Discussion Dorothy Dunnett - Lymond Chronicles

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by checkm8, Jan 19, 2019.

  1. checkm8

    checkm8 Well-Known Member

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    Anyone else a fan of Dorothy Dunnett and Lymond? She was a historical fiction author best known for the Lymond Chronicles about a mid-16th-century Scottish nobleman.

    Her novels have been fairly influential for modern authors especially fantasy authors.
    https://www.tor.com/2015/06/29/five-things-epic-fantasy-writers-could-learn-from-dorothy-dunnett/

    I came across this snippet which gives you a good idea of her writing style:
    note: taken directly from http://dunnettfandom.tumblr.com/post/79833641827/why-you-should-read-lymond-like-right-now

    Dorothy Dunnett is a fucking awesome writer. Allow me to present Exhibit A, an excerpt from the first part of the first book, and still one of my favorite sections of the whole damn series. What you need to know before reading it is that 1. Mungo Tennant is a smuggler whose logistical accommodations — specifically, tunnels in his mansion basement which lead into and out of the otherwise well-defended municipality — weaken the defenses of Edinburgh, and 2. Mungo Tennant owns a beloved pet pig… Whom Lymond (Francis) has conveniently gotten blisteringly drunk. The paragraph breaks aren’t quite right and I’ve excised a bit of extremely dense and immensely filthy poetry that does nothing for the plot unless you’re of a deeply obscure and scholastic inclination. ANYWAY read this amazing shit:

    It was only a sneeze; but a sneeze outside the door of their chamber, which dislimned every shade of their privacy. Tom Erskine got there first, the other two at his heels. The room beyond was empty, but the door of Mungo’s bedroom was ajar. Taking a candle like a banner in his fist, Erskine rushed in.

    His hair soft as a nestling’s, his eyes graceless with malice, Lymond was watching him in a silver mirror. Before Erskine could call, Buccleuch and Mungo Tennant had piled in beside him and Lymond had taken two steps to the far door, there to linger, hand on latch and the blade of his sword held twinkling at breast level as they jumped, weaponless, to face him, and then fell back.

    “As my lady of Suffolk saith,” said Lymond gently, “God is a marvellous man.” Eyes of cornflower blue rested thoughtfully on Sir Wat. “I had fallen behind with the gossip… . Nouvelle amour, nouvelle affection; nouvelles fleurs parmi l’h erbe nouvelle. Tell Richard his bride has yet to meet her brother-in- law, her Sea-Catte, her Sea-Scorpion, beautiful in the breeding season. What a pity you didn’t wear your swords.”

    Rage mottled Buccleuch’s face. “Ye murdering cur… . You’ll end this night-“

    “I know. Flensed, basted and flayed, and off to hang on a sixshilling gibbet — keep your distance — but not tonight. The city is not full great, but it hath good baths within him. And tonight the frogs and mice fight, eh, Mungo?”

    “Man’s mad,” said Buccleuch positively. He had managed to pick up a firedog.

    “Mungo doesn’t think so,” said Lymond. “His mind is on fleshly lusts and his treasure." And certainly, the jennet fur at his neck warped with sweat, Mungo Tennant was gaping at the intruder.

    Lymond smiled back. ”Be careful,” he said. “Pits are yawning publicly at your feet. O mea celia, vale, you know…” And suddenly, it came to Mungo what he was threatening.

    "Don’t linger, I pray you, cuckoo, while you run away,” said the sage. Mungo Tennant said nothing. He rushed toward Lymond, collided with Tom Erskine on the way, and falling, sat on the candle. There was a moment’s indescribable hubbub while the three men and the firedog blundered cursing into each other in the dark; then they got to the far door and wrenched it open. The corridor as far as the stairhead was quite empty, and the light feet running downward were already some distance away. They hurled themselves after him.

    They were three fibors above the ground, and the staircase was spiral. The spilth of Buccleuch’s bellow rattled the pewter in the kitchens; Tom Erskine shouted and Mungo piped like a hen-whistle. The servants on their pallets heard and started up; tallows flared and a patter of bare feet began on the rushes below.

    Mungo’s sow heard it too. Drunk as a bishop, she hurtled stair-ward as the first of the servants arrived. Great blanket ears flapping and rump arched like a Druid at sunrise, she hurled herself at them as Lymond and his pursuers fled down. She bounced once off the newel post, scrabbled once on the flags, trotters smoking, then shot Mungo Tennant backward, squealing thickly in a liberated passion of ham-handed adoration. Mungo sat down, Buccleuch fell on top of him and Tom Erskine swooped headfirst over them both, landing on the pack of unkempt heads jamming the stair foot like stooks at a threshing. Winnowing through them, utterly unremarked in the uproar, was Lymond.

    Screaming, squealing and grunting, the impacted cluster swayed on the stairs, torn and surging like rack where the pig unseen hooked the bare feet from under them. Buccleuch was the first to get free, grey whiskers overhanging the swarm like a Chinese kite at a carnival. “Lymond!” he shrieked. “Where’s he got to?”

    They scoured the house in the end without a trace of him, although they found Mungo’s steward mute and bound in the pighouse. “Damn it!” said Buccleuch furiously. “The windows were barred and the door lockit-he must be here. Where’s your cellar?”

    Mungo’s face was spotty under the pig-spit. “I’ve looked there. It’s empty.”

    “Well, let’s look again,” snapped Buccleuch, and was there before Tennant could stop him. "What’s that?“

    It was, undoubtedly, a trap door.

    In bitterest necessity, Mungo Tennant held them up for ten minutes protesting: he claimed it was sealed; it was ornamental; it was locked and unused. In the end Buccleuch stopped listening and went for a crowbar. It opened with a hissing, fairly oiled ease.

    Mungo need not have worried. The lower cellar, the cavern and the long underground tunnel to the Nor’ Loch contained no contraband at all. But, because tuns of Bordeaux wine make hard rowing, all the wells of Edinburgh ran with claret next day; and on this, the eve of the English invasion, the commonality of the High Street were for an hour or two as blithe as the Gosford Close sow. Late, the laminated sheet of the Nor’ Loch held a faint chord of laughter.

    And, long since ashore with his men and his booty, Crawford of Lymond, man of wit and crooked felicities, bred to luxury and heir to a fortune, rode off serenely to Midculter to break into his new sister-in-law’s castle.

    HE EAVESDROPS ON THEM, SASSES THEM MERCILESSLY WHEN THEY FIND HIM, SLIPS AWAY IN THE MIDST OF A PERFECTLY COORDINATED RIOT, SIMULTANEOUSLY REVEALS THE SMUGGLER’S POTENTIALLY SECURITY-DESTROYING ARRANGEMENTS AND STEALS A SHIT-TON OF MONEY INTO THE BARGAIN, DUMPS UNGODLY AMOUNTS OF BOOZE INTO THE PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY, AND THEN GOES TROTTING INTO THE COUNTRYSIDE TO SHOW OFF HIS SPECIAL BRAND OF CHARM FOR THE NEW RELATIONS

    I LOVE THIS ASSHOLE SO MUCH
     
    Beltran likes this.
  2. reagents 11

    reagents 11 disaster personified

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    The more i read the more lost i am in trying to imagine the scenes...
     
  3. Beltran

    Beltran Seafarer

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    Well, from what I read, while the scene was marvelous with the way it flowed, I wouldn't like his writing style much. It is too gaudy. The details and descriptions overflow with words that might lead you with a confusing imagery. It's like he's picturing out every object more than making sure that the action was smooth. It wasn't thrilling to me because my attention keeps getting sidetracked.

    Each to their own, I guess.