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

[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!