Dunnett, Dorothy - The Spring of the Ram (spoilers)

[oyceter]

Uh. So. I have pretty much no idea what actually happened in this entire book, which makes it very like Queen's Play from Lymond.

What I think happened (with commentary):

Spoilers

The chronology on all this is really mixed up.

Out of sheer evilness, Simon St. Pol offers his round ship Riberac to Pagano Doria, who renames it something else. (What is a round ship, anyway? I kept picturing a ship that was a half-sphere, which really made Pagano Doria less imposing in my mind.)

Pagano Doria then convinces twelve-or-thirteen-year-old Catherine de Chattery that she wants to marry him, except he has to hide her until she has her period so they can't be separated. (By the way: EW! EW! EW!)

For some reason, Nicholas has to go off to somewhere in the Middle East with Julius and company, and Julius gets into trouble for some other past reason possibly having to do with the church. Nicholas finds out about Catherine, and the deadly race between him and Pagano Doria is on.

There is an immensely amusing scene in the Turkish baths in which Pagano Doria tells Nicholas about the joys of male lovers and attempts to sic one on Nicholas. Only it turns out to be the king! I can't tell if he just wants to meet Nicholas privately to commission something or if he wants to sleep with Nicholas, or both. Probably both, given that this is Dunnett and everyone seems to want to sleep with Nicholas. (Someone please tell me that Dunnett has been adapted into manga? It's so obvious that there should be Dunnett manga! Can't you see it? Bishounen Lymond, long, beautiful yellow hair flowing in the non-existent breeze, giant cornflower eyes sparkling up at whatever woman he's intent upon seducing. And of course there would be many gratuitous shirtless!Lymond scenes.)

Pagano Doria sets their ship on fire, and because of something, they have to escape, so there is a clever plan involving lentils and the plague. (That was cool.)

Catherine gets her period and Pagano Doria teaches her how to have sex. (By the way: OMG EVEN MORE EW! EW! EW! *scrubs out brain*)

Stuff Happens.

Nicholas gets swamp fever and mistakenly babbles the information about Katherine and her (bastard) baby, who is being passed off as Simon's true heir. Everyone is horrified by Nicholas' plotting. It is revealed that Nicholas did this and got swamp fever on purpose, and he tells Loppe not to trust him.

More Stuff Happens.

They manage to get Pagano Doria killed without it looking like it was Nicholas' fault, and they flee the Middle East. Nicholas learns Marian is dead and he is Catherine's guardian. Tilde decides she hates both him and Catherine.

The end.

While I like getting stuff from Nicholas' viewpoint, as opposed to the completely opaque Lymond, I feel like Dunnett is cheating by having these "OMG! WOES! Niccolo meant to do this ALL ALONG!" moments. If I'm in his head, I feel like he should be thinking about these things! It looks a lot more like authorial high-handedness and less like character opacity to other characters.

Also: EW to Pagano and Catherine. Just... EW.

Links:
- riemannia's collected posts

Comments

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Everyone keeps telling me I need to read Dunnett, but I'm not entirely sure why. Is this one to start with?

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

This is not one to start with. Mainly because it's Book 2 of the House of Niccolo series--Book 1 is Niccolo Rising. Which series one prefers seems to depend on either (a) which ones you read first, or (b) personal inclination.

I'd say, read Lymond Chronicles first (starting with The Game of Kings). Then certain elements in Niccolo will become even more interesting.

[oyceter]

Let's see, why to read Dunnett? She writes very complex, dense historical novels with some really funny moments and many larger-than-life characters, and she does angst and shock and HSQ like no one else. And just when you think something is too over-the-top, there will be an incidence with ostriches or something.

I started off with the Lymond series (starts with The Game of Kings and has all the chess-related titles); right now, the Niccolo series (this book is part 2 of Niccolo) isn't catching me quite as much.

Most people I know on LJ started with Lymond too. Just a warning: the first Lymond book takes FOREVER to get through. I think I was chugging through it for a good six months. But then you hit page 150 or so, and the plot takes off like nothing else and it's tremendous angst and sexy men fighting till the end. The second book (Queen's Play) was also a little slow for me. And then you get to the third book (Disorderly Knights), and which point you will want all the rest of the books in hand (there are six total), because everyone I know sort of rollercoasted through them in an insane fit of reading with no sleep.

To give you some sort of an idea: I read book 1 in six months or so, I read book 2 in a week, I read book 3 in about two days, and then I read books 4-6 in a feverish three or five days in which I was up till 5 every night. I was working too. It was pretty nuts, but so addictive!

[kittenscribble.livejournal.com]

Hi! You don't know me, but I found this post browsing through Goodreads. And I have to say the line "then you hit page 150 or so, and the plot takes off like nothing else and it's tremendous angst and sexy men fighting till the end" is SO TRUE. Thank you for that succinct description, and I shall be quoting you from now on whenever I try to get people to read the Lymond series. Because it's completely worth slogging through the first half of book 1.

[oyceter]

Hi! It's always awesome when people find older posts! But yeah, omg, GoK is sooooo hard to get into for forever, and then it kicks off into high gear and you can't stop.

[chomiji]

One reason to read Dunnett is that she has influenced a huge range of the better fantasy writers, including Tanith Lee and Ellen Kushner.

They're ferociously good, although definitely not an easy read.

- Cho

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

Had to check back on my posts, but yes, this is the book where I felt irritated with everyone always thinking the worst of Nicholas.

I think the third book is one of my favorites, though I'm not absolutely sure

[oyceter]

Oh yeah, I was mad at that part too! And a bit confused -- did he really impregnate Katelina to get back at Simon? I didn't think so at the time, but sometimes with the Niccolo series, I really can't tell.

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

did he really impregnate Katelina to get back at Simon?

I never thought so. And no one who would actually know--like Nicholas himself--actually says so. He couldn't possibly have known Katelina would get pregnant; he didn't even know she was engaged or going to be engaged to Simon, even if he might have suspected it. Everyone else is always attributing either too much wicked cleverness, or too little, to Niccolo. In NR he's not quite as Machiavellian as his friends (and enemies) seem to think, but he obviously has potential. Later, he becomes much more manipulative and people sometimes underestimate his plans, or think him more heartless than he actually is. Which leaves the question--why can't he share more?

[oyceter]

Yeah, I didn't think so, but sometimes it's hard to tell with Nicholas. I have no idea why he lets people assume all those things; it's a bit irritating at times.

[chomiji]

>> It's so obvious that there should be Dunnett manga! Can't you see it? Bishounen Lymond, long, beautiful yellow hair flowing in the non-existent breeze ... <<

I'm so there! I've had that exact thought many times, including a pipe dream of convincing some appropriate mangaka (perhaps Akamine Kamijyo, Samura Deeper Kyo - a 38-vol. fantasy epic set in early Tokugawa Japan) to take it on.

But I'm not sure how all the wordplay and witty dialog would work out - although SDK does have one of the good guys exchanging double-edged quotations from the Analects of Confucius with one of the villains at one point ... .

- Cho

[oyceter]

Oh, how is SDK, by the way?

I'm guessing the dialogue would work on, since you can keep that in the manga, though I'd be sad to lose some of Dunnett's wry narrative comments.

[chomiji]

>blush!<   God, I'm such a pitiful fangirl. Sorry.

It's just that Samurai Deeper reminded me of Lymond way back last fall, when I first really got into the manga series. And I really do love SDK, but how good it is in absolute terms, I couldn't tell you - it's the first manga series I ever read seriously. It has angst, adventure, and some fairly Byzantine intrigue, with many people who aren't really what they seem to be, devoted disciples betrayed by their masters, and so on. And I really love the drawings - the facial expressions can be very subtle and haunting, especially in the quieter scenes.

- Cho

[oyceter]

Hey, that is ok! I am always looking for more manga recs. I may do the tachiyomi thing and figure out if it's a series that I'll like or not.

Thanks!

[chomiji]

>> tachiyomi <<

Heh, I'm developing a vocabulary of manga-related Japanese to go with my previous martial arts-related Japanese. That's exactly what I'd have suggested, but I didn't know there was an actual word for it!

I'd give SDK a chance at least past vol. 3. The first two vols. are really rather lame, but they do set up some basics you need to know. For me the series came alive with the introduction of Sanada Yukimura (an actual historical person, although he probably wasn't quite like this ...) as a character, especially in the sequence about the tournament before the Shogun (mostly in vol. 4).

The first major story arc, the Aokigihara Forest arc (vols. 5-9 or so, IIRC), seems to have been developed before the publisher and the mangaka were sure of their audience. Kyo and co. encounter a lot of fairly cartoonish villains, but there are hints of a greater darkness and development of comradeship among the characters. Once the series gained a healthy readership, Kamijyo-san went all out with the wild and woolly mystical, political, and character-driven stuff that excites most of the fan interest.

English translations are available through vol. 21 (which came out at the end of January - schedule is currently quarterly - bummer!). The series finished last year in Japan with vol. 38.

- Cho

[oyceter]

I love the word "tachiyomi" ^_^.

Thanks for the info!