GG Kay - Tigana: why that ending? (minor spoiler warning)
Andrew C. Plotkin
> Tigana is just the second of Kay's books that I've read (the other being
> A Song for Arbonne), and I may not have caught on to this guy's way of
> thinking yet. My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
> ending to Tigana. I mean everything worked out to a more or less "happy"
> resolution (even the tragic elements are softened by the characters'
> acceptance of their fates) then he makes the riselka (sp?) show up.
> I keep thinking there has to be a point he's trying to make (and I can
> almost but not quite see it)
I figure the point is: Life keeps going. Happily ever after is a
copout by the author. Nothing in a story makes sense if the characters
stop living right after the end. It is an unpardonable, arrogant
offense to the characters to assume that the little narrative *you*
just read is the most important thing in *their* lives.
> So do Kay's endings always do that? Keep you wondering? Is this just his
> trademark or something?
He certainly doesn't ditch this idea in his other books, but it's not
as explicit.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
A.Jante
A Song for Arbonne), and I may not have caught on to this guy's way of
thinking yet. My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
ending to Tigana. I mean everything worked out to a more or less "happy"
resolution (even the tragic elements are softened by the characters'
acceptance of their fates) then he makes the riselka (sp?) show up.
I keep thinking there has to be a point he's trying to make (and I can
voice saying that it's just for effect - you know, like in a horror
movie which which _has_ to end on a sinister note.
So do Kay's endings always do that? Keep you wondering? Is this just his
trademark or something?
TIA,
Alyn
A.Jante
"Andrew C. Plotkin" <erky...@CMU.EDU> wrote:
>"A.Jante" <alyn_n...@sbphrd.com> writes:
<snip>
>> My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
>> I keep thinking there has to be a point he's trying to make (and I can
>> almost but not quite see it)
>I figure the point is: Life keeps going. Happily ever after is a
>copout by the author. Nothing in a story makes sense if the characters
>stop living right after the end. It is an unpardonable, arrogant
>offense to the characters to assume that the little narrative *you*
>just read is the most important thing in *their* lives.
>> So do Kay's endings always do that? Keep you wondering?
>He certainly doesn't ditch this idea in his other books, but it's not
>as explicit.
===========================
That's a good point. I was thinking along the lines of the character's
having "real lives" and in real life good things don't just happen
to the heros, and bad things don't just happen to villains - life just
happens. Which, come to think of it, is not unrelated to your point,
but you put it much better. :)
Anyway, I've got to say that I loved both aSfA & Tigana, and I'm
definitely reading Fionavar & Al-Rassan. But I'm _not_ rushing --
stuff this good has to be savoured.
Alyn
Matthew Hunter
> Tigana is just the second of Kay's books that I've read (the other being
> A Song for Arbonne), and I may not have caught on to this guy's way of
> thinking yet. My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
> ending to Tigana. I mean everything worked out to a more or less "happy"
> resolution (even the tragic elements are softened by the characters'
> acceptance of their fates) then he makes the riselka (sp?) show up.
It's really quite simple.
Tigana ends on that -very- poignant and disturbing note after
neatly resolving most of the plot elements for a single, simple
reason: Real Life doesn't have neat, tied-together endings. Reality
just isn't like that; it goes on. It changes, it builds new conflicts
and new resolutions.
It doesn't just end in a single pat scene.
sa...@hkusa.com
>Tigana is just the second of Kay's books that I've read (the other being
>A Song for Arbonne), and I may not have caught on to this guy's way of
>thinking yet. My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
>ending to Tigana. I mean everything worked out to a more or less "happy"
>resolution (even the tragic elements are softened by the characters'
>acceptance of their fates) then he makes the riselka (sp?) show up.
>I keep thinking there has to be a point he's trying to make (and I can
>almost but not quite see it); on the other hand there's this little
>voice saying that it's just for effect - you know, like in a horror
>movie which which _has_ to end on a sinister note.
>So do Kay's endings always do that? Keep you wondering? Is this just his
>trademark or something?
Y'know, I was just wondering the same thing two weeks ago as I read
_Tigana_ for the second time. Now that those three guys have seen the
riselka, one of them will die. Any ideas as to which? It kind of bugs
me that there's no indication which one, and the sinister ending note
seems incongruous with the relatively upbeat ending.
Also, did we ever find out whether earlier in the story two men saw a
riselka (Brendan and his guard) or just one (Brendan)? It's hard to
say, since the guard would have lied if he had seen it and Brendan's
life both took a fork and then ended abruptly, so there's no way (that
I can see) to deduce from what happened to him which of the two
options it was.
-- Sara Lipowitz
Daniel J. Starr
Andrew C. Plotkin <erky...@CMU.EDU> wrote:
>> Tigana is just the second of Kay's books that I've read (the other being
>> A Song for Arbonne), and I may not have caught on to this guy's way of
>> thinking yet. My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
>> ending to Tigana. I mean everything worked out to a more or less "happy"
>> resolution (even the tragic elements are softened by the characters'
>> acceptance of their fates) then he makes the riselka (sp?) show up.
>> I keep thinking there has to be a point he's trying to make (and I can
>> almost but not quite see it)
>
:copout by the author. Nothing in a story makes sense if the characters
:stop living right after the end. It is an unpardonable, arrogant
:offense to the characters to assume that the little narrative *you*
:just read is the most important thing in *their* lives.
For the record: that's true in the case of _Tigana_, but certainly not
in the case of other books by other authors. It just happens that one
of Tigana's primary motifs is "life works out in funny, twisty ways", and
in consequence the "and then another twist came along" ending works much
better than "and thereafter all their lives were simple and content".
By contrast, there are lots of epic fantasy novels where "and at last,
every debt paid off, they received the reward of peace they had earned"
is the precisely appropriate ending. _Tigana_ is a deliberate (and
superbly rendered) exception to that motif, from beginning to end.
Neither Eddings nor Donaldson nor Feist nor Jordan would be improved by
tacking on a gratuitous "and then something else crazy happened!" twist at
the end.
--
Daniel Starr | "You'd get confused too, if you had to climb down
dst...@math.mit.edu | a 100-dimensional hill..." - W. S.
David Thomas Richard Given
Matthew Hunter <mhu...@iglou.com> wrote:
> It's really quite simple.
> Tigana ends on that -very- poignant and disturbing note after
>neatly resolving most of the plot elements for a single, simple
>reason: Real Life doesn't have neat, tied-together endings. Reality
>just isn't like that; it goes on. It changes, it builds new conflicts
>and new resolutions.
Yes, but I read for entertainment. If I want Real Life, all I have to do
is look around. I don't *like* books which spend three hundred pages
building scenario, plot, characters and tension, and then do the
metaphorical equivalence of having all the main characters run over by a bus.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why do people surf the Information Superhighway? Won't they get run over?
http://www-hons-cs.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dg
Sun-Earther David Daton Given of Lochcarron
Saint Erroneous
>> Tigana is just the second of Kay's books that I've read (the other being
>> A Song for Arbonne), and I may not have caught on to this guy's way of
>> thinking yet. My question is - I can't figure out why he tacked on that
>> ending to Tigana. I mean everything worked out to a more or less "happy"
>> resolution (even the tragic elements are softened by the characters'
>> acceptance of their fates) then he makes the riselka (sp?) show up.
> It's really quite simple.
> Tigana ends on that -very- poignant and disturbing note after
>neatly resolving most of the plot elements for a single, simple
>reason: Real Life doesn't have neat, tied-together endings. Reality
>just isn't like that; it goes on. It changes, it builds new conflicts
>and new resolutions.
> It doesn't just end in a single pat scene.
In principle, I agree with you. Ending books with all the loose-ends tied
carefully together, with no unresolved elements is a bit dull, and I
generally approve of books whose authors manage to carefully remind the
reader that this is not _the_ end, just an end (for there are no endings on
the wheel of publishing).
Unfortunately Kay does it so _badly_ at the end of Tigana that it hurts.
As another poster has already pointed out, it's the metaphorical
equivalent of pulling out a shotgun and blowing 3 main characters away
(well - one of them anyway), for no more reason than to say "life goes on".
Cheap point, imho, and I sure he's capable of doing it in a less
indulgent fashion.
Someone of my friends like the way it ended, but it was just so unsubtle I
found it a personal insult. It wasn't poignant for me: if I hadn't been
reading a friend's copy I'd have thrown it across the room and started
swearing at it...
Bloody clumsy end to a bloody good book. Tastes, they do vary. :)
-michael
--
-St. michael (mainly) Erroneous http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sa/personal/mpv
"You have been changed. You are Joshua. That is your name. It is also your
access-code. All the answers you will ever need are available to you.
All you have to do is say your name." - Gap 2, Stephen Donaldson
Marcus Ogden
>
>In principle, I agree with you. Ending books with all the loose-ends tied
>carefully together, with no unresolved elements is a bit dull, and I
>generally approve of books whose authors manage to carefully remind the
>reader that this is not _the_ end, just an end (for there are no endings
>on the wheel of publishing).
>
>Unfortunately Kay does it so _badly_ at the end of Tigana that it hurts.
>As another poster has already pointed out, it's the metaphorical
>equivalent of pulling out a shotgun and blowing 3 main characters away
>(well - one of them anyway), for no more reason than to say "life goes
>on".
>
>Cheap point, imho, and I sure he's capable of doing it in a less
>indulgent fashion.
>
>Someone of my friends like the way it ended, but it was just so unsubtle I
>found it a personal insult. It wasn't poignant for me: if I hadn't been
>reading a friend's copy I'd have thrown it across the room and started
>swearing at it...
>
>Bloody clumsy end to a bloody good book. Tastes, they do vary. :)
Well, they do! :) I really liked it myself, because it was a psychological
shock... one last twist after all the others, catching me by surprise when
I was innocently skimming through a "happily ever after" epilogue.
I didn't find it "cheap", "indulgent" or "bloody clumsy" - it was a lot
more interesting than "blowing a character away with a shotgun". We don't
know who is going to die, how, when, or why. Think of the suspense - how
would the three characters deal with this? I thought it was a really
original way to finish the story, and it rounds the story off poetically by
returning a third time to the "one/two/three" riselka concept.
Anyway, in real life and in medieval fantasy, people do die suddenly and
for no particular reason. Kay has shown he has no problem with having major
characters die suddenly and unexpectedly (try "The Wandering Fire"!), and I
think it's a breath of fresh air in the genre. "Tigana" kept me thinking a
long time after I'd finished it, and this was just one of the reasons why.
(By the way, I think there is something in the rasfw FAQ about this very
issue - can't remember what it says, but those following this thread might
want to take a look.)
Marcus Ogden <mw...@cam.ac.uk>
Matthew Hunter
> Yes, but I read for entertainment. If I want Real Life, all I have to do
> is look around. I don't *like* books which spend three hundred pages
> building scenario, plot, characters and tension, and then do the
> metaphorical equivalence of having all the main characters run over by a bus.
Fine; you read for entertainment. If you don't like that aspect of
the book, fine. It was an integral part of the meaning Donaldson
intended to express, and in my reading of the work, it is a very
poignant moment.
YMMV.
And frankly, I really don't care if you don't like Tigana's ending.
Someone -- perhaps you, I don't recall -- mentioned that they didn't
know why it was there, and I answered with my thoughts... not liking
it is an entirely different matter.
Matthew Hunter
> In article <19960319.76...@shadow.res.cmu.edu>,
> Matthew Hunter <mhu...@iglou.com> wrote:
> > It doesn't just end in a single pat scene.
> Unfortunately Kay does it so _badly_ at the end of Tigana that it hurts.
Badly? I thought it was rather elegant. The riselka is a firmly
established part of the mythology of the area, and it certainly
doesn't cut things off so abruptly as the aforementioned bus or
shotgun. The events which are indicated by the riselka aren't even
hinted at, so it isn't even an onscene bus or shotgun -- just a hint
of things to come.
A^3
From an interview with Guy Kay:
Q: The end of Tigana with three men seeing a riselka suggests to some a
hook for a sequel, to others merely an indication that "life goes on...".
Do you have plans to return to the Palm?
A: The second theory is entirely correct. To put it another way, I wanted
the sense that this whole very long story is NOT the whole story of these
lives. No sequel was planned or hinted at. I think most thoughtful readers
picked up on the point, but there have been an awful lot who have been for
the next volume. This depresses me, actually.
--
TTFN, A^3 ***************E-mail*a...@dcs.st-and.ac.uk*****************
***Mundus Vult Decipi****S-mail*40 Fife Park, St Andrews KY16 9UE****
****************************Tel*+44-1334-463268***+44-589-464141*****
********Home Page: <http://www-theory.cs.st-and.ac.uk/~aaa/>*********
Saint Erroneous
>Matthew Hunter (mhu...@shadow.res.cmu.edu) wrote:
>: On 1 Apr 1996 23:05:54 GMT, Saint Erroneous (m...@st-andrews.ac.uk) wrote:
>: > Unfortunately Kay does it so _badly_ at the end of Tigana that it hurts.
>: Badly? I thought it was rather elegant. The riselka is a firmly
>: established part of the mythology of the area, and it certainly
>: doesn't cut things off so abruptly as the aforementioned bus or
>: shotgun. The events which are indicated by the riselka aren't even
>: hinted at, so it isn't even an onscene bus or shotgun -- just a hint
>: of things to come.
>From an interview with Guy Kay:
>Q: The end of Tigana with three men seeing a riselka suggests to some a
>hook for a sequel, to others merely an indication that "life goes on...".
>Do you have plans to return to the Palm?
>A: The second theory is entirely correct. To put it another way, I wanted
>the sense that this whole very long story is NOT the whole story of these
>lives. No sequel was planned or hinted at. I think most thoughtful readers
>picked up on the point, but there have been an awful lot who have been for
>the next volume. This depresses me, actually.
Which, unfortunately, doesn't tell us anything about how GGK feels about
the style in which he did the ending, except that he thinks stupid
readers are stupid...
Hmmm. Still think he could have done it better, and in fewer authorial
capital letters.
Nice quote though.
-michael
--
-St. michael (mainly) Erroneous http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sa/personal/mpv
"When I'm in trouble the only thing I can think of is to hurt myself.
Self destruct - I need a better answer." - Gap 4, Donaldson