“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

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.

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
Puffin Books (1983)
304 pages

You know how you pick up at a book not knowing anything about it, and when you finish it, it seems impossible that it ever sat anywhere besides on your “favourites” shelf? Goodnight Mister Tom is one of those books. I was roaming around the bookstore and just randomly picked up the book because I liked the cover (my sister didn’t — I am having serious doubts in how up-to-date my tastes are), and studying it, the cover said it was about an evacuee in the Second World War (cool, I thought, as long it’s not about adventure in the trenches) and that it was a winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award (that must mean it’s some good, I thought).

I got home, flipped through the first few pages before bed, thinking I’ll read it the next weekend. As usual, that didn’t happen — I started reading and I didn’t stop until I finished.

Willie Beech is eight, scrawny, small for his age and extremely timid. At the brink of World War II he is evacuated to Little Weirwold in the English countryside, and finds himself in the care of the gruff, solitary Tom Oakley. Willie is scared of everything when he first arrives — Sammy, Tom’s friendly dog, the horse, the other children, and of course Mister Tom himself. He’s a bad boy, or so his mother has led him to believe, and he keeps expecting Tom to punish him for everything he does. Tom is puzzled by this, but he then sees the bruises covering the boy’s body, and reads the letter the boy’s mother sends along with the belt she says to beat Willie with if he’s bad, he begins to understand a little of Willie’s life with his single mother in London.

If anything, the start of the book reminds me of Johanna Spyri’s Heidi, with the grumpy old grandfather thawing off by stages. But it’s obvious that Tom is a kind old man from the start — he decides to get Willie new clothes and boots, and reads to the boy at night. The folks in the village are amazed to see Tom, who had pretty much been a recluse since his wife died, enquiring in the village about clothes and provisions for the boy and volunteering for watches.

Willie learns about making friends with kids his own age for the first time, getting on very well with Zach, another evacuee, and the other children in the village. He learns how to read and write, and how it feels to be loved. He grows up, both physically and emotionally, but of course he has to go back to London one day. And one day, that day comes, and he returns to London to his mother.

The characters are wonderful and beautifully realised. Will and Mister Tom, of course, and Zach particularly is my favourite. (Each time he goes “I say!” I have to grin.) Will goes through a lot, and when I realise he has to go through more hardship after what had seemed a perfect interlude, I actually groaned and went, “Oh come on, the kid deserves a break!”

The dialogue is written pretty much the way the people speak, but I didn’t mind that. It’s not so hard to get really — just trying reading those lines out loud!

The novel deals with a lot of things: friendship, love, abuse, and life and death. It’s also about family and changes, never giving up and learning to let go. The description of the abuse Will endures isn’t overly graphic, but it’s the aftermath makes my stomach clench. At one point I was thinking that the writer was putting Will through too much, but you have to admire his grit and determination to make it through. Heartwarming and bittersweet at points, this is a book I’d recommend to everyone.

The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Aladdin Paperbacks (1999)
165 pages

One day, I will have to go to Wales. I am a sucker about books set in Wales.

The Grey King is the fourth book in The Dark is Rising sequence. It builds a lot on the previous books, especially The Dark is Rising and at least the very last chapter of Greenwitch. I don’t think this is a book that would bear well to be read out of sequence. To reflect on how compelling this book is, I just went back with the intention to flip through the book to check a few things and ended up flipping through and reading parts of the book till the end. Yes, I have no willpower, I know.

This time the focus of the story is back on Will. We barely see Merriman Lyon and the Drew children play no part at all in this book. When we meet Will Stanton again, he’s recovering from a nasty case of hepatitis. His illness momentary robs his memories of being an Old One and the battle of Light and Dark, and only bits of pieces of the prophecy and the task he’s set out to do. He’s sent to Wales to recuperate, and there he meets Bran Davies and his dog, Cafall, and his memories return on his meeting with Bran.

And Bran is wonderful in his own right. ♥ I don’t know why I have a compulsion to fangirl all the major characters in this series! I swear I’m usually not like this!

This book is beautifully written, atmospheric and dark at times, and it makes me long to see Wales. If previously the ties to Arthurian legend is only given a nod to, here it becomes pivotal to the plot. The Light versus Dark themes aren’t so clear cut any more, John Rowland says it best that the Light can be as unforgiving as the Dark: “at the centre of the Light is a cold, white flame, just as at the centre of the Dark there is a great black pit.” We’ve seen it before with Merriman and the Walker, but here it hits home harder, at least for me, because it’s Will who is caught in the struggle. The other characters are wonderful — John Rowlands and his perceptiveness, Owen Davies and his relationship with his son, Will’s extended family and their kindness, Caradog Prichard with his bad temper and suspicion.

And the ending, the ending. It didn’t matter that I had figured some things out earlier than Will and Bran did, it really didn’t. When I finished the last paragraph I stayed curled up in bed a long time, thinking, caught both in the story and the wonderful prose.

Some spoilers that I can’t help but mention (highlight to read):

I will forever be suspicious of women named “Gwen” in any story that has a connection to Arthurian legend. (I blame you, The Once and Future King! I blame you.) I pretty much went Oh man, surely Bran’s not who I think he is? the moment John Rowlands said that Bran’s mother was called Gwen. To be completely truthful I was even wary of Will’s sister Gwen when she was mentioned in The Dark is Rising, so this can easily be chalked down to me being suspicious of a lot of things!

I love how Susan Cooper is subtle with this, though, and how she doesn’t spell things out.

Greenwitch by Susan Cooper
Aladdin Paperbacks (2000)
147 pages

I loved this book. I guess this is Jane’s book, in a way. Jane was wonderful in it. She’s sensitive, she’s kind, she’s intelligent, and she’s made of a whole lot of things that just make me want to flail around in joy. More evidence of how awesome Jane is: just watch how she treats her brothers and Will, and how she’s both afraid and brave at the same time, and the wish she makes for the Greenwitch. Why can’t we have more strong female characters like Jane in YA fiction?

This is the third book in The Dark is Rising sequence. We’re back in Cornwall, and the Drew children — and Merriman, of course — meet up with Will Stanton, and there’s some tension between the kids, especially between Simon and Barney and Will. Jane keeps trying to patch things up, and it made me grin.

“It’s lovely to be back,” said Jane diplomatically.
. . .
Then Jane said brightly, without looking at her brothers, “Yes, we can.”

Poor old Jane having to deal with all the diplomaticallys and brightlys.

A lot of character growth, Jane and Barney especially, and we get to see Will getting more comfortable being an Old One, but not to a point where he stops being a kid altogether.

The tone of the book feels almost like a bridge between Over Sea, Under Stone and The Dark is Rising. Well written, lovely, and completely engaging. It’s a bit slow at the start, but it picks up pretty steadily after the first chapter. Really fast read, too; I found it surprisingly short (and right now, I’m finding myself running out of things to say about it without ruining the plot). I think I love it best of the whole sequence.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
HarperCollins Children’s Books (2000)
304 pages

I hadn’t meant to reread Howl’s Moving Castle, actually. But my mother came down just before the Eid break, and before she went back home, she asked if we had any books she could borrow. I glanced at my bookshelf (which is different from the house’s bookshelf downstairs) and said, “Well, my books are mostly young adult fiction. Are you okay with those?”

“Anything,” said my mother, “as long as it’s enjoyable.”

I saw the host of Diana Wynne Jones books on my shelf and wondered if my mother still wasn’t sick of kids and magic, and asked her, “Did you like the last Harry Potter book?”

“It was okay. Though Rowling shouldn’t have written the epilogue.”

I grinned, thinking it was well that she was nowhere near any of the fandom’s forums. “Would you mind more magic? I have a few books.” I pulled out a few of the books off the shelf: Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, and Howl’s Moving Castle. My mother would like Howl and Sophie, I thought. “I love this one,” I told her, and she squinted at the cover and went, “Howell’s Moving Castle?”

Heh. “Howl,” I said. “He’s a very handsome wizard. His castle moves. He has a fire demon. He throws tantrums.”

That got my mother’s attention. “Okay, I’ll borrow that one.” And she took it home with her, along with the two Chrestomanci books.

Between the time I offered those books and my mother took them home, they lay on my table, and I realised that I would miss Howl terribly. (I can get absurdly attached to my books sometimes.) So I picked the book up and started to read.

Howl’s Moving Castle was the first Diana Wynne Jones book I ever read and I fell head over heels in love with it. It’s like a fairy tale being turned upside down, with all the unexpected twists to the clichés and going against the fantasy norm. Even the hero and heroine are not typical: there’s a (supposedly) evil wizard, Howl, who lives in the moving castle, who throws tantrums because his hair dye gets all mixed up, and who eats the hearts of young girls for breakfast; and there’s Sophie, the eldest of three sisters who will never have a fortune to seek, being the eldest and all. See: Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid. Fortune always favours the youngest one, right? Sophie is resigned to her fate as a hatter, and spending her days making hats and talking to them. She’s mousy and a bit timid at the start, very much terrified by the moving castle hovering at the edges of her village.

Not very spoilery spoilers below!

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