“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

This isn’t a specific review of any of the Dunnett books listed here, since the questions were general. I’ll cover the whole series generally then, since starting with the first un-reviewed book, The Disorderly Knights which is the third book in the series, doesn’t really make sense.

Here’s an overview: The Lymond Chronicles is a series of six books, following the journey of one Francis Crawford of Lymond beginning with The Game of Kings in 1547 Scotland and ends in Checkmate in 1558.

I’m actually quite nervous to answer the questions on these books! I’m afraid I’ll do Dorothy Dunnett an injustice or scare people away with my adoring fangirling!

Okay. Here we go. Here’s a question from Marg:

» I am interested to see that you are reading the Dunnett books. I intend to read them at some point but I must also confess that I am somewhat intimidated by them. I have heard that the language takes a long time to get used to. Did you find that to be the case, and do you have any advice for any of us scaredy cats who haven’t read Dunnett yet.

Oh, please do read them. The language took a little time to get used to, but I think it’s more acclimating to Dunnett’s style than it being “difficult” language. And that wasn’t really my main hurdle. I had a problem of being unable to figure out what was happening in the first thirty or so pages, but that resolved itself in time. My real problem was the quotes scattered around — everyone seemed to be quoting someone else (when I first started the books it seemed like the whole of Scotland was inhabited by people blessed with a classical education and with photographic memories which they used to throw quotes at each other in five different languages) and I got frustrated because I couldn’t understand what they were saying or what they were referring to. I also wasn’t familiar with the time period, so references to events went over my head.

My advice: don’t let that scare you! You can just ignore the quotes and the text that aren’t in English — it’s not that they don’t matter, but the story doesn’t rely on you understanding everything. Besides, it makes for interesting discussion later! Not knowing the history of Scotland didn’t cause all that much trouble to me; you find yourself piecing together things after a bit. Also, if you find yourself bewildered by the many characters who appear in the first few chapters, don’t worry too much. I think that happens to everyone, and most people are able to reconcile who did what when the characters appear again. Also it’s okay to feel like you want to throttle Lymond every now and then — especially at the beginning when you have no idea what the heck he is up to — he could be very frustrating at times. ;)

And if you’re the type who avoids spoilers at all costs, I’d advice skipping reading the back covers. Especially if, say, you’re on book three, don’t read what’s on the back of the next volumes. Don’t even read any of the blurb on The Disorderly Knights, even when you’re reading that volume. Seriously.

And a question from Joy:

» Re Dorothy Dunnett: I’ve never read anything by her but I’ve heard things that make me lean towards trying one. You seem to favor her, what would you say to me to cause me to lean harder towards her? If your comments relate to storytelling technique no much the better.

I favour her very much. Very. I’ve never been much of a historical fiction reader (the historical fiction book everyone and her mother has read — The Other Boleyn Girl? I still haven’t read it), but after picking up her books, I’ve been searching for other books in the same genre. I think Dunnett sort of spoiled me — now I compare the books I’m reading (historical fiction or not) against her work, and a lot of them fall short. Seriously. She’s that good a storyteller!

So I am using the rest of Joy’s questions with hopes that I’ll be able to explain myself better:

» How was Point-of-View handled? Was there a single POV character or did it alternate among two or more. Was it always clear whose eyes and mind were filtering?

The books are all in the third person. POV changes quite often, sometimes within a few paragraphs. It’s still limited third person POV, though. And it’s not quite clear, sometimes, whose POV it is — some of the more interesting and entertaining discussions over at the related Yahoo!Group at Marzipan/Game of Kings are about trying to determine who’s thinking what! (I’m pretty sure Dunnett did that on purpose, with a twinkle in her eye. Just to leave us wondering.) Surprisingly, Lymond is the one we get the least time from his POV — very rarely we get to see what Lymond actually thinks about what is going on — most of the story is “filtered” through the eyes of the people around him.

» How was language used to set tone and mood?

The first book, The Game of Kings, opens in 1547 Scotland and the six books span across more than ten years, from Scotland to France to Malta to the Ottoman Empire to Russia and back to Scotland again. I felt like I actually went to those places with Lymond (yes, I know I sound like a cliché). Dunnett writes everything in painstaking detail, and her research about the period is meticulous. As for the mood, well. There are scenes I keep rereading in delight, savouring the details. The funny moments are still funny, even when I reread them. And then there are chapters I can’t bear to reread because I know it’ll send me this close to tears (and I don’t cry easily) and leave me sad and miserable the whole day.

Yes, she’s that good a writer.

» Was the prose dense or spare? Were sentences generally simple or complex?

(It’s hard to answer these questions when I’m not sure what I’m comparing the books against.) It’s not really that dense, honest. The language isn’t really that hard to get into, despite contrary things you might hear. Here, have a sample from the opening of The Disorderly Knights:

On the day that his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey marrying his aunt.

News of the English attack came towards the end of the ceremony when, by good fortune, young Scott and his aunt Grizel were by all accounts man and wife. There was no bother over priorities. As the congregation hustled out of the church, led by the bridegroom and father, and spurred off on the heels of the messenger, the new-made bride and her sister watched them go.

“I’m daft,” said Grizel Beaton to Janet Beaton, straightening her headdress where her bridegroom’s helmet had knocked it cockeyed. [. . .]

Who wouldn’t want to read a book with an opening like that?

» How was metaphor used? Were associations fresh or did they tend toward cliché? Did they add to your understanding of the theme?

Not often enough to make me notice, so I guess they were used sparingly. And I don’t know about clichés, I can’t remember any. And it adds to understanding, I’d say, especially after I read the discussion on the Yahoo!Group about leitmotifs and associations Dunnett used consistently throughout the series, though I can’t say I really noticed it when I first read the books.

» What was the central or organizing theme?

Redemption, I think. A lot of other things factor in, like love and loyalty but . . . well. It’s one man’s journey to redeem himself (to himself?) and to reconcile himself and, uh, a whole lot of things that would be spoiler-ish, with his country and his family and the ones he love and, well, himself.

. . . A lot of sense that made.

» How does the title relate to the story? Was it fitting?

Yep, they fit all right. The whole series has a chess motif to the titles, in order: The Game of Kings, Queens’ Play, The Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle and Checkmate. Lymond is also a master chess player, and um, there’s a lot of strategising involved. Also, there’s a really important chess game somewhere in the books. Um.

.

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Okay. Now I think I have scared away half of my six-people readership. XD

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Sceptre 2008 (first published 2006)
288 pages

As a part of Weekly Geeks 12, I’ll be posting reviews as answers to questions posted at this earlier post here!

A question from bybee:

» I heard that Black Swan Green is a coming-of-age novel. Is that correct?

Indeed it is! It’s a lot of other things too, but mostly it’s the story of thirteen months of the life of thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor in a small village in the English countryside in 1982. Margaret Thatcher is prime minister, the Falklands War is going on, and Jason struggles with his life: growing up, tolerating an older sister, hiding the fact that he stammers, avoiding bullies, and trying to decipher those strange creatures known as girls.

It also touches other social themes like bullying and divorce and racial prejudice and finding acceptance among your peers and doing the right thing, but yes, it is a coming-of-age novel. (There have been comparisons to Catcher in the Rye. I have no comment on that, because I haven’t read it!)

And questions from Joy Renee:

» How was Point-of-View handled? Was there a single POV character or did it alternate among two or more. Was it always clear whose eyes and mind were filtering?

The book was in the first person, Jason’s point of view. No problems with alternating POVs in this one. I really liked him — he made me cringe and smile and remember how awkward things are when you’re thirteen, and how things that don’t seem to matter much to us now were a matter of life and death then.

» How was language used to set tone and mood?

Jason comes off as sometimes awkward but mostly likeable and he does sound like he’s thirteen. (Some of the observations he make might make you wonder if he really is thirteen, though, even when you know he’s a very smart boy.) The language he uses, the description of his everyday life — what music is playing, what cigarettes the older boys are smoking, what David — sorry, for some reason I keep associating the author’s name with the protagonist Jason is having for breakfast — evokes the time period well. (Well, I wasn’t a teenager in the 80s, but it seems real enough to me.) He stammers, and he does his best to hide it from the other kids, knowing that he’ll be the butt of their jokes if he’s ever found out. Despite that, Jason’s also wry and funny and sharp, and he makes you want to root for him to the end.

David Mitchell has a speech impediment himself. I found this article where he talks about language and register and choosing the right words very interesting!

» Was the prose dense or spare? Were sentences generally simple or complex?

Generally it wasn’t so dense. Sentences were quite simple and easy to follow.

» How was metaphor used? Were associations fresh or did they tend toward cliché? Did they add to your understanding of the theme?

I think David Mitchell is one of those rare authors who could get away with any metaphor he wanted to, cliché or not. Seriously, I’ve only read two books by him, this book and number9dream, and I think I have a crush on him. Eeeh, anyway. I’m no good at these things. Here are a few lines from Jason (who also is secretly a poet):

The sequence of doors we passed made me think of all the rooms of my past and my future. The hospital ward I was born in, classrooms, tents, churches, offices, hotels, museums, nursing homes, the room I’ll die in. (Has it been built yet?) Cars’re rooms. So are woods. Skies’re ceilings. Distance’re walls. Wombs’re rooms made of mothers. Graves’re rooms made of soil.

» What was the central or organizing theme?

Growing up, I guess. Finding out who you are. Pretty much your standard coming-of-age story. :)

» How does the title relate to the story? Was it fitting?

Black Swan Green is the name of the village Jason lives in. The joke is that there are no swans in the village, black or otherwise. The whole book is set in Black Swan Green.

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Black Swan Green was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007. This is also my fourth book for the Man Booker Challenge!

I still am stuck in my writing funk! Tragic, really.

But I’m participating in this week’s Weekly Geeks, because maybe it would spur me into posting some reviews. Here’s what we have to do:

1. In your blog, list any books you’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet. If you’re all caught up on reviews, maybe you could try this with whatever book(s) you finish this week.
2. Ask your readers to ask you questions about any of the books they want. In your comments, not in their blogs. Most likely, people who will ask you questions will be people who have read one of the books or know something about it because they want to read it.
3. Later, take whichever questions you like from your comments and use them in a post about each book. Link to each blogger next to that blogger’s question(s).
4. Visit other Weekly Geeks and ask them some questions!

So ask questions! I’ll answer them the best I can! This will probably also end in tragedy, since only, like, six people read this blog. XD

Here are the books I still haven’t reviewed:

• Possession: A Romance by AS Byatt
• Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett
• The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett
• Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett
• The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
• House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
• The Changeover by Margaret Mahy
• Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A McKillip
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
• number9dream by David Mitchell
• East by Edith Pattou
• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• Just in Case by Meg Rosoff
• Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

(Edit: Ack, I forgot the Lymond books. They’re in the list now.)

I’m currently reading Listening at the Gate by Betsy James. Feel free to ask questions about that one too.

Promises to myself, hah. I should try harder to keep those.

Statistics — not terribly interesting!

It is now July! I still have a whole backlog of stuff from the beginning of May to post. I’m not entirely sure if I’ll ever get to those. It’s been a combination of lethargy and general disinterest in a lot of things (including books, imagine that) that’s been bringing me down lately, and I can’t seem to shake it off. Oh well.

OK. Just checking in here, then. At the end of June, I’ve read forty-two books this year, eighteen of those from April onwards. Not as much as the first quarter, but that’s not really surprising since I read only three books in June. Still, the one-book-a-week average that I’ve been hoping to achieve looks like it will be met (if I ever start sitting down and concentrating on a book again, that is) so this is a good thing!

There’s also a new page listing the books I’ve read since 2007, sorted by author’s name, here.

There’s still no clear favourite book of 2008, aside from the whole Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett (I don’t think I can pick a favourite book out of the whole series and it probably doesn’t really matter; aside from the first two books, there’s no way for the other books to stand alone and make sense) which still comes out at the top of the list. Other books worth noting from Q2: David Mitchell’s number9dream, John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Challenges updates

I don’t join many challenges, simply because fixed reading lists scare me. Sure, I have a “to read” list and I like having it around (very useful when you’re stumped and find yourself quite unable to choose a book from the library!) but I deviate from it all the time.

But anyway. I joined Renay’s 342,745 Ways to Herd Cats challenge, mostly because, well, it’s Nay, and when was the last time I said no to her crazy ideas?, and because it has an awesome list of book recommendations. I like rec lists. It makes you notice all sorts of new books you never even heard of before. And the challenge was simple, recommend ten books you love (my list is here) and read at least three books from the 632-item rec list. I actually finished reading and reviewing three books, but I think I’ll just go on adding books to the list until the challenge ends on 30 November.

For the 888 challenge, I’ve read thirty books out of the minimum fifty-six — a little more than half of the list. Which is good, I suppose, since we’re at the middle of the year, though it’s a bit embarrassing that the “Classics” category still hasn’t been touched yet. I’ve started books — I’m having problems finishing them.

For Dewey’s Man Booker Challenge, I’ve finished three books: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, number9dream by David Mitchell, and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Tentatively, the other three books for the list I’m planning to read are The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Possession by AS Byatt (currently reading and getting a little cross-eyed at the Victorian poetry) and possibly Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard (no, I haven’t given up on it yet). I’d very much like to throw in Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas into the list as well, but I can’t seem to find a copy.

Currently reading

I’m still reading the same books since the last update. Nothing much to say here. The library books are late — they were due on Friday and I was too tired and I hadn’t finished either (sigh), so I decided to go tomorrow instead, possibly renew both Possession (AS Byatt) and East (Edith Pattou). East I haven’t even started. Possession is something of a struggle to read when the Victorian poets make their appearances — I can’t quite concentrate on what’s going on. It leaves me in a sort of “oh, pretty language” kind of daze and I end up not really paying attention to what’s going on.

Game of Kings (the Lymond/Dunnett reading group on Yahoo!Groups) is planning to read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice starting next week as a break after finishing Checkmate (the last Lymond book) before starting Dunnett’s King Hereafter, so I’ll give both books a go, for the sake of following the discussion. I’ll have to admit I’ve never read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice before. Weird, isn’t that?