The Game of Kings

I read Dorothy Dunnett! I'd seen her books highly recommended so I wanted to check them out. I did not get on with the Macbeth one, but I tried again with the Lymond Chronicles. The start was rocky again (Lymond seemed a horrible character to begin with, and I was confused by the history and military strategy) but after a while I finally got into it. The plot remained confusing to me, but I became more engaged with the characters, and it was lovely to see Richard and Lymond finally coming to an understanding. I will try the next in the series and maybe it will be more comprehensible now that I have some orientation.

I didn't feel that the foreign quotations were a huge impediment to understanding, although it would be nice to have a reference with the translations. The outrageously florid style could have been irritating, but somehow it worked and gave a great flair to what otherwise could have been quite a dull and dreary passage of history. Maybe that's why these books are so beloved.

This is incredibly dense prose. That's something I have to throw out there, because it made me feel excruciatingly stupid for the first fifty pages or so. However, it's totally worth it. This is the first in the Lymond Chronicles, said to be some of the best historical fiction ever, and I did like it a lot! The titular character is seriously awesome, dangerous, brilliant, and oddly patriotic, and the political plotlines were twisty and interesting. I think the problem is that I know absolutely nothing about Scotland in the 1500s (my reaction around the twentieth page: “Oh, there was a war in Scotland?” Yes, Ariel, my brilliant one, there was.) I got to the end based on the sheer strength of Lymond's character and those around him, but I think I'm going to brush up on my history before I tackle the next in the series.

One of my all time favorite novels. I recently reread it and remembered why I like it so much. It's set in 1547. The hero, Francis Crawford, is a fascinating pain in the neck–a disgraced younger son, wanted in Scotland for treason and murder, he seems to be bent on antagonizing his upright older brother and living a debauched life with his band of mercenaries. We see Crawford as others see him, only from the outside, with incomplete information and filtered through preconceptions, so that his actions and behavior look appalling. As the story progresses, we, along with the other characters in the book, start to see that there is more to Crawford's story than we initially thought.

Learning Francis Crawford's story is one of the pleasures of this book. Another pleasure is the wit and humor with which the story is told. You do have to read between the lines to appreciate some of the humor, though. For example, it took me a long time to get that when one of the mercenaries complains that his elbow has been making war on his stomach, he means that he's been drinking too much. Also, for those who love historical fiction, Francis Crawford's story is woven into the story of Scotland's struggle to keep England from seizing the child Queen Mary Stuart and marrying her to the young prince (and then King) Edward Tudor of England.

Another aspect of this book that I love is that characters quote and reference renaissance poetry in French and English, and quote Latin to each other. You don't need to read French and Latin to understand and enjoy this book, but it adds a layer of authenticity to the story that it references literature of the period and a layer of strangeness to Francis Crawford's character that he quotes poetry as he irritates and mystifies everyone around him.

I've had people tell me that they found this book hard to get into. Stick with it–the beginning is disorienting, because you're not sure what's going on. It's OK–the people in the story THINK they know what is going on, but they're mistaken. Give it time to clear itself up. When it does finally clear up, you will be moved and delighted.