I got Wolf Hall a few weeks ago, but haven't read it yet. It should be interesting: I've read a lot of fiction set during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, but not much under Henry.
I'm on a big Dunnett binge right now, listening to the audiobooks of the Lymond Chronicles, and it's so completely absorbing that I keep taking a longer lunch than I should so I can sit in the sun and listen to the descriptions of a shipwreck in the North Sea, or reindeer-racing in the Russian Arctic. So the dog is getting a lot of walks, but I'm going to be a bit bereft when I'm done.
There's something so immediate about an audiobook, and even books I know well (like Dunnett) feel fresh and new that way, because I can't skip or skim. I hear every line (if I don't fall asleep), and I pick up so much more in the writing that way.
I forget: have I burbled about Dorothy Dunnett here?
I forget: have I burbled about Dorothy Dunnett here?
You have been her staunchest advocate. Though I'm glad to hear your thoughts on the audiobooks.
C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake books set in Henry VIII's reign, and they're quite wonderful.
Consuela, I really owe it to my BFF, who has been in love with Francis Crawford of Lymond since she was a teenager, to read the Lymond Chronicles. Every time I start, I'm overwhelmed by the length and density.
Consuela, I really owe it to my BFF, who has been in love with Francis Crawford of Lymond since she was a teenager, to read the Lymond Chronicles. Every time I start, I'm overwhelmed by the length and density.
Yeah, I can see that. I wish there was a way to just dip your toe in Dunnett, but she mostly wrote novel series--only ever published one short story in her life (although I have a copy of it if you want to see what her prose was like). Even her contemporary mystery/thrillers are ... odd. Off-kilter.
And her one-off novel about Macbeth is even denser than anything in the other works.
But that's part of the fun: she creates a whole world, and populates and furnishes it so richly, you can't tell which characters are actual historic personages and which aren't -- although the deaths that hurt the most are generally those in the historic record.
If you have the time, I would suggest just... jumping in. Because if you appreciate Lord Peter Wimsey and Miles Vorkosigan, and their mixture of hyper-competence and raw human pain, you're going to like Francis Crawford. He's an alpha-bastard's alpha-bastard, but when he breaks, it's fabulous drama. And she puts him through the ringer: battles & family crises, treason trials, drug addiction, slavery & undercover operations, espionage & shipwrecks, and even a Master Villain to defeat.
Are the Dunnett books fantasy, or just historical?
They are historic; the Lymond series covers 1547-1558, all over Europe and the Mid-East, and Russia. There are hints of psychic abilities/foretelling in the later books, but it's hardly magic.
My MiL loved Dorothy Dunnett. I haven't read her yet, but I plan on reading her one of these days.
I have to admit that on this reread I'm far more aware of a certain amount of slut-shaming and Orientalism that I never noticed when I was younger. But even so, there are multiple women in each novel with power and opinions, and agendas beyond sleeping with the hero.
I mostly read Dunnett's mysteries ... the ... Johnson Johnson was it? the painter with his yacht Dolly? In retrospect, pretty disrespectful of women, but they were kind of fun at the time.
In retrospect, pretty disrespectful of women, but they were kind of fun at the time.
Well, all the POV characters are women. I liked best the one with the makeup artist.
But those are weird books: she wrote them out of internal chronological order, but set each of them in the cultural context of the year they were written. Which is kind of ridiculous, given that she wrote them over at least a twenty-year period.
But the similarity to the Lymond novels is unmistakeable: the highly-controlled and multi-talented lead male, with a tormented past and hidden passions; the wordplay; the ridiculous set pieces; and the way the twist at the end upends everything you thought you knew while you read the novel.
Yes, I liked that one - Dolly and the Bird of Paradise. I think I kept that one, but not the others.
