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