At one point in my life, I decided to give up working for a while and have babies with my husband. That entailed selling my house in Banbury, moving up to Manchester and changing all the boring legal stuff, house titles, insurance documents. You get the picture. Tedious stuff.
That was when I discovered Dorothy Dunnett. I had come across her name before, but when I tried the first book in the Lymond Chronicles, “The Game of Kings,” I couldn’t get through it. It is difficult, dense reading, but it was the first book she ever wrote, and it’s worth struggling through it because there is a feast waiting for you.
I raced through the six books of the Chronicles and when I finished, I started again.
Dunnett writes like nobody else I’ve ever come across. Her central character, the Scottish Francis Crawford of Lymond, is seen by his family, friends and enemies. You rarely get a passage in Lymond’s point of view. But you will never read a more lively, exciting, sexy or dangerous man anywhere else. “Lymond, the only hero you’ll ever need.”
He’s a musician, a poet, a mathematician and one of the best fighting men of his age. He’s an adventurer, and a planner, handsome and lethal. You will never forget him, I guarantee it.
The books are set in the first part of the sixteenth century, and the settings range from Scotland, to France, Turkey, Malta, England, Russia and everywhere in between. She depicts the Regent of France, Mary of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth Tudor, Ivan the Terrible and countless others, as well as her own brilliant creations, who meld seamlessly with the historical characters.
Her style is rich, full of references, some obscure ones but you don’t have to know them to enjoy the books. Read it through fast the first time, then you can have a leisurely read, and enjoy the language.
Examples:
Lucent and delicate, Drama entered, mincing like a cat
Lymond to Christian Stewart
‘This of course, is the chamber of devils, who sit in hexagon babbling like herring gulls about the ruin of charity and the disorderly rupture of souls…
Christian to Lymond
‘I am an architect in lexicography; I can build you a palace of adverbs and a hermitage of personal pronouns…
The building, always derelict, had a sullen air, as if in the emptying the last, lingering kindness had been wrung from the stones.
Lymond sat in the broken hall, and by him stood Johnnie Bullo…
Will Scott stalked forward prepared to get full value from the wrath boiling in his veins, and met the wall of Lymond at his worst.
When you first meet Lymond, he is entering Scotland illegally, a convicted felon who has just spent four years on the galleys. Then after half-killing an official, he sets fire to his mother’s castle – with his mother still in it.
At this point, you’re hating him, I can almost guarantee it. But have faith – there is reason in everything he does, good reason. And Lymond’s story is told by some of the most vivid, most interesting and sympathetic characters you will ever meet anywhere. The blind but far from helpless Christian Stewart, who understands him as few other people do. His brother Richard, Baron (later Earl) Culter. His mother, the sainted Sybilla – or is she?
By the end of the first book, you are with Lymond for the rest of his journey. You think you understand him, but then you’re plunged into the middle of French court intrigue, and after that, you meet Lymond’s deadly enemy Gabriel, the beautiful man who seduces everyone except Francis to his cause. By then you trust him.
And let’s not forget the action. The first book, “The Game of Kings” has the best sword fight I’ve ever read – and I’ve read “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “Dr. Syn” and “Scaramouche.” The rooftop race, the escape across the desert and the various battles Lymond takes part in are vivid and exciting. The romance, and there is more than one, is breathtaking.
Historical accuracy? It almost goes without saying. Lady Dunnett thoroughly absorbed her research and then she wrote. You live and breathe the sixteenth century while you read these books, the Europe of Henry VIII and the corrupt French court, the Russia of Ivan the Terrible, the Far East of the Ottoman court at its height.
Get the books. Read them. Don’t give up at the start, get through that first book and then sit back and hold on. You’re in for one hell of a ride.
The Lymond Chronicles are:
The Game of Kings
Queen’s Play
The Disorderly Knights
Pawn in Frankincense
The Ringed Castle
Checkmate.
And here’s how it all starts:
“Lymond is back.”
It was known soon after the Sea-Catte reached Scotland from Campvere with an illicit cargo and a man she should not have carried.
“Lymond is in Scotland.”
It was said by busy men preparing for war against England, with contempt, with disgust; with a side-slipping look at one of their number. “I hear the Lord Culter’s young brother is back.” Only sometimes a woman’s voice would say it with a different note, and then laugh a little.
Lymond’s own men had known he was coming. Waiting for him in Edinburgh they wondered briefly, without concern, how he proposed to penetrate a walled city to reach them.
I’m always hearing “Oh yes, I keep meaning to read those.” Don’t put it off any longer. You can’t afford to. Tomorrow you might get knocked down by a bus, and it would be a real tragedy if you hadn’t read The Lymond Chronicles first.
Francis Crawford of Lymond – YUMMY! A hero like no other – truly fantastic – and I have only just started the second book. The first one was rough going, but I appreciated it. I haven’t had to look up a word in the dictionary in a long, long time. And this is the first time I have wanted (or needed) to take notes while reading for pleasure! That Dorothy Dunnet was sure an amazing writer! My only problem is that I would like to read it faster because I am dying to know what happens, but you just can’t fly through these books – which is also a good thing, not over too quickly this way.
I love, love, love these books. Francis is the most wonderful character and I agree about wanting to take notes as you go along. I have a set of notes for The Game of Kings somewhere and I started doing Queen’s Play but didn’t finish because I had to get on with reading the books.
I started her Niccolo books last year with an online Dunnett group, but got stuck in the density of the second book. I must try to get back to them. But much as I like Nicolas, Francis remains my favourite.
This is one of those authors that I have been meaning to read for ages. I have even borrowed Game of Kings from the library a couple of times but have returned the book without even cracking it open. Maybe I will request the book again and see how we go this time!
So it just me who has no idea who this is?
Yep.
Hi Sybil,
Well in Game of Kings maybe, but stay with it. Francis Crawford was voted in a survey ( can’t remember which one in the UK) as the most romantic hero ever, out voted Rhett and some one else.
Mickey
Hi again,
Well, you either have the Dunnett gene or you don’t. If you don’t, pity you. (g)
I have been reading Dunnett since 1976 and she and her books have taken me to Edinburgh (three times) Ireland, Malta, Saddell and hopefully to Paris in 2010. There is nothing like a Dunnett gathering.
Dorothy’s gift to her readers were obviously her books, but the second thing was our friendship for each other over about 10+ years on her various reader list.
Like one of her dear readers ( Mary Pinto) says: Dorothy Dunnett, the only auther you will ever need.
Thank you Lady Dunnett for you books, you life, you humor, your love of your readers. There will never be any one like you again,.
Mickey
I have been a Lymond fan since 1971. Of the 6 books, I love the bookends: The Game of Kings and Checkmate. If pressed, I’d say Game is my favorite book of all time; it’s the one I pick up again and again to re-read. It’s the one that is so marvelously, so gloriously Dunnett. And Lymond? He is the hero I measure all heroes again. I can’t bear to think of a world without Dorothy’s creations.
I would never disagree with my dear friend Marydot. The world would be a dull and horrible place without Dorothy’s books. Of course the same is true if all of her readers had not found each other because of her one of a kind books. We are a family because of Dorothy, what a great tribute to a great lady.
Mickey
It’s been over 40 years since I brought The Game of Kings home from the library one summer day; I was about 14. So long ago that there were only the first two in the series written. I was enthralled by the time Lymond got the pig drunk. I still remember finishing it late one night, and thinking it was the most satisfying book I’d ever read. I immediately turned back to page 1 and reread it, and it was like reading an entirely new book. The books are dense, the plots are complex and multi-layered, and so are the characters. The character lists in the front are a necessity. These books aren’t a quick read, but there are scenes from the books that are as vivid in my mind as events I have lived through. And I have read great swathes of them to my cats, just for the pleasure of hearing the words out loud. I’ve read and enjoyed many many books, but Dorothy Dunnett’s are in a class of their own.
You’re not alone, Sybil. I haven’t heard of her either. Going to check her out, tho!
Do I get my toaster now?
Come back and tell us what you think. These books are like nothing else you’ve ever read, not just because of the dazzling storyline, but the way it’s told.
Many people say they fall in love with the books when a certain Don Luis arrives on the scene. For me, it was the scene at the inn, when Lymond takes on all comers to protect Tam, the piper returning to Scotland from being ransomed in England. A wonderful fight scene with an ulterior, more sinister, motive.
Funny that two of the best-loved series feature Scotsmen, Lymond and Jamie Fraser.
Lymond fills rooms to hide his own emptiness, the way he runs from himself, so the books are full of filled rooms, but very rarely empty ones.
Except, towards the end of “The Game of Kings” we get a flash of insight, a rare scene from Lymond’s pov.
“In a lifetime of empty rooms, here was another.”
Writers read sentences like that and weep. “Why can’t I do that?”
I started reading Dunnett in 1967 at the tender age of 17 (please don’t do the math ), and I haven’t stopped for 41 years. I too, was captured by the pig (“The sow approached her water dish, sniffed it with increasing favour, and inserted both her nose and her front trotters therein”), and addicted by the time Don Luis came on the scene (“I trust one does not ask me to wear clothes of the common soldier with, no doubt, the louse?”).
Lucky are those who started reading the Lymond Chronicles any time after 1975, and didn’t have to wait two, three, or four years for the next volume to be published!
I also echo Mickey’s sentiment about discovering fabulous places to visit, and, even more important, excellent friends all over the world.
Finally, I have to confess that Dorothy Dunnett was, indirectly, responsible for my marriage (of 28 years and still going strong). I noticed a co-worker carrying a copy of Checkmate down the hall, and thought to myself, now there’s a man with a brain! I despaired when he told me he’d gotten the book from his fiancée. However, within a month the fiancée was gone, and in less than two years we were wed. You never know where Dunnett will take you, and, believe me, the journeys are worth it!
About 2 years ago, my wife started re-reading The Game of Kings – she’d started it before, but couldn’t finish it. This time, though, she kept at it. Periodically, she’d turn to me and say “Man, this is tough going!” But she perservered, and within a couple days was so enthralled the she’d stay up until the wee hours of the morning reading about Lymond until she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She started on the second book, and suggested I start reading the first. I found it such a wonderful read that I soon caught up with her, and we got into a competition over who’s turn it was to read the current volume, and we had to keep 2 bookmarks in the book! We started, at about the 3rd book, reading them aloud to each other, and within a couple months we’d read all 6 books of the Lymond Chronicles, and had acquired a number of books on Scottish history, and our interest in older English Lit (especially Shakespeare, who was contemporaneous with Francis Lymond) was re-kindled. We started the prequel series, the House of Niccolo, earlier this year while on our trip to England, and started the last one yesterday.
The history lessons, the studies in human nature, the evolution of European and Middle Eastern cultures, the wonderful characterizations, the complexities of the plot, the richness of the language, the awareness of how almost everything we are today (from my point of view) is the result of the way the Renaissance allowed the evolution from feudalism to modern democracy to develop, all these things, and more, make the books almost addictive! We’ve both had to stop reading at times because of the catch in our voices caused from the wrenching emotions of whatever peril might be occurring at any particular point with Francis or Nicholas, Philippa or Gelis, or even one of the more minor characters. Dorothy really knew how to get the reader involved in the plot! We love these books!
Hi Paul,
You should explore one of the Dunnett lists. I am currently reading CM on GameofKings, Race of Scorpions on DDANZ and also Nanny Bird on DDANZ, Gemini is being discussed on Claes.
Mickey
Mickey – where are these lists – how do I find, join, whatever? I am currently reading the second book, but any discussions of the first book would be great!
Thx!
Suzanne and anyone else who hasn’t read the books yet –
Don’t join the lists until you’ve finished reading at least The Lymond Chronicles once. These lists are spoiler free and it would be a tragedy if you knew what was going to happen before you’d finished them.
It’s a roller-coaster ride and you really don’t want to spoil it. There are some great things in store for you and although in the nature of things I’m usually an end-reader, not in this case.
Thanks for the advice – I definitely do not want to spoil the fun, but I better get to reading because I am dying to talk about them with someone. Game of Kings was excellent and it is really hard to have read such a great book and have no one to share it with!!