“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

Queens’ Play by Dorothy Dunnett
Vintage (1997) (First published 1964)
432 pages

This is the second book in Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. To put things simply (and to avoid any spoilers whatsoever for this or the first book), let’s just say that in this instalment, Francis Crawford of Lymond goes to France.

Uh.

Now I’m stuck. I want to keep these things spoiler-free, but at the same time I just want to flail about. Let’s mention the first line then, since everyone does. It goes: “She wanted Crawford of Lymond.” (And I thought, with an exasperated huff, startling the person standing beside me in the bookstore, who doesn’t?, and I just know that anyone who had enjoyed the first book was thinking the same thing.) But then you notice who it is who wants Lymond and for what, and you can’t help but feel sorry for poor old Tom Erskine, who just happens to be there at the moment. I like Tom Erskine. And his wife Margaret. Come to think of it, what this particular book lacks is strong primary female characters. Thankfully this is remedied most wonderfully in the following books.

Whatever I said about this first book still applies here: there are still shenanigans (though I can’t quite remember if the Spanish make any appearances here — perhaps not — but we definitely have the Irish) and impersonations and court intrigue and people quoting stuff, but for some reason this was easier to read than The Game of Kings. Perhaps it’s because I know what to expect, and was able to simply ignore the quotes and the French phrases and the many people named Janet and Margaret and Mary and all the lords and ladies with titles that were pretty much indistinguishable to me and Lymond’s theatrics. Not that his theatrics are necessarily a bad thing — it was just that his behaviour left me confounded for most of the time in the first book. And his self-destructive tendencies. And this strange, strange behaviour of expecting no one would ever understand him and this habit of never asking for help.

The ending of this book didn’t quite pack a punch as The Game of Kings did, and I think this is the last book you’d be able to finish without desperately wanting the next book in the series. Finishing the next book, The Disorderly Knights, without Pawn in Frankincense in hand would just be pure torture.

Also! There are elephants in this book!

Ah, I give up with the no-spoilers policy. Continue with caution!

Continue reading Queens’ Play by Dorothy Dunnett »

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
Penguin Books (1999) (First published 1961)
510 pages

I am tempted to just keyboard smash instead of trying to say anything coherent about this book.

The Game of Kings is the first book in a six-book series, collective known as The Lymond Chronicles. The first book is set in 1540s Scotland, a time period and place that I’m not familiar with, along with actual historical figures that are, at most, terribly vague to my memory. Mary Queen of Scots is a four-year-old child, and tensions are high between Scotland and England.

Let’s get these two facts straight: I love this book, and I love the whole series. How accessible it is to everyone, I have no idea. Most (all?) of my attempts at recommending this book have fallen flat, and I don’t blame anyone who gives up after the first few pages (though I have to restrain myself from begging them to try again, ha). I started the book some time in mid-January and only finished it at the end of February and probably gave up about four or five times myself before I actually got past that first chapter.

That doesn’t sound like a glowing recommendation, does it? Somehow I feel obligated to warn people before they start this book — like I said in a comment to Renay earlier, most people are used to me recommending YA and SF/F titles, and this is nothing like I’ve recced before, I guess. (I can’t name the last book I read that was set in a similar time period. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything set in a similar time period. I can’t recall what prompted me to start the series in the first place. It must have been a rec, but I can’t remember who it was from.) And Dorothy Dunnett certainly doesn’t coddle her readers — this book was hard. The prose is dense, but it’s not dense just for the sake of it; there’s a point for giving all that information. You want a challenging read — here, have this book. Background information from the author is almost non-existent, and when she gives it, she gives it in trickles, and there are quotes in Latin and French scattered all around, and there are literary references everywhere. I wondered if I was supposed to get any of these — my French is poor and my knowledge of the Classics pretty much amounted to nothing, but I plunged on, and somewhere around page 100 I realised that it didn’t matter — I was enjoying the book way too much to worry about all that and the rest of the book practically flew by.

So I guess my advice is this: if you start this book (why not? it’s AWESOME), please try to get to the end of Part One, VI: Forced Move for a Minor Piece. If you’re not hooked yet, I forgive you for abandoning the book, XD.

asdkkhkl;k I don’t know how else to describe this book. I love it and feel like throwing it across the room (though I’d never — I love books too much for that) in frustration at the same time. Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter, is possibly the most interesting character in fiction ever, historical or not. He’s not real, by the way. When I first started the book I couldn’t even tell who the author was talking about. She — and the rest of the cast — calls him Lymond, or the Master, or Crawford of Lymond, or someone at some instance will call him Mr Crawford, though rarely would anyone call him Francis. It made my head ache when I realised that when people were talking about “Lord Culter” they were actually talking about Lymond’s elder brother Richard, who’s the third Baron Culter. (God help the English and the Scots and whoever else and their peerage system. I don’t think I’ll ever get it straight.) And everyone seems to have multiple titles, and I ended up scratching my head trying to sort them out.

But never mind that. Back to Lymond. Here’s your anti-hero if you ever wanted one. For one thing, he’s an outlaw. Even his mother says so. (His mother is one formidable lady.) His constant efforts to antagonise his brother Richard makes you wonder if he’s quite sane. But still. The intelligence! The good looks! The incessant witty banter! Well, most times it’s just Lymond being witty with the other party sort of just gaping at him in horror because he’s Lymond. You never quite know what Lymond wants — he covers everything with sarcasm and his sharp wit and his damnable quotes.

And there are other characters, many of them. And they are real, fully realised characters: the fictional ones, the historical figures. Everyone is praising on how historically accurate the books are, so I’ll just believe that. Dunnett’s descriptions are lavish, and her action sequences are top notch, and her dialogue just kills me at times. She’s funny. The plot — goodness. I don’t even know how to go about with that — I realised very late what Lymond was trying to accomplish, even if I didn’t quite understand then why he refused to ask for help.

This is very good writing, people! But if I still can’t convince you, here’s what else the book has:

• a lot of people quoting stuff, most times in languages I don’t know, but don’t let that get to you, since there is the Companion, if you insist on knowing!
• a lot of words I don’t know, but there’s always the dictionary!
• very eloquent characters! (I would have voted in the last general elections for anyone who could’ve given a speech like Lymond did at the end of the book.)
• historical references, especially those I don’t get, but there’s always Wikipedia!
• shenanigans, sometimes involving stolen cattle and the Spanish!
• impersonations!
• surprisingly funny dialogue at appropriate times!
• court intrigue!
• sibling rivalries of the deadliest kinds: ie the type you go after your brother with a sword and swear you’d kill him! Most exciting.

I am also quite amazed that the book is being categorised at certain places as historical romance. There’s history, of course, and there is some romance (very little, really, at this point), but some of the old covers sent me rolling with laughter. This one for example, from this page (beware of spoilers in the text in the second link), or this one posted at the LJ community (beware of spoilers in comments). Oh man. I wouldn’t have been caught dead reading anything with those covers, so thank goodness for the new editions, XD.