Fantasy Book Club discussion

This topic is for discussion of various aspects of Tigana.

Does anyone think that the tension in the plot was enhanced through the revelation of the incest between Dianora and Baerd? I found it to be an unnecessary distraction which just annoyed me.

Could the yearning between the two characters be better seated if they were twins for example?

(Note that I am not personally squeamish about such issues but annoying additions that serve no purpose drive me spare).

Geez! Do I have to read this book for a third time to better judge such subtleties? Honestly, I think you're passing judgment on fictional content based upon your own personal opinions. Seriously! Come now! This is fantasy fiction! Anything goes!

Honestly I was icked by it. And thought less of both characters. Although I still liked Baerd. I think it made that there was no resolution to their arc even stranger. You would have thought it would come to play somehow...

No I don't think Fantasy is an "anything goes" genre if it means that the plot is littered with unnecessary side issues and especially if it doesn't add to the story line.

Edited to add: lol. However I do agree that we shouldn't be too serious in pulling this book apart - its not like it's a work of Shakespeare that needs to be analysed to death for high school credits. :)

There is this random sexuality scattered around the story. At the very begining Catriana and Devin, then Alienor and, well, many known and implied characters, Baerd - Dianora, Baerd-Elena .... long list there.And not all of them seems to serve to the story at first. But actually they do.

In his own words, GGK explains:

"The novelist Milan Kundera fed my emerging theme of oppression and survival with his musings about relationship between conquered people and an unstable sexuality: what I have called 'the insurrections of night.' The underlying ideas, for me, had to do with how people rebel when they can't rebel, how we behave when the world has lost its bearings, and how shattered self-respect can ripple through the the most intimate levels of our lives."

At one point Devin says to Alienor "Is this what happens to us? when we are no longer free, is this what happens to our love?" just before leaving her room. Dianora-Baerd story is the an indicator just how far supression can shatter people.

Ena wrote: "There is this random sexuality scattered around the story. At the very begining Catriana and Devin, then Alienor and, well, many known and implied characters, Baerd - Dianora, Baerd-Elena .... long..."

Thank you, Ena, for that informed contribution. Usually, with a writer as high in quality as Kay, various plot elements are meant to serve the story rather than emanating from the personal foibles of the writer.