Booting into new post

[petronia]

Spoilers for halfway through Pawn In Frankincense and counting down:

1) Despite the acrid smoke column rising from a Thirty Xanatos Fetchquest Pileup in progress, I feel as if this book has been the most straightforward in terms of me knowing at any given time what's going on. XD; For instance, it turns out Marthe may actually be... what Occam's Razor would suggest she is, i.e. Mark Vorkosigan. XD;; For all intents and purposes that is what I'd been reading her as, purely on the basis of personality, until it occurred to me that I didn't actually believe Gabriel had cloned her for nefarious purposes from Lymond's DNA, and I ought to devote more analysis to the motivations of all involved. As an aside, the parallel suggests a solution to the emotional tangle. But I have next to zero confidence that all three mirrors - Marthe and the two babies - will survive for Sybilla to sort out. >_>

2) With the best of intentions there is sometimes an underlying sense of, this whole continent is unfit to raise a child on! What with these ppl's poor hygiene and non-Western philosophy and opiates and acceptance of homosexuality (ttly unlike those nominal Catholics at the French court, lemme tell ya). When infant mortality rates were dismal everywhere... it's hard to get over how quixotic Lymond's (and Philippa's) quest must seem, for the period.

3) Rolling around laughing at Mikal's Helloooooo nurse! reaction to Lymond XD He's like, Philippa Khatun was holding out on me! Yes, Philippa would have neglected key points entirely, wouldn't she. I sort of have the feeling Mikal exists as a result of Leone Strozzi's complaint re: relative lack of fizzy gay sparklies, in comparison to The French Episode. It's the most meta of the four books by a stretch (see also: Gabriel's plot explicitly ratifying the perennial structural tendency of the books to have the "final say" of each character be their effect on Lymond('s feelings), good or bad - that is, Gabriel's a sociopath, so this really is the way he sees the world, given that Lymond and his feelings are what he wants to fuck with).

The ending: AAAAAAHHHHHH WHAT.

Obviously I was chugging along pretty fast and have definitely missed stuff. So: is there a reason that Kiaya Khatun doesn't know which boy is which? It just seems like she was in a position to have tracked this, and if she was, she would have! Or, IDK, MAYBE SHE DOES. It didn't actually end up mattering, because Lymond put to death the child who emotionally speaking he felt was his son, God help us all. Like... in the end he simply ratified and carried through the decision he made in the first place, at the end of book 3: if it's a necessary tradeoff for killing Gabriel, Oonagh's and his son's lives would be forfeit - even though he has no right to make that choice for them, and knows it. All book 4 did was to bring the horror of the sacrifice closer to home, telescoped from 5,000 miles down to 5 feet. Also, Lymond came down with a drug addiction and Philippa came down with an extreme Hollywood makeover. (Me on both points: really? Really? ...Really!?!?)

It probably says something about me that my instinctive response to the above is: full points for rigourous thinking. XD;;; But seriously, I'm really glad none of the characters who matter fell for Gabriel's bullshit fake "choice" for a second. What does tick me off is that it wasn't necessary - I haven't screamed much about the Scotts, because within the context of that ebil plot, there were good reasons why their lives were in danger. But at that point, why did Khaireddin actually have to die? Because ROXELANA FELT LIKE BEING A VINDICTIVE BITCH?? That's it? I GUESS SHE'S JUST AS ENTERTAINED AS THE NEXT ONE BY LYMOND'S BEAUTIFUL PAIN.

They should have all survived. SYBILLA WOULD HAVE SORTED IT OUT. (In actuality I kept thinking horrible thoughts through the book, like: with that pattern of early childhood abuse, there's a high chance that kid will never really be OK. It's a sick experiment in nature vs. nurture - which of the two has a greater chance of turning out to be a sociopath, do you think? For that aspect alone I was always sure Khaireddin was Lymond's and Kuzum was Gabriel's. I'm frankly surprised Gabriel never went there, he went everywhere else he could.)

AND MARTHE. Who as it turns out, had goals that were completely unrelated to anything anyone else was doing. Marthe... and Jerott. !?!? I can buy that she lets Lymond into her heart at the end (not to mention, if she hadn't given up on the treasure she wouldn't have been AN ACCEPTABLE HUMAN BEING), because her basic issue with him is that they're the same person but he got all the rights and privileges by virtue of being legitimate and male, i.e. Lymond embodies institutional sexism and general societal fuckery. But on an actual person-to-person level, one sees how that can feel churlish after she's watched him run the gamut of female-coded suffering from Boule de Suif to Sophie's Choice. XD;;; She says it! I mean, she's basically like, I thought I had better standards than you, but RESPECT: YOU CAN TAKE IT LIKE A LADY. But I don't see how she generalizes that to, okay I guess I'm chill with dudes in general now.

Like, the story of Marthe is basically, give me the strength to change what I can and the wisdom to accept what I cannot. She sees Guzel make her way within the constraints she's been given and attain happiness, and it only makes her more bitter because - like Lymond - she's not big on compromising her standards. But through the book she struggles and makes baby steps, like, maybe this wouldn't be so bad? Maybe? 100 million other women can't be wrong? When she speaks to Jerott about preferring a God of fatalistic acceptance, she's as much trying to convince herself as anything. And Jerott pisses her off because he's the best she can do, and she knows it. She was ready to sleep with him when he tried for it, I think, or at least to allow the first five minutes of the exercise and envisage if it were something she could live with. Because how can you really know if you don't try. For every disingenuous boy (Lymond) a disingenuous girl...

I just can't see this as anything other than a disaster in the making, is what I mean. XD; I feel like That Person at weddings, yanno, "I give them three years! They better not have kids or they'll grow up with psychological issues!" Which is not to say that it should have been Lymond - the sexual identity crisis cliche is a red herring, the real issue is then what? (Lymond knows this, of course.) Sex only destabilizes a relationship in which one party can hurt the other with unilateral ease. Jerott knows he gets along worse with Marthe than with Lymond because he desires Marthe. If he knew he desired Lymond, it would be just as bad. In comparison Lymond's marriage with Philippa (......) seems oddly, what's the word. Non-tempestuous? Two people lacking the temperament for romantic love, only one old enough to feel it as a real lacuna. They could actually have something, though it wouldn't be a recognizable something to most.

OTHER POINTS (I should really get outta the office but XD):

* I called Lymond's age! Really! FLAWLESS VICTOLY

* ...It would actually be hilarious if Jerott had gone around telling ppl how old Lymond was, off-camera, not realizing this was in any way an issue

* To continue from the above re: Mikal, who exists to provide and prop up an aspect of these novels that Lymond used to own. Lymond, who now doesn't drink, doesn't sleep around unless he's taking one for the team, and runs away from music if he thinks it might cause an inconvenient welling-up of emotion. But something in him responds with recognition to Mikal at their first meeting; if not the part of him that was Thady Boy, then at least the part of him of whom Oonagh said, it's a pity to waste natural talent. XD; It's like, in a complete AUverse with no wars and no intrigue, he could have been Mikal, and done nothing but recite poetry from memory and spread sexual generosity around; Mikal, who turns out to be sharp and ruthless and fearless when he needs to be.

(It's exhausting, this aspect of the book! Marthe, Gabriel, the two boys, Mikal. Lymond in a funhouse of warped mirrors.)

But of course, let us not forget that 75% of the clusterfuck of these two novels happened because Lymond slept with Oonagh once. Because he thought it might help. So Lymond... idk. Decides there's no positivity via sex without romantic love? And that he's not really capable of love, ergo no seducing Jerott even if Jerott would go for it, and no taking Mikal up on his offer. Not that he'd be knocking either of them up. Mikal is like, how old are you now? 26? Dude, sucks to be you.

D:

I was upset by this, in some deep underlying way. I liked that Lymond had a frothy side, that he could get plastered and queen around. It really did not seem right that he's now buckling it all down, all the time. And worse that the books might in the end serve up a general moral of, promiscuity is bad, good girls save it for marriage. Heck, Philippa is saving it after marriage, that's really something.

* I still can't get over the fact that we've been running ACCORDING TO PROPHECY. That breaks some rule, surely? And the implication that the Dame de Doubtance was controlling events rather than simply relaying fate, wtfffff first of all how is any of this her business!?! I gather in her view of things,
--Marthe needs to break up with Guzel and learn to like dudes (wtf no)
--Lymond needs to develop the faculty for romantic love (umm)
--Lymond and Jerott need to break up (argh)
--Good thing Jerott's given up on real love or a commander he can have faith in cos he can't have either, but maybe Marthe will undertake to be nice to him (what has Jerott ever done to you, lady?)
--Philippa needs a makeover (no comment)
--Kuzum needs a rescue (no argument, but.........?)

I keep thinking this has to be some kind of elaborate scam centred around the (still unsolved!) question of Lymond and Marthe's parentage. But the Dame is dead and everything. :/

* How did we get to the point where Marthe is with Jerott and Lymond is off with Guzel? Srsly? Someone must've fucked up. I won't lie, even 15 pages out from the end I still felt like the only pairing I was seeing was MARTHE/PHILIPPA. Sorry, apparently... I have strong feelings about this... orz

Comments

[supacat.livejournal.com]

Fizzy Mikal gay to throw sparkles over the grim Jerott gay. :D

I feel as if this book has been the most straightforward in terms of me knowing at any given time what's going on. XD;

OMG I reeeally don't think it's the book. You seem to have changed in the way you read. When you pegged the moment Lymond sells himself to the Aga, I was like, Sabina has now reached the Dunnett comfort level where she knows that if Dunnett notes with apparent casualness that Lymond's hands are completely relaxed, that is the time to totally FREAK OUT. The subtlest cues have the deepest resonances.

Jerott's 'did you cut your hair?' comment is so horrifying as you said, and it's such a perfect example of one of my favourite writing techniques of Dunnett's, which to state nothing of the emotional implications or undercurrents within a scene itself, forcing the reader to bring what they know to decode the situation, so that all the horror exists inside the reader, and nowhere on the page.

She is really really in control of her unwritten text in a way that I don't think is matched by any other writer -- at least not one I can think of -- and Lymond in this sense is just a warm up for Niccolo.

I can see how some readers just miss things, as you were saying in comments in the previous post, because if you can't read the unwritten text-- and a lot of people can't-- you miss, like, 1/3 of the content of the book. Which, stunned genuflections to the author, that 1/3 of the book exists in its unwritten text.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

OMG I reeeally don't think it's the book. You seem to have changed in the way you read.

XD; There has been a learning curve! (I think there's been an authorial learning curve in terms of managing all this information, too.)

I don't think it's the physical clues that are hard for me, because I write/think like that myself - rather than state what a character is feeling in "emotion words", I'll write down what s/he is doing with their hands, posture, gaze, controlled or involuntary. The weird thing is, I don't think I'm great at reading body language in real life. XD; In that scene I was also paying extra attention because Lymond and the Aga were speaking Oriental Oblique(tm), which Dunnett usually writes out and leaves up to you to interpret, as the speakers have to interpret each other.

What I did have to learn with these books is -- well, first of all that you're decoding through pattern matching, and often those patterns are going come, if at all, from somewhere completely outside of the text, and that's considered fair play. XD; And secondly, that Confucius Says moment of Dragut's where he tells Lymond, never mind the eyes, watch the hands. The psychological exploit Dunnett likes to hack into, is the universal fallacy of filtering and discarding information that conflicts with preexisting beliefs. She will tell you X multiple times, via multiple viewpoints, and the narrative will do nothing to contradict X. Then, once the framework is established in your mind, the narrative starts telling you Y. And you will literally stare at Y and not have any idea what you're looking at, because the only framework of interpretation you have is X. XD;

You have to "unlearn" what you know about reading, actually, because most novels don't force to you operate outside what the text says, and if the narration says the framework is based on X, it usually stays X. I feel like I've grown extra neurons! It's almost an implied course in media literacy.

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

well, first of all that you're decoding through pattern matching, and often those patterns are going come, if at all, from somewhere completely outside of the text, and that's considered fair play
Oi. Example please?

And with regards to the X conflicts vs Y framework, do you mean something like the Lymond sexed innocent crying Joleta oh nose!!?!??! herring? (the narrative is telling us Joleta's innocence has been despoiled; then does a 180 and reveals that actually she's in cahoots with her evil brother?) or something more subtle than that?

The most difficult parts of Dunnett for me involve picking up all the subliminal clues that are meant to be picked up, esp. the ones that relate to political finaglings among actors in power. Per my earlier bread crumb analogy, it's not even that, really, because there one crumb leads to another leads to another; whereas with Dunnett I really feel like I have to keep my eyes peeled at ALL TIMES to have even the remotest chance to put everything together. and of course, I was too lazy to do that, the first 4 books. XD

But yeah, when I started Dunnett, I had no idea that reading her would be nearly as challenging as it's turned out to be. Old Victorian novels are cakewalks in comparison. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE is a cakewalk in comparison. WHAT IS THAT, MAN?

Which just goes to show that if Lymond, in all its complexity, is a stepping stool to the even more multilayered Niccolo series, as a reader I am pretty much fucked. XDDD

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHA Lymond's SURPRISE OPIUM ADDICTION. Up til that point Dunnett had no problem keeping my disbelief in perfect unquivering suspension, but after. oh man. XD minor tremors in the Force, as they say. XD Also had major problems with Pippa's SUDDEN BEAUTY, equivalent to an ugly girl who whips off her glasses and is suddenly revealed to be Angelina Jolie. Eff! DO NOT WANT.

Also, how was Jerott supposed to have been "weaned" off Lymond? Because he completely transferred his attentions to Marthe? Was ttly unconvinced and :| about Marthe too.

As always, my response to your question about the finer points of plot is to raise my eyes heavenward and shrug helplessly. Please refer yourself to Cat, lol.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Man, Philippa is such an awesome POV character you overlook how ridiculously unlikely her entire plot was. But it was. XD;;

Here is what I don't get about Lymond's SURPRISE OPIUM ADDICTION: did he not figure out at that point that it was Onophrion? What the fuck! How did that dude survive to make trouble for them at the very end? Maybe that counts as a finer plot point, idek, but it was obvious to me. Dunnett's not Steven Brust, she's not going to fill her book with random non-plot-related descriptions of delicious food just 'cos she loves delicious food. XD;;;;;

Jerott on the other hand I can sort of answer, twofold-wise: 1) Lymond lets him transfer his attentions to Marthe, because it's just typical of his horrifyingly practical solutions w/r/t love and romance (see also, Agnes Herries). Like, if they really are as close as you can get to the same person with different bits, why tax the boy's brain? 2) Jerott learns, and IMO it's debatable whether Lymond caused this or if Jerott just goddamned self-actualized independently, to develop conviction and do what he does on the basis of conviction, rather than for Lymond, or for Gabriel, or what have you.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

The ending: AAAAAAHHHHHH WHAT.

The Ur human chess game, that has spawned every other human chess game in every other book since. :D

They should have all survived. SYBILLA WOULD HAVE SORTED IT OUT.

Oh, Sabina. I know you're in pain right now. It wears off after a few years.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHA Lymond's SURPRISE OPIUM ADDICTION. Up til that point Dunnett had no problem keeping my disbelief in perfect unquivering suspension, but after. oh man. XD minor tremors in the Force, as they say. XD Also had major problems with Pippa's SUDDEN BEAUTY, equivalent to an ugly girl who whips off her glasses and is suddenly revealed to be Angelina Jolie. Eff! DO NOT WANT.

Yeah, I think the opium addiction and the beauty transformation gave me tremors in the Force even at age 16, which is saying something. I actually think the problems start earlier, with Graham, who is a Bond villain rather than a human antagonist. You can see the point in the series where Dunnett suddenly realises she needs a series villain, and pulls one out of a hat, and he's one dimensional and pumped up to an extreme because her hero is a superhero and she thinks she needs a supervillain for him to fight. This is partly what I meant when I was saying earlier that Lymond has deep structural problems and a lot of insane cray that gets ironed out in the next series, where all the mechanisms are invisible. I love Lymond ridiculously, but yeah. Oh, Lymond.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I kept making the mental comparison with Bleach, which I think neither of you have read XD but it had that same issue where the uber-villain who had everyone fooled became 90% less compelling after the reveal. Also, Gabriel's plots are ridiculously over-convoluted! If I were Lymond I wouldn't even be that worried, let him go off to Turkey, sooner or later he'll shoot himself in the foot via sheer accidental contorsion. It's not like the Turkish court can't handle itself insofar as scheming goes.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

But all surrounding issues notwithstanding, I do really respect Dunnett for having Lymond kill his own son. I think that's incredibly brave writing, and not many authors would actually go there.

The first time I read PiF, the image of Oonagh and her straw eyes was so horrifying it haunted me for a long time afterwards. Later I came to see that it was a structural signal, this book is unsafe and it is going to go to a place you cannot even imagine. Because you can't put an act of horror like that at the beginning of a book usually -- it would turn everything that follows into an anticlimax -- unless the climax itself is something so much more extreme, so much more horrifying. And Dunnett does deliver on that, outmatching her own horror.

I think that's the real reason why I (we three) baulk at the opium addiction: not because it's over the top, but because it is unnecessary. The killing of the son is such a pure act, anything else takes away from it, dilutes it. It could have stood alone.

Maybe not letting it stand alone was the one place where Dunnett wasn't brave about it. Which, putting it in that context, I can't blame her, because I wouldn't have had the bravery to do it at all.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Anyone else would have copped out. Anyone.

(While driving home I pondered, of all things, Yazawa Ai and Nana - because, allowing that the two series are apple and orange, she also had the balls to Go There(tm) and do the thing readers Did Not Want, and didn't flinch from the characters' reactions thereafter. ...Yazawa Ai named Berzerk as her favourite manga, IIRC. Another link in the chain. XD;)

GOD I WAS TOTALLY FAKED OUT BY THE OONAGH SCENE. Complete blindside til the last second. She was really careful to keep to the same-old setup from tDK - Oonagh sends a note, blah blah go away Lymond don't try to rescue me, Lymond goes off to rescue her anyway, etc. And yeah, you're right, it signals that this is a horror movie, you're on the riverboat, going up the Congo to the heart of darkness. I was sitting there like, holy shit! This is hardcore!

The opium addiction was overegging the custard, yeah. It felt like the book should've ended sooner? Like ffff don't even try to wrap the loose ends up, just have Lymond get out of bed after that night with Philippa and disappear. Though there're always a couple of moments... it's said the emotions of fear and gratitude can't co-exist in the human brain, but is there's a word for when something is frightening - or unsettling - and funny at once? I felt like that when Jerott bust into Mikal's to find Lymond junked up to his eyeballs, like, watchin' mah bb, in a slum. I leave you alone for five minutes, Francis. FIVE GODDAMNED MINUTES.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

The psychological exploit Dunnett likes to hack into, is the universal fallacy of filtering and discarding information that conflicts with preexisting beliefs.

This is such a great way of describing it.

You have to "unlearn" what you know about reading, actually, because most novels don't force to you operate outside what the text says

It's really hard to go back to reading other books post-Dunnett, they feel limited, it's as though you're being forced to read with one of your senses cut off. 'Oh, this book only operates within its own text.' :((

[supacat.livejournal.com]

I was upset by this, in some deep underlying way. I liked that Lymond had a frothy side, that he could get plastered and queen around. It really did not seem right that he's now buckling it all down, all the time

Not hard to see now why the next book is called The Ringed Castle. Which is not a spoiler I promise, at this point it's obvious who the ringed castle is. Ain't no getting in there.

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

Great, I come in this morning to find that you've added more paragraphs to this post. FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUU there goes my workday productivity

Decides there's no positivity via sex without romantic love? And that he's not really capable of love, ergo no seducing Jerott even if Jerott would go for it, and no taking Mikal up on his offer.

D:

--Marthe needs to break up with Guzel and learn to like dudes (wtf no)
--Lymond and Jerott need to break up (argh)
--Good thing Jerott's given up on real love or a commander he can have faith in cos he can't have either, but maybe Marthe will undertake to be nice to him (what has Jerott ever done to you, lady?)
--Philippa needs a makeover (no comment)

DDDDDDDDDDD: TO ALL OF THESE

Yeah, this book more than the others filled me with the most wtf! HOW DID X CHARACTER GET FROM POINT A TO POINT B, Marthe/Jerott and Guzel/Lymond whuttt?! Of course I was too busy sobbing helplessly into my balled up tissues to let it really mess up my enjoyment of my own beautiful pain. *curls up into a ball and bawls to self*

Jerott on the other hand I can sort of answer, twofold-wise:
I can see that this is the intellectual justification for Jerott's character development & the subsequent story ending, but I feel kinda like. I was handed a little bulleted list of all the preceding events that together make up Jerott's Burgeoning Independence Arc without seeing them fleshed them out to any satisfactory degree. I'm not sure where you could point and say, this is where Jerott yadda yadda blooms into a bee-yo-ti-ful self-reliant flower. When he grimly threatens to beat Marthe up? (????) And actually does, iirc?

I think the Marthe arc was even more insufficiently filled out but naturally I'm talking about Jerott because. I want Jerott/Lymond fanfic and I want it now? lulz

I am still "...." on the issue of whether Lymond has any feelings of that sort for Jerott. On one hand, I want to believe that he does (WHAT WAS THAT SILENCE THAT MIKAL PICKED UP ON, SOMETHING ABOUT LYMOND BROODING ABOUT LOVING A FRIEND?). OTOH, I'm more inclined to believe that what he feels is a kind of wearied platonic oh-not-this-again caginess wrt Jerott, especially in the context of Will Scott (poor bb) and the Robin Stewart calamity. But then again Jerott is his special boyhood friend, the stalwart embodiment of simpler times and simpler loves, not to mention A MAGNIFICENTLY BEAUTIFUL AND SMOULDERING YOUNG KNIGHT WHOSE TORSO IS A CARVED SLAB OF IRON .... lolololol ok i'll stop now

ARE YOU GOING TO START RINGED CASTLE IMMEDIATELY. Beware: what you say or do in your response will determine my life's direction for the following week and a half. XD

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

with that pattern of early childhood abuse, there's a high chance that kid will never really be OK

Do you think this is why Lymond chose his own son? I've read a couple of competing explanations for this but I'm not sure if I'm convinced by any of them...

I will answer all comment to this post in detail but I have to go get some fresh air XD;;;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Marthe's arc... not gonna lie, I think it's insufficiently developed because everyone is ridic cagey about saying the L-word (to quote the inimitable Scott Pilgrim: "LESBIANS?").

...Why does Lymond's massive vocabulary contain "hermaphrodite" but not "lesbians"? That's not even anachronistic! He probably knows Sappho by heart in the original Greek!

Ringed Castle: ummm I did start it XD; I read the first two chapters last night, because (having some sense now of how these books are constructed) I thought it might make me feel better! And it did! So I can at least recommend this course of action. I didn't continue, though, because I wanted to ask you about your plans, bawling. I'm flying to Barcelona in a week, returning on the 31st, and I'm not sure it's appropriate or practical to drag a library hardcover with me XD; (let alone, should I go to Barcelona and spend all my time reading? I'm also attending a 3-day outdoors music festival during that time). It also takes me about a week to read one of these, including a couple of unadvised late weeknights. XD; So basically my choices are:

* Spend the next week reading book 5, get nothing else done, pack in 30 minutes and froth in Barcelona for 10 days with no access to book 6
* Take a break from reading, be a grownup, and start book 5 on the 31st

...Bawling there is no way I'm gonna hold out for option B though, this really could've been better planned.

Re: I will answer all comment to this post in detail but I have to go get some fresh air XD;;;

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

to quote the inimitable Scott Pilgrim: "LESBIANS?"
T_T LOL

.....AS IT SO HAPPENS SABINA, I was going to ask you that very question! I actually have a big test coming up on June 6th and after that I'm flying out to Maui from the 7th to the 14th. so uhhh. Similar situations except my own vacation is two weeks removed from yours. I am feeling the need to be an adult too. Gotta hit the books! *slaps fist into hand* Would you be able to wait that long? Is that asking too much??? You could always read the books and write up your long, hilarious recaps and then I could come back and flail at you a month later?

Please don't let Dunnett chew up all yo brainspace while you are vacationing in BEAUTIFUL SPAIN. Assuming you are still open to being persuaded to choose door B over door A, it really does get easier to relax your deathgrip on these books after book 4! I feel like that is a natural break to take because of the lull. "And now we flash to Lymond lustily knocking back shots of vodka in a Russian fur cap, his enemies vanquished, his loved ones secured..."

Oh yah, and I have read Bleach, btw, but only up to a certain point (stopped somewhere in the middle of the Hueco Mundo arc, methinks). So I am understanding your constant Aizen references, have no fear! XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yes to Joleta, as the extreme example in tDK (and Jerott's confusion LAMPSHADES this), but also, the book describes to you every action Graham Reid Malett takes, just... straight up. Sabotage! Opening ppl's mail! Leaving innocents to twist in the wind! Making a break for the Turkish camp! Making deals to sell ppl into slavery! The classic "company sociopath" game of demurring and waiting for some other stooge to trigger a power struggle with an incompetent leader (see those The Office analysis links back in like my first Dunnett post)! Arranging things so he can't work to defend Tripoli and can't be blamed for it either! Actually, so much of this stuff is directly analogous to the kind of shit ambitious promotion-angling weasels pull in companies that I assumed it was limited to that - there's still a gap before you get to selling babies into prostitution. XD; It's basically the flip side of book 1's "here's a list of Lymond's actions, now the book is going to end with a lengthy infodump of how you interpreted them all wrong". Book 2 had Robin Stewart, but that feels different in kind to me - if I had to give it a name I'd call it "the Agatha Christie redirect".

IDK DUDE I WOULD EXPECT SHE ALSO LEARNT MORE ABOUT MAKING SHIZ LESS CONFUSING IN HER LATER BOOKS. Misplaced optimism??? XDD

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

You're right, the niggling feeling of disbelief started somewhere in DK, with the revelations about the Malletts. I was never totally pushed outside the story because of it, but it's something that's bothered me since -- how artificially dramaticized parts of book 4 are, and how I've never been so aware of Dunnett's hand, guiding her story, as I was in PiF. (I say 'artificially' because every good story involves dramaticization of plot developments, but if the writer does it well, then he/she will have quietly neglected to draw attention to his own devices, thereby allowing the reader to engage all the more deeply in those events.) Gabriel is laughably ALL EVIL ALL THE TIME, yeah. I think the reason he worked for me was 'cos I was legit freaked out by him -- everytime he got near a kiddy in this book I was shrinking back into my chair and leaving dent marks in my armrest because of my CLAWGRIP OF FEAR. Kind of how like Avatar, or book 5? or 6? of HP, where you get Dolores Umbridge and it's frigging obvious what Rowling is doing to make this character the most loathable, hideous, soulless character everrrr, but despite the naked authorial intent, which would usually take me out of a story, it still, somehow, works.

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

*dramatization, that is

[rondaview.livejournal.com]

I felt like that when Jerott bust into Mikal's to find Lymond junked up to his eyeballs, like, watchin' mah bb, in a slum. I leave you alone for five minutes, Francis. FIVE GODDAMNED MINUTES.

AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA CRYING WITH LAUGHTER. Yeah I completely get the frightening/unsettling/funny thing. I think I've had that multiple times in books 3 & 4. It's this really weird feeling where the story is working the way it's supposed to work on you, and you're feeling sorrow and creeping nervousness and terror in equal measure, but you also can't help but be like LOL, DUNNET DID YOU JUST GO THERE. Like at the end of 3, where Gabriel is all, MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! and runs off glinting evilly, promising sodomy unto Lymond's son. I almost cracked a grin. (Okay I was freaked out too.) And the FULLSCALE SOULSUCKING OPIATE ADDICTION OVERCOME BY A POETRY RECITATION CONTEST! oh lawd. *rolls*

Re: I will answer all comment to this post in detail but I have to go get some fresh air XD;;;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Really?! I actually feel book 4 is harder to relinquish than any of the others thus far, even 3! I felt like I wouldn't have had any trouble stopping for a month after 1 or 2, they were really standalone (and gave you the satiety feeling of having eaten a banquet meal with a teeny lemon sorbet to finish, rather than the sickly feeling of having eaten AN ENTIRE CAKE the way you sometimes get with really compelling and long id-fic type stories). Even 3 ends on a sort of, OK, Lymond's built a base, he has a mission, and next he's going to go and accomplish that mission. At the end of book 4, he's in a bad place mentally and physically, and is about to be dragged off who knows where. (Well, Moscow it turns out, but. I guess one can get tired of the heat. XD)

...Also, the plot arc never really ends where the book ends. The actual end is when the preceding adventures are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 10 Richard Culter Facepalms.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

This is me the 21st-century NOTA BENE NOT A REAL DOCTOR talking. XD; IDK that would be Lymond's reasoning - if anything I wouldn't expect him to believe that. Lymond believes in overcoming what you can and controlling what you can't overcome. (Probably the most important bit in the opium scenes is when you find out that those first tenets of self-control were passed down by Sybilla. Which, yeah, Sybilla has better game face than Lymond any day, but also, oh honey. Of course. And what was it? You'll suffer the ailments of the high-strung all your life, but you'll have to hide them? And so he dismisses the initial stages of opiate withdrawal as same old, business as usual. Maybe Lymond is actually constantly going around with nervous headaches and stomach upsets and mild temperatures??? It would explain why he's such a raging bitch sometimes. You know who else had chronic stomachache? Kurt Kobain.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

OH GOD UMBRIDGE she's so triggery she ruined the book for me, I literally can't re-read that one. The movie mitigates it somewhat, just because Harry LOOKS TWENTY-FIVE OR SO, so it came off more like a battle of wills than turning a blind eye to child abuse. (I doubt I'd be able to go back and re-read tDK and PiF any time soon, either. XD; It's a good thing the timeline is made explicit and doesn't need sorting out.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Aaaahhhh! >_>

[supacat.livejournal.com]

Anyone else would have copped out. Anyone.

Yeah, and it's SO extreme, it's a can-only-happen-in-book-four event. You can't put son-killing into a book one, it's not earned yet. Three books to set up that one scene! Most authors, book four is where they start to lose steam. Dunnett, it's where she is only just beginning to take advantage of her setups with emotional payoffs. /reverence

BERSERK EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE

she was really careful to keep to the same-old setup from tDK - Oonagh sends a note, blah blah go away Lymond don't try to rescue me,

I hadn't realised this consciously - you're right, and it's why we were both totally faked out, because it's not like it's otherwise a secure universe, people Lymond is invested in die quite a lot in QP and tDK.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

How did we get to the point where Marthe is with Jerott and Lymond is off with Guzel?

Until I read this sentence I didn't fully appreciate the extent of the LOL that Lymond and Guzel basically ditched their same sex admirers and ran off together. Leaving Marthe and Jerott with each other as the back up. XD

[supacat.livejournal.com]

OTOH, I'm more inclined to believe that what he feels is a kind of wearied platonic oh-not-this-again caginess wrt Jerott, especially in the context of Will Scott (poor bb) and the Robin Stewart calamity.

This is pretty much exactly how I read him. His smouldering knighthood is glorious, but it feels like it's framed almost more as an amusing sidenote than as something integral to his role in the books.

Re: I will answer all comment to this post in detail but I have to go get some fresh air XD;;;

[supacat.livejournal.com]

The actual end is when the preceding adventures are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 10 Richard Culter Facepalms.

Getting addicted to opium, killing his own son and marrying Phillipa rating at 8.5 Facepalms 'bad but I suspect he is capable of worse'.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Poetry recitation... the thing I love is, apart from everything else, in modern day terms Lymond is a giant hipster dweeb. He's That Dude Who Has Memorized The Lyrics To Every Decembrists Song, And The Smiths, Too.

Actually - and I'm sure this is just me - because Dunnett allows Lymond access to vocabulary not of his era, it often feels weird to me that he's not allowed quotations out of his era. XD; I can think of later poems and songs he'd like!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I was handed a little bulleted list of all the preceding events that together make up Jerott's Burgeoning Independence Arc without seeing them fleshed them out to any satisfactory degree

There is actually one scene. By me. But I was really tired and reading fast, and now I can't find it to confirm if my thinking was right. XD; I'll probably have to reread the second half of PiF entirely. In any case, I think the structural problem is he doesn't really get to prove it (he does act independently, but it doesn't turn out too well... neither do Lymond's plans at that point).

Mikal picked up on a hesitation, which I think is significant. This is not canon, even a-third-of-the-book-is-implicit-between-the-lines canon (which is why Cat/Nol/you/I have differing interpretations XD), but if I had to write fic and pick a theory to play out that stayed cogent to the data, I would go with: Lymond's not sure what he feels for Jerott. It's friendship-plus, but the plus is indefinite, and Lymond's rarely indefinite. He's never experienced an emotion he knows categorically is romantic love, so he operates by drawing an analogy to other forms of love he's felt strongly. But he's not 100% sure he'd know it if he felt it. He may or may not find Jerott sexually desirable (at least we know he ought to pass Lymond's Nazi-aesthete standards XD;) but that doesn't actually matter, because Lymond subordinates sexuality to his intellect on a really fundamental, this-is-how-I-learnt-to-do-sex level. If he wants to turn that switch off, he can. Thanks oodles for that, Meg Douglas, and for the lessons on giving spectacular head I'm sure.

Lymond, I think, was OK with letting it all remain liminal and unspoken, until that whole clusterfuck happened with Aga Morat and Marthe. What Mikal forces him to do in the bedroom scene is take a position, and so once he does, he does. One also has to note that the book calls Lymond's feelings for Oonagh "friendship", and I'm not sure that's the word I'd use. XD; Ditto Robin Stewart's "hero worship". So part of the confounding issue, as Mikal later points out, is that Lymond is allergic to the concept of love, including as applied to other ppl's feelings toward him (with the caveat that there are different types of love. But why even call it something else?).

Ultimately, what it comes down to is the thing Cat talked about in another comment - the meeting of minds or lack thereof. Which isn't everything; arguably Lymond and Lady Lennox have a certain meeting of minds. But there's a onesidedness to the Lymond-Jerott relationship that's intrinsic and not fixable. On the one hand, Lymond can hurt Jerott harder, because he understands Jerott better than Jerott understands himself; on the other hand, there're parts of Lymond - big chunks of that 8-9 years' worth of experience they spent apart - that Jerott will never, ever grok. Principally, Lymond doesn't just fuck guys (which is hard enough for Jerott to wrap his head around); he's a great military commander and a great courtesan, with both men and women. XD;; For lack of a better word. It's caused him damage, but also formative growth in some sense. And what the Aga Morat episode proved is that Jerott is way far from any level of acceptance on that... Jerott isn't a political animal either, for all his intelligence.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

There're a few points to add to this (geebus this is long): 1) Lymond is very protective of Jerott, including wanting him to be emotionally fulfilled - he gets upset at the Lady when he thinks she's "disbarring" Jerott from love; 2) surprisingly, Lymond's not cynical about romantic love at all - he doesn't think other ppl are deluded, he just thinks they're deluded when it's about him, because he locates something missing in himself that would allow him to reciprocate; 3) if this applies to Lymond, then Jerott is presented as his perfect opposite - Jerott falls in love, he's dead certain of it when it happens, and the narrative is dead certain of it. It says right out: Jerott finds Marthe sexually appealing, and when she lets her guard down around him, he falls in love with her mind (so from Jerott's POV at least, there is a meeting of minds there, even though Marthe keeps quite a bit of information from him). It's insanely rare that Dunnett's narrative states anything with that level of certainty, short of "there are seventy culverins within a 200-feet radius of this fort". And it's you the reader who's sitting there going, oh no Jerott you're in denial, look at this scene and this scene, here's what's up with you psychologically... but the question is, who gets to say whether Jerott is in love or not? Jerott only. Pure subjective experience. If Jerott's experience is that he's in love with Marthe, does it matter that the trigger is that he may be equally in love with her brother? Depending on Marthe's and Lymond's actions, potentially not at all.