness has to do with Dianora. She is a wonderful character, and the style in which her sections are written, essentially a tapestry of backstory woven into present events, is distinctive and haunting. It is through her eyes that we learn the most about events following Tigana's fall, and it is her decisions through the course of the book that set up some of the most significant events in the plot. Unfortunately, we know she loves Brandin, but we don't know how she came to love him. And given she is a character so immersed in her memories of the fall, not learning this makes it harder to understand her motivation for her actions in the present.

Those flaws aside, it's a great book that stands up to repeated enjoyment. I recommend it, and I particularly recommend the unabridged audiobook read by Simon Vance, which we got from audible.com. I've listened to it several times and actually had to look up name spellings for this review as I haven't actually read it. (If you haven't heard anything read by Simon Vance, I highly recommend that in general, too. The man could read the phone book and make it sound good.)

Score: 8/10.

Because I was whining about bad liturgical music.

This is exhibit A of pretty much the exact opposite of contemporary liturgical music.



The hobbit and I, renaissance choral music fangirls that we are, have at least four recordings of this piece by various groups. There's something about the Tallis Scholars though. They are to other choirs what Swarovski is to other crystal. Others may be very nice, but there's just something giving an extra sparkle. (That this was recorded live at St Mary Major certainly doesn't hurt either.)

What's with the hippy music? Seriously?

At work yesterday, we had a CD on the spinner of Christian hits from the 50s to today. It was a three disc set, and we had the first disc in, which was the totally retro one. Mostly your basic 60s faux-folk.

The next disc to play was the demo CD of the three new English mass settings in the Celebrate With Song booklet put out by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the only three that will be permitted in English in Canada besides the new ICEL chant.

Why, why, why was there basically no difference in style between the two?

The three new settings are awful, particularly the Glorias. All three are ugly, all three use the annoying gimmick of having the cantor or choir sing the "verses" and everyone else joins in on the repeating "glory to God" chorus. It's a single continuous prayer! An antiphonal style is all right once in a while, if it is well done, but I really don't want to spend week after week listening to one or a few people crooning along to a guitar or keyboard in between repeats of the "chorus."

That easy-listening faux-folk style may have been what all the hip young folks were into when the current generation of bishops was hip and young, but it is stale and dated now. It's okay in moderation, but it's the musical equivalent of white bread: bland, kind of lacking in both texture and substance, and a steady diet of it is dull and unpleasant.

It also adds insult to injury by being both bland and not particularly singable. All three settings involve one or more of the following in the verses to make sure the congregation isn't tempted to try singing along: gratuitous rhythmic irregularities and/or accidentals, weird interval jumps and melodies that aren't particularly melodic, lines that repeat almost the same so that you'll get the second time wrong when it changes, and notes that are too high for the average non-soprano.

If you want to make music for the assembly to sing, make it singable by everyone, which is not the same as taking what some dude with a guitar sang and transcribing it complete with rhythmic idiosyncracies. If you want to make music that's too challenging for the whole assembly, at least make it interesting. We have an amazing heritage of liturgical music. If you want a Gloria sung by the choir instead of the assembly, teach the choir some freakin' Palestrina!

Literary Rant – Part the first

One of the reasons I started this blog was so I could air some of my rants to people other than The Heather (who’s heard them all before).

By way of background, my academic studies were in Comparative Literature. I usually say I have 2.5 degrees in the subject, as I completed my Masters, but ran away screaming a few years into my PhD. My abortive thesis would have been on images of the sacred in contemporary children’s fantasy, which hopefully gives you a bit of a sense of what I like to read.

And here’s what bugs me: people don’t know how to read. I don’t mean they’re not literate, I mean they don’t know how to understand what they’re reading.

A good example of this is the criticism often levied at works like the Harry Potter series. One of the popular complaints against the books is that they contain magic, that magic = occult, that occult = evil, and that therefore Harry Potter = evil. Now I’ll be the first to agree that there are valid criticisms you can level against J K Rowling’s work, but this is not one of them. It also strikes a nerve with me because it’s hard to make the argument above without indicting all of fantasy literature.

Literature builds worlds. Even the most realistic of novels isn’t actually set in the real world; it’s set in a fictionalized version of the world where the events of the story happen. Fantasy (and indeed all speculative fiction) makes this more explicit by creating worlds that differ markedly from the one we live in. Magic is there to set the world of the story apart, to make it clear that this is not our world. There is a great advantage to this, as it lets us see with fresh eyes, and to approach familiar things in a new way.

Whatever else magic may do in a story such world-building is one of its primary functions. When the reader is aware of magic functioning in this way, I think there is little danger that the magic in a story like Harry Potter will lead someone into real occultism.

Readers need to be aware of the genre of what they’re reading because it’s impossible to effectively interpret a work without understanding how it uses its own conventions. Just as we wouldn’t read poetry and prose the same way so we shouldn’t read The Lord of the Rings the same way we read Sense and Sensibility.

This problem doesn’t just effect how we read fiction; it also has a huge bearing on how we read the Bible. Some critics of Christianity, and indeed some Christians themselves, argue that the Bible in its entirety must be taken as literal historical fact. According to this view the moment one attempts to interpret one biblical text as figurative one invalidates any possibility of reading another biblical text as literal.

But the Bible isn’t a monolithic text; it’s composed of 73 books written in a variety of literary genres and forms, each with their own conventions. We need to understand how these genres and forms (some of which are very foreign to a modern reader) use language before we can start to figure out what they mean. Just as we wouldn’t read Psalm 23 the same way we read Romans so we shouldn’t read Genesis the same way we read Luke.

Installation mass for our new pastor

After multiple decades of being served by Franciscans, and in fact multiple decades of being served by the same pastor, at the end of June, our parish got in a new group of priests, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. Today, we had a special mass to formally install our new pastor.

You may never have been to an installation mass. Nearly all the people I talked to at the reception in the church hall afterwards had never seen one. I certainly never had, even though I have attended parishes that have had multiple changes of pastor while I attended. I think this is a shame, because it was beautiful.

It involved the profession of faith and oath of fidelity, which is made up of the Nicene Creed and a lot of statements about submitting to the teachings and authority of the Church. It felt like something between a renewal of baptismal promises and a renewal of wedding vows. I told him afterwards that it was actually kind of romantic, like he was renewing spousal promises to the Church.

Then our auxiliary bishop took him around to different places in the church corresponding to various aspects of his pastoral ministry: the baptismal font, the reconciliation room, a table with our oil for Anointing of the Sick, the pulpit, and the altar. At each station, he asked our pastor if he would faithfully exercise this particular ministry, and then asked all of us in attendance if we would do our part (by presenting our children for the sacraments of initiation, seeking reconciliation, praying for and with our pastor, availing ourselves of Anointing of the Sick and sending for a priest to minister to the dying when necessary, etc.). Finally he sat our new pastor down in the presider's chair and declared that he was officially installed as our new pastor.

The mass was mainly in English, but given we are a heavily Italian parish (two of our five weekend masses are in Italian) there were bilingual elements. The Gospel was proclaimed in both Italian and English, the bishop managed a few sentences of the homily in Italian, and a number of the hymns and mass responses were in Italian. To crown the whole affair, the bishop gave the final blessing in Latin. Our special masses are often bilingual like this, and I think it's a lovely way to bring the whole parish together.

I've got to say, it was both moving and edifying. What a great catechetical moment for the parish, to get a grand tour of what it means to be a pastor and what we the faithful are called to do as a parish community! And if I had been a young man nursing a potential vocation to the priesthood, I imagine I would have found it especially meaningful (I did hear there were a couple of seminarians in attendance). Hearing an explicit declaration of fidelity to the Magisterium was pretty cool too.

This is authentic community-building. You don't need embarrassing party games, liturgical impromptus, or piling laypeople on the altar willy-nilly. A formal binding together of priest and people to support each other in their mission as Christians, followed by cake in the parish hall, works pretty darn well in my view.

Inaugural post, yay!

In the beginning, two nerds created the blog. And the blog was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the page.

And then they said, "let the blog be filled with random posts of whatever we feel like writing about. The oddity, and the nerdity, and discussing all the creeping things that creep upon the earth. Also books and video games and theology and stuff."

And they said, "Once there's a post on the page, however dumb, it will no longer be an intimidating empty blog."

And they saw that it was good.