Art and Illusion

The book explores how art, literature, and imagination create a more ordered and beautiful existence than actual life, with Kennaston's writing and the sigil serving as gateways to a transcendent, idealized reality.

The subtitle 'A Comedy of Evasions' hints at the use of art and illusion as a means of escaping or reinterpreting reality.

Horvendile compares Ettarre to characters from Homer, Sophocles, and medieval romances, suggesting that love requires illusion and mystery.

Horvendile views the jongleurs as 'gay dolls, jerked by invisible wires' and himself as the master who shifts puppets, highlighting the artificial, crafted nature of the world he oversees.

Horvendile's role as puppet-shifter and the lifting of the arras symbolize the manipulation of reality and the illusion of choice.