The Magician of Tiger Castle

The book opens with Anatole in the present day, having recently gone on a tour of Tiger Castle, but most of the book takes place five hundred years in the past. Why do you think the author included the first chapter? What does it convey that would be lost if the novel just began with chapter 2?

Anatole sees himself as a dignified, brilliant, and much underappreciated magician/physician/scientist. How much of that is true, and how much is self-delusion and boastfulness?

Princess Tullia is described as “asymmetrical,” with one brown eye and the other blue. Why do you think Anatole attributes different emotions or feelings to Tullia’s brown eye versus her blue eye?

Does Anatole’s experimentation on a prisoner in the dungeon seem ethical? If not, why do you think we root for him anyway? Does it make a difference that Pito agreed to be the subject of the experiments if it will help Tullia? How do these actions make us feel about him as a character?

When Pito is facing impending execution and Anatole tells Pito he’s there to help him, why do you think Pito cuts him off, rejecting “false hope”?

When Anatole first asks Pito if he’s in love with Tullia, his answer is, “How could I be?” The second time he’s asked, he says, “How could I not be?” Are these answers contradictory? What does Pito mean?

Why couldn’t Anatole tell Tullia about the memory potion? If he could have told her, do you think she would have agreed to it?

Anatole, Tullia, and Pito spend some time in a monastery. What do you think of the abbot’s assertion that it is only through an ordinary and dull routine that true enlightenment can be achieved?

At one point in the monastery, Tullia tells Anatole that she fears Pito has fallen in love with her. Has he? Or is it wishful thinking on her part? When do you think Pito and Tullia truly developed feelings again for each other?

All in all, did Anatole’s tamperings make things better or worse?