I have to make one complaint about Dunnett so far. I really hate how she resorts to the death of a pet to make a point about the cruelty of people or situations. In Book 1, an innocent hound gets it; Book 2, an innocent lapdog. Book 3 (I just started it) is the worst so far, with a lovely scene where the bad guys slaughter a large group of beautiful, affectionate cats right in front of the people who love them. Luckily I saw it coming and managed to skim most of the relevant paragraphs.
This is really pissing me off. I don't think it's just that this pushes certain buttons of mine. I'm also pissed off because I think it's cheap. It's lazy. There are all kinds of ways to establish that villains are cruel and ruthless and Dunnett is a good enough writer to do that without going for the easy way to make me cry. I suppose next it'll be kittens, or maybe baby otters.
I'll keep reading, but I'm pretty angry right now.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett
The first book was so good, I couldn't wait to read the second in Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolò series, Spring of the Ram. This one is exciting and fascinating, as Nicholas races to Trebizond on a dual mission: beat out a rival for the best trade deals, and rescue his 13-year-old stepdaughter from a dubious marriage with that same rival. At the same time, Trebizond is threatened by the Sultan Mehmet, and Nicholas is bringing soldiers to help defend this last outpost of the Byzantine Empire from takeover by the infidel.
There's much to enjoy here: hair's-breadth escapes, the Trebizond court's decadent glories (arcane ritual followed by bath-house shenanigans), plenty of fighting, ruses, scams, and guile. It's interesting to see how young Nicholas has to fight to establish his leadership among men older and more experienced. Descriptions of exotic Trebizond were absolutely good enough to eat, full of lush detail, immensely satisfying.
Dunnett is not one of your happy-ending writers, though, and I was a bit disappointed at how mixed the payoff was. I guess I have to expect this; her plots tend to follow a failure-success-failure structure, and no victory so far has been unambiguous. Also, I would like to know what Dunnett has against dogs. In Book 1, an innocent hound gets it; here, an innocent lapdog. At least the deaths were mercifully swift. I will not expect any dog encountered in future books to have a long lifespan.
There's much to enjoy here: hair's-breadth escapes, the Trebizond court's decadent glories (arcane ritual followed by bath-house shenanigans), plenty of fighting, ruses, scams, and guile. It's interesting to see how young Nicholas has to fight to establish his leadership among men older and more experienced. Descriptions of exotic Trebizond were absolutely good enough to eat, full of lush detail, immensely satisfying.
Dunnett is not one of your happy-ending writers, though, and I was a bit disappointed at how mixed the payoff was. I guess I have to expect this; her plots tend to follow a failure-success-failure structure, and no victory so far has been unambiguous. Also, I would like to know what Dunnett has against dogs. In Book 1, an innocent hound gets it; here, an innocent lapdog. At least the deaths were mercifully swift. I will not expect any dog encountered in future books to have a long lifespan.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Niccolò Rising by Dorothy Dunnett (1986)
The first in an eight-volume series, Niccolò Rising is a historical novel set in the 15th century that follows the fortunes of Claes, a dyer’s apprentice with the Charetty family in Bruges. A family by-blow, Claes has also become a sort of servant-companion to the Charetty heir, young Felix. When the youths get into trouble—frequently—from their pranks and misadventures, Claes is the one who takes the beatings, always cheerfully. It seems altogether unlikely that such a fun-loving, stolid innocent will become a scheming and hugely successful merchant-adventurer-political intriguer. We get to see how.
In his size and strength, his patient good nature, his broad low-browed face, Claes at first seems as simple as an ox. But he’s actually a gifted mimic who loves puzzles, speaks many languages, and is good at numbers. He’s good with the ladies, too. He turns the natural tendency to underestimate him into an advantage. Bit by bit, he makes himself useful to the Charettys, growing the business and eventually making international deals in political/military affairs as well as business. Romance, adventure, the subtlest personal and political intriguing among great merchant princes: Claes navigates it all, always surprising us.
This is a very dense novel, not at first easily approachable, and Dunnett doesn’t always clarify things as she might. A simple matter like names, for example: Dunnett doesn’t explain until rather late in the book that Claes is a Flemish diminutive for Nicholas (think St. Nicholas/Santa Claus), and I didn’t figure it out on my own. And in this first book, he doesn’t yet go by Niccolò, so when I began reading I kept wondering when we were going to get to the title character. More than once I had to look up untranslated foreign terms or obscure vocabulary not in Webster’s (to gant, FYI, is to yawn or gape).
Our view into Claes’s mind, his intentions, is left opaque for much of the novel—deliberately, as later becomes clear, but this distancing from the main character can be offputting. With that, and with so many details to master—all the confusing if rich historical context combined with a huge cast of characters (a list at the beginning takes four pages)—it was some time before I felt really immersed in the world of the novel. But I was very glad I stuck with it. Perseverance has its rewards. I’ve already ordered the next volume and can’t wait to read it.
In his size and strength, his patient good nature, his broad low-browed face, Claes at first seems as simple as an ox. But he’s actually a gifted mimic who loves puzzles, speaks many languages, and is good at numbers. He’s good with the ladies, too. He turns the natural tendency to underestimate him into an advantage. Bit by bit, he makes himself useful to the Charettys, growing the business and eventually making international deals in political/military affairs as well as business. Romance, adventure, the subtlest personal and political intriguing among great merchant princes: Claes navigates it all, always surprising us.
This is a very dense novel, not at first easily approachable, and Dunnett doesn’t always clarify things as she might. A simple matter like names, for example: Dunnett doesn’t explain until rather late in the book that Claes is a Flemish diminutive for Nicholas (think St. Nicholas/Santa Claus), and I didn’t figure it out on my own. And in this first book, he doesn’t yet go by Niccolò, so when I began reading I kept wondering when we were going to get to the title character. More than once I had to look up untranslated foreign terms or obscure vocabulary not in Webster’s (to gant, FYI, is to yawn or gape).
Our view into Claes’s mind, his intentions, is left opaque for much of the novel—deliberately, as later becomes clear, but this distancing from the main character can be offputting. With that, and with so many details to master—all the confusing if rich historical context combined with a huge cast of characters (a list at the beginning takes four pages)—it was some time before I felt really immersed in the world of the novel. But I was very glad I stuck with it. Perseverance has its rewards. I’ve already ordered the next volume and can’t wait to read it.
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