Struggling with Dorothy Dunnett!

[667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast]

So I have re read Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy numerous times and I happened to see Dorothy Dunnett recommend if you like Mantel’s historical fiction. I had also finished all of Sharon K. Penmans books.
I have just started Game of Kings and I’m really finding it hard going ! I very rarely fail to finish a book, I read a lot of historical fiction and non fiction books and have read War and Peace three times(!) so I’m not always looking for a light read. I’m just finding the combination of Latin quotes, olde English and references to Greek mythology a bit too much to keep up with, Scottish slang I am fine with have a Scottish husband and spent a lot of time there. Is it worth persevering? I know people rave about her, I couldn’t even find any translations of the old English that prefixes each chapter.

Those covers are quite something, especially seen en masse like that. Did the illustrator think they were Mills and Boon commissions?

I love the ballgown-in-the-seraglio one in particular, and the 'escaped from Narnia' one.

OP, be warned that the hare hunt is not the worst thing to happen in this series.

Hi thank you for the heads up. I’m aware that the hare hunt resonated with me particularly as I’ve been involved for years with rescuing dogs that have been used for either legal and illegal racing and hare coursing which is illegal in the UK. Some of the injuries to the dogs not to mention the hares have been beyond distressing. The fact that I know this stuff still happens today makes it worse.
I’ve read and watched Game of Thrones so I’m not a delicate flower as there is a lot of cruelty and violence in the books and the TV series.

Ah, I can see how it would hit home particularly hard in that case.

We get a lot of abandoned or lost lurchers here that are suspected to have been used in hare coursing too.

Just wondered if anyone here had read Jean Plaidy ? I know someone mentioned Georgette Heyer I’ve not read her myself but Plaidy was a prolific writer of historical fiction.

@WelcomeMarch It’s very sad, some of the dogs are so frightened of everything, particularly men. I’ve had three ex racing greyhounds and a lurcher as pets, as well as looking after others. They are very lazy dogs just huge couch potatoes !

I liked Jean Plaidy, back in the day. I recall her fictionalised account of Lucretia Borgia's marriage into the French royal family best, but I was a teenager when I read most of her work. However, that was 50+ years ago.

@Papyrophile I only discovered her in midlife, I really liked her Tudor series and I think it holds up well today.

Light on Lucretia? I read that as a teenager too, I’d forgotten all about it. Also her book about Nell Gwyn - I don’t think I read any of her others though.

God I love these books.

Currently re reading the Niccolo series and enjoying them immensely.

But with that name, don't you already know everything that has happened and is going to happen?

😁

I realise this is an oldish thread but I've just come to the end of the Niccolo' series which I really enjoyed, and made a start on Lymond but I'm not making much headway. Possibly I've started reading when I'm too tired to concentrate fully. How much of a slow start am I in for? When can I expect things to pick up? With House of Niccolo I was launched straight in from page 1.

He found the hero intensely annoying.

The hero is intensely annoying. But his adventures are exciting and some of the people around him are lovely.

By chance this has come up the day that I finally found what Ludo didn't tell Philippa about the meaning of Yunitsa, or, as Philippa has been led to believe, heifer. A number of people thought to call P a cow as a term of endearment was a bit wrong. But a heifer is not a cow yet, She is young, with a face which might look quite pretty for a bovine animal, long eyelashes for example. But more than that, she is curious, wanting to learn, investigating new things. If you find yourself in a field of heifers, make your way to the gate sharpish, or you will find yourself surrounded by largish heavy animals which won't let you out. Not as dangerous as cows or bulls, and probably safer than steers, which are teenage males doomed to never grow up, similarly curious, but heavier. I thought the character of a heifer suited P rather. Won't be distracted. The characters would know heifers, and P doesn't mind.

But it turns out In rural Russian, it also means a bride for the first year of marriage, or until the first baby. And also has the idea that she is able to save her man from harm. Got this from a site for fans of Outlander, by searching "Yunitsa Dunnett meaning"
What Francis intended is a mystery.

Lymond remains annoying but you come to understand him more, @ilovesushi. He definitely wasn’t my favourite character though & I don’t think he’s meant to be.

Beware spoilers on this thread!

As I think I said earlier in this thread with the first two Lymond books you really do have to go with the flow and not worry too
much about the complications of the plot. Once you surrender to it you do get drawn in -well I certainly did- and she is brilliant at creating an atmosphere. Lymond can be very annoying particularly early on but he is a compelling character and all the better for not being perfect.

"What Francis intended is a mystery."

Adam Blacklock, IIRC, thought that he'd meant rather more than just heifer, but didn't say so.

As I understand it it does, literally, mean heifer - ie a young cow who has not yet been put to the bull and has no calf, but it also means a newlywed bride with no children, with a further implication that Philippa is still a virgin and even though people might have heard rumours from Istanbul, she is totally untouched. It also means darling. So Lymond implies a lot in one word, as he often does.

I have been tripping over Lymond-a-likes these months. Albert Campion, intended as Wimsey-ish, so that's explained, less complex, but with skills and connections and genealogical mysteries. And Diana Wynne Jones' Howl, complete with a horrid Lennox, temper tantrums, having to be saved by naive girl. And another came to mind, but has now disappeared into the fiction whence he came, Not Patrick Leigh Fermor, he's of course real. And not someone I've recently read or watched.
Dunnett adds so much extra to her invention, and doesn't explain everything. I don't understand why Francis attempts suicide after the night in Lyons which I've just reread, knowing Archie's much later reveal.

Because he can see that Philippa has fallen for him and he doesn't want that for her, as he thinks he brings disaster to those who care for him?

It's a while since I've read it, so I don't know if the timing is right for that.

@Treaclewell The Howl/ Lymond comparison is one that’s never occurred to me! I can see it though. It’s interesting I think that Margery Allingham originally intended Campion to be a sort of anti- Wimsey parody, but couldn’t resist giving him a mysterious aristocratic background and general Wimsey-like omniscience.

Could be, but it's a bit teenage. And how he thinks P would respond to his death as a way of sparing her disaster.

One more, Sir Percy Blakeney, aka the Scarlet Pimpernel. And I considered Dr Syn, but he failed on the age of his women. Much more of a gap than F and P, and f bothers about it.
I noticed then how all the others are written by women.

I think Francis could be a bit teenage on occasion though.

Nicholas absolutely could be.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan is more like Wimsey, so therefore of a type with Lymond.