Dorothy Dunnett pt.4

[petronia]

On page 300, which is nearly 3/4 of the way through. It feels as if I have been reading this book for a long tiiiiiiiiime am I that used to most books taking less than 24 hours to get through, or have I simply lost all attention span in my dotage? orz

Without knowing how shiz will pan out, some vague noises:

* Oh gawd this whole Robin Stewart imbroglio keeps my attention like a trainwreck. :/ If he'd been more intelligent (and if Lymond had shown up as Lymond) you could picture it turning into a Tom Ripley scenario. BTW I totally called it, since it pulled the classic "Here is yr list of suspects but I have left out these other ppl since no one is meant to suspect them". Therefore it had to be d'Aubigny, as he was the link back to the Lennoxes, and I'm betting all roads lead back to Margaret Lennox.

* I get very Tumblr reading this? Like instead of taking notes, I mentally make demotivational macros out of Watteau fêtes galantes (yes I know Watteau is the wrong period). The mottos are all like GEE LYMOND GOOD THING COCAINE WAS ONLY ISOLATED IN 1855 HUH

* Srsly though, I want to have ZERO sympathy for him (I grok it perfectly, is why I have no patience for it) but I do have pure physical empathy. XD; My digestive system was a wreck when I got back from SXSW, and that was just ten days. Three days later I tried to have a teeny glass of red with dinner and was in paaaaaain.

* I am weirdly fond of Sir George Douglas - he is such a total bitch, yet he never accomplishes anything. XD; Except dragging Richard in, which was like DIS GON B GOOD.gif

* So many ~theories~ re: Margaret Lennox now, I know better than to state any of them.

* This book is not entirely sympathetic toward Irish self-rule.

* I want to say something about the steeplechase chapter because it was completely mindblowing. I liked how the townsppl of Blois** approached these shenanigans with the approx level of srsns reserved for engineering frosh week.

* WTF THESE FRENCH DO NOT HAVE TWO BRAIN CELLS TO RUB TOGETHER FOR WARMTH. It's like... Clark Kent with the wee glasses... without the wee glasses... Wrestling style my ass, it's not like they spent this entire time watching Thady Boy Ballagh on TV!

** Dunnett had the right word, I marked it, and now I've forgotten it. >_> Blegeois? Doesn't sound right. Anjou gives Angevin, Poitou gives Poitevin, but nothing rhymes with Blois. The municipal web site is no help, though you can look at pictures of the château. This will bug me for the rest of the day.


Urgh I literally do not have enough hours in the day, I wanted to finish watching Madoka last night too. XD; I can't do it tonight since I'm going to a Kylie concert (acceptable excuse Y/Y).

Comments

[marici.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying reading these, though I fear you might force me to reread the whole thing. There are a lot of times I just want to kick Lymond, or at least beat him till he explains his plans.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Well, sooner or later someone always seems to beat the shit out of Lymond in these, and he's worked up enough deserving karma by that point too. XDDD I've come to assume that if he seems to be doing something in order to be a pure unadulterated dick about it, that is when he has the most elevated purpose. It's a good heuristic for unravelling the plot, actually.

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

girl have you gotten people on your flist to read along with you too??? IF SO GOLD STAR 4 U.

GEE LYMOND GOOD THING COCAINE WAS ONLY ISOLATED IN 1855 HUH
HAHAHAHA! Oh Sabina. You have no idea.

I've come to assume that if he seems to be doing something in order to be a pure unadulterated dick about it, that is when he has the most elevated purpose
+100000 couldn't have said it better.

Except dragging Richard in, which was like DIS GON B GOOD.gif
LOOLOLOLOLOL. *puts face down into keyboard, practices slow inhalations*

Dude, I totally get you on your fascination with the Robin Stewart storyline. That was what kept me chugging through most of that book, was the freaky thing Stewart had for Lymond; totally felt the shivers when someone (O'LiamRoe?) walked in on Stewart on his knees begging Lymond to run away to South America with him leave France and the next think you know Dunnett's telling you that . FUCKED UP. I WAS ALSO AGAPE at the steeplechase scene, it is a 20 page extended chase scene that keeps you riveted all the way through and ends with a flying ass. DUNNETT WHY/HOW SO BRILLIANT?

Also how much is Lymond a flaming queen in this one, I'd need to count on two hands and a foot the number of times d'Eignghiseaslklsgj got into a shoving fit over him / Lymond flirted with Richard / Lymond had only to look at d'Eignghiseaslklsgj to make his face flush a becoming shade of red, lol.

Sorry, I'll stop quoting your own post back to you now. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've gotten new ppl to read, though I know a lot of ppl have read them in the first place. There was a reason these were on the list to begin with. XD

>___> Well, at this point they're aware of coca leaves, the ships just aren't fast enough to keep them from wilting AFAIK BUT HEY I COULD BE WRONG. Given Lymond's conversations with Abernathy et al I'm sure he's tried everything there is to try.

It was O'LiamRoe. (Whom I have a great deal of uncomfortable empathy for - it is super hard to lose your detachment! if somebody had forced me to it I would hate them burningly - but more on this.) Basically O'LiamRoe somehow got stuck in the position of long-suffering college dorm roommate. He's all like, //wow this is ttly heterosexual //makes unnecessary noise //goes to library for 3 hours

The sad thing about Robin Stewart is that he never had a chance, yanno? It's like shooting fish in a barrel for Lymond, only he doesn't need to shoot, all he has to do is breathe in the approximate vicinity. At least Will Scott came into it assuming there was something to watch out for. And - Lymond is always right about himself - when he gets them young and unmarked they have the resiliency to get over it and make something of the lesson. Stewart's already a stunted narcissist; in a later century he might have gone on a shooting rampage in an ex-workplace.

Frankly Lymond needs a cohort he can't emasculate offhand. XD;; Who isn't his niisan, for cripe's sake.

My favourite scene with d'Enghien was toward the end, when Lymond shows up as himself and dude spends the whole five minutes of their introduction staring at him and mentally taking off the herald outfit. And Condé just eyeballing this from the side like "...". I don't know how Lymond kept from exploding. It must've felt like Groundhog Day.

And yeah, flirting with Richard. (Altruistically mentoring Richard's game face, rather.) You do realize mere revelation of Lymond's identity won't make that rumour die.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

Will Scott a higher callibre chap than Robin across the board but I also got the sense in Game of Kings that there was a hint of -- Lymond had no one else of his own class to interact with, so that relationship filled a need for him too, which is not the case in Queens Play.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

By 'his own class' I should say I mean social class, not that Lymond approaches his relationship with Will Scott as one of equals, he doesn't do that, obvsly. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's very true, and because of that Will Scott's life was probably made harder than it ought to have been XD; I don't think Lymond liked needing him on that level.

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

You know, I was looking for another excuse to foot-drag on book #5, and I think I have it. I'll wait for you to catch up with me! Although at the rate you're going, I'm going to have to start the Ringed Castle by the end of this weekend ...
Seriously, if you've gone through GoK and QP so quickly, I wonder what you'll make of DK and PiF. I pretty much had to be fed through a drip because this was the most convenient form of sustenance and my face was glued to #3 and #4 for like a week, lol. '______'

Oh, I was referring to the comment made above mine, which seems to imply that that user is reading the books with you.

I'm sure he's tried everything there is to try.
Youthful experimentation etc? Actually I wonder about this -- in later books, starting around 3, Lymond gets even /more/ supercontrolled, but obvsly the guy had Issues in that regard even in GoK. I wonder if he was as rigidly self-contained as a kid, or if that came about as a direct result of being imprisoned on a slave ship and made to row under the whip for two years. DUNNETT PLEASE CLUE ME IN ON MY FANON PLEASE.

O'LiamRoe as grouchy college roommate = very, very apt. I mean, the poor guy had to endure sexile multiple times because Thady Boy was in their shared room nailing some lucky dude/chick, crying

Frankly Lymond needs a cohort he can't emasculate offhand.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT AT THE END OF THIS BOOK. TBH at the end of QP I was slightly disillusioned with Lymond and how AWESOME he was and how his biggest problem is that everyone falls in love with him and then tragically dies in a brutal, wasteful manner, which makes him want to kill himself, and how this is the Extent of the Plot, because all other plot arcs (esp. in QP., as you observe) are subordinated to LYMOND'S SELF-FLAGELLATING ANGST -- which is okay if you really like the guy, as Dunnett intends, but I'd been talking to applegnat and reading her reviews for some time then and so was disinclined to feel real sympathy for the guy. Gimme some clash of the titans stuff, s'all I'm saying. Thankfully the next book does address itself to these concerns. AND you get a cohort that Lymond can't emasculate offhand! Several of them in fact!

Also, can I just mention that Lymond fooling his French coterie with a Renaissance-era equivalent of a FAT SUIT (what would this be? bagged animal lard?) is just slightly hilarious? Okay? Yeah just sayin.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

6 days per book! That's actually glacial for me, a measure of the mental effort I'm putting into this series XD (although, to the credit of Dunnett's prose, I never once feel like it's difficult to read. Not even when there are words I don't know). It's good, though, makes it more of an experience, like when I was 11 and it took a month to get through Pride and Prejudice and a summer vacation to get through War and Peace, with nothing better to do. Then you can really live with and in a book. The last historical I read that I had to actually spend time with was Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, natch, and that was years ago.

I do have to slow down, to digest - maybe pan back over the last two books to see if I missed anything the first time around - and get some other stuff done with my life ahaha. I have a baby shower and another concert this weekend, a presentation to put together, and a party mix to make. I also have to finish a fic for kink_bingo. Maybe I'll write about Lymond in the slave galleys, bawling... I don't mean that! I've actually been trying not to think about that bit in canon, because when I do I am making this FACE, I know it. SO OVER THE TOP. Lady did you just... really dig Ben-Hur or smth... cool so did I, good book

I wonder if he was as rigidly self-contained as a kid

It must have started when he was a kid. Because of the father. I have an uncomfortable feeling he's been drinking since he was about eight, too. If he'd been raised by Sybilla alone he would have been Little Lord Fauntleroy, i.e. even more unbearable than he is now. XD

how his biggest problem is that everyone falls in love with him and then tragically dies in a brutal, wasteful manner, which makes him want to kill himself

Crying hard, you know what I want to be all OH LYMOND YOU AND YOUR FAKE PROBLEMS but I can't even. I think this is a pretty genuine problem to have. When I was 15 I would've eaten the angst right up, and when I was 25 I would've been like BITCH PLS GET OVER YRSELF, but now I'm like... it means he doesn't have the luxury of making mistakes, yanno? As a young person who's trying to figure out who he is and wants to be. That's always harsh, no matter the reason. Any reasoning twentysomething can go to Europe for spring break and drink themselves into a stupor with relative lack of consequence, when Lymond does it he DESTROYS FRANCE. It's so much of a natural phenomenon at this point I can't quite make Lymond-the-person entirely responsible for it in my mind.

Also, I find I just kind of register then ignore his inner angst a lot of the time. XD XD The books in their brazen underwriting allow you to do this, to be honest! The way I see it is, it's not like Lymond wants anyone else to know about his inner angst. If I knew him in real life I would do him the courtesy of pretending he didn't have any, unless I was really pissed off.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Some other thoughts, so I can stop editing the original post:

The pacing of this book is weird. The last one was a hockey stick curve - started slow, gradually picked up steam, and then took off like mad. This one starts REALLY slow, becomes compelling once Thady Boy gets into court (though maybe this is just me, since 80% of the historical novels I've ever read take place in France), increases in compellingness as said persona becomes this weird LIGHT SUCKING VORTEX that even Lymond can't shake loose of, paroxysmally climaxes (Richard's appearance, the horse racing accident) just before French civilization is destroyed in the onslaught, then slowly eases its way down to a stop. In fact, the stop happens when Thady Boy and Lymond are reintegrated/revealed to the court, as if the real story turned out to be an external expression of some Jungian shiz in Lymond's head (viz. O'LiamRoe realizing that the Thady Boy persona is "realler" in some ways than the Lymond persona - Lymond is catalytic, Thady Boy impressed his emotional landscape on the rest like ESP - the Japanese would say he created a youkai or mononoke), rather than assassins trying to kill Mary Queen of Scots. Which, well, maybe it is. XD;; You don't care what happens after that, there're enough threads loose still that you assume he gets out of it.

Richard was a lot nicer and more forbearing than I thought he'd be. XD; But then, Lymond is apparently twelve years old or something.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

But then, Lymond is apparently twelve years old or something.

lol forever

You don't care what happens after that, there're enough threads loose still that you assume he gets out of it.

I think one of the problems is that the supposedly central plot of the assassination doesn't really relate to/impact on the actual driving force, Lymond's psychodrama. It's more just a plot for him to fit himself into, it could be exchanged for any other plot.

I remember QP feeling a bit random when I read it the first time. Like you I was mesmerized by the Robin Steward trainwreck, but it wasn't the type of story or the shape of story I expected coming out of Game of Kings (though otoh I couldn't say what I expected). In hindsight it feels like a whole novel of characterisation to fill out just one facet of Lymond's character -- which is amazing in its own way -- the froth and fizz taken to its extreme limits, the vagaries of youth (him being twelve and all).

[supacat.livejournal.com]

I think the vortex of Thady Boy works to illuminate, this is why I am the most supercontrolled person ever, because here is what happens when I am not.

Thady Boy comes from the self, and I think Lymond's feelings about Thady Boy can be read at least somewhat as his feelings towards himself, though I shouldn't say more till you've finished the book (sorry I am leaving comments all up in this post!)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Finished it last night! I probably shouldn't have plowed through on a hangover, though, it was kind of upsetting. XD;

It's more just a plot for him to fit himself into, it could be exchanged for any other plot.

That's fair, though; most modern mystery series are like that - the self-contained plot and the continuing character development piece. In retrospect it doesn't seem unbalanced, although for some reason it was hard to tell this was what was happening when it was happening.

I think the vortex of Thady Boy works to illuminate, this is why I am the most supercontrolled person ever, because here is what happens when I am not.

It's funny, because I noted that in book 1 without writing it down: Lymond's ability to sway a crowd essentially by turning his emotional state inside out and imposing it. He does it at Molly's - I've never seen the process of that described so well, though I've watched equivalent scenes take place in real life - and of course his mercenaries live and breathe in a state of hyper-attention to Lymond's mood. (I don't think the mass effect is the same mechanism as his obliterating individual/focussed effect? But I'll have to hold onto that one.) In fact it's more like he has to hold it in than make an active effort. In D&D terms, the +5 charisma modifier is a base stat. XD; So if he lets loose, he can't even go off and self-destruct quietly in a corner. A more elevated context just makes for a better class of lemming. And then Margaret says to him, the will to power is ultimately selfish. And O'LiamRoe says to him like the fox, Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé.

...I can't even roll my eyes at the melodrama when I think about this. It must genuinely suck. Like being a touch telepath who has to wear gloves all the time. But also, this is de facto a young man's dilemma i.e. Lymond being 12 - at some point you either blow up or suck it up. (I think I would hate it, myself, but I can only imagine what it feels like to have your entire experience of other people coloured by your effect on them... well. Actually that's true of everyone, to whatever degree, but it's often hard to say what the effect is. XD;)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, if you have a terrible sense of humour like me the whole shebang is hilarious. LYMOND ACCIDENTALLY ALMOST DESTROYS FRANCE FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

(One of the reasons I like Lymond is because he also seems to find his life hilarious. He has a neverending Tumblr macro commentary running inside his head too. IS THIS THE REAL LIFE OR IS IT FANTASY.)

[supacat.livejournal.com]

You're so right, it's one of the best things about him. I love the bit in QP where Lymond asks the two guards how to get Oonagh away from Cormac and they say, 'get her a better lover' and he just says 'that's been tried', somehow so much self awareness about the ironies and humour of his situation embedded in that statement. There was a great line in QP about Lymond experiencing the absurdity of the sheer level things the universe seemed to just expect him to be able to accomplish -- totally encapsulated that quality for me.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

...I can't even roll my eyes at the melodrama when I think about this. It must genuinely suck

Yeah, and I think the one of the things that saves it from eyeroll territory (in our jaded post-adolescent years, obvs it was nothing but pure gold for me as a 16-year-old reader) is that Dunnett shows rather than tells, and shows on an epic scale.

Now you've finished - QP is so tragic in a way, it's the Lymond Can't Relax Ever novel. Lymond DESTROYS FRANCE in macro and in micro Robin dies because Lymond has a lapse of attention. (Not even a lapse of normal-person attention, but a lapse of crazy intense Lymond-levels of attention.) Queen's Play = a great title not just because of the Queen assassination (or because Lymond was queening it around with the F4) but because if you miscalculate or lose focus when playing your queen, it's game over - and I do feel like Lymond lost the queen's play in that book ultimately.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

I WAS ALSO AGAPE at the steeplechase scene, it is a 20 page extended chase scene that keeps you riveted all the way through and ends with a flying ass. DUNNETT WHY/HOW SO BRILLIANT?


I KNOOOOOOOOW. How does she do it???! Her set pieces are so amazing. It's not only the sheer invention and the amount of elements that she juggles, but the ability to hold tension and hold it and hold it and hold it and hold it and hold it.

[dipping_sauce]

It's Blésois; found it on the French wikipedia page for the city XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thank you, you are helpful. XD

[supacat.livejournal.com]

In the 90s, I went to a fan dinner with Dunnett (no really!), and she did a reading and talked a bit, and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life -- and the reading that she did was the rooftop chase from Queen's Play, so I've always thought, it must have a special place for her too. Such a stunning scene.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

That sounds totally amazing! That scene actually makes me want to visit the town - it really feels like she must have constructed it on location and it's probably all there still.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

She said after the reading that she had been searching for a bonding scene between Lymond and Robin to show the potential effect of Lymond on Robin, and that when she saw the rooftops she knew it had to be a chase because they invited running. Have had friends visit there since and they've reported that it's quite modernised as a town, not sure if this happened since Dunnett wrote the book (back in, gawd, the early 1960s).

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

This book is not entirely sympathetic toward Irish self-rule.

This just set me to laughing like a horse, not ironically. It has its prejudices, alright.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

By the end I was sitting there like, is this... some sort of allegory... for the IRA... And yet it was published before the Troubles really took off.

But then, every time it went off on THE SOFT POWER OF IRISH MUSIC I thought of Sir Bob Geldof's SXSW keynote speech on Saint Patrick's Day.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Lymond: a Bono before his time.

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

can't do it tonight since I'm going to a Kylie concert (acceptable excuse Y/Y)

Concert report or it didn't happen!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I'll probably wait until the Kills concert tomorrow night and write them up together. Spoiler: there was a golden flying horse. XD