whodunnett1526

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just finished Niccolò Rising

#i’m waitingggg for it to become available on libby cmon ppl

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so i started reading the game of kings

#fax

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Ok beloved(s)… it’s been years, but I’m visiting Bruges this summer and I’ve been seeing a lot of incredible Dunnett content on here and ppl getting into the books for the first time, so I think it really is time for a reread (and this time I’m reading on Libby, so there’s a good chance I’ll actually finish since it sort of keeps me accountable). My plan is straight through niccolo, then lymond (and then maybe I’ll give King Hereafter a try) and I’m going to try to do select updates on this blog, just for fun; either way I’ll definitely be reblogging a lot more content as I get in the zone. Excited to get back into it with y’all 🫶

#tiny fandom #house of niccolo #dorothy dunnett #the lymond chronicles

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For Dorothy Dunnett's novel Niccolò Rising (1986) and my recent trip to Bruges.

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and sure there are other babygirls but are they being hunted by every crown in europe for mass homicide and high treason while also being described as having "eyes like a kitten's"?

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How it started:

'I've studied geography and I know my chess.' [...] Lymond said mildly, 'The one shows you where to go, and the other what to do when you get there.'

The Game of Kings, part 4 ch IV: Baring

How it's going:

Lymond said: 'Marthe.' [...] Míkál got there first, and swept the child into his own embrace, all carnation and jasmine and soft hair and bright tinkling jewels. 'Come, my love,' said Míkál, 'and say goodnight to the dark.'

Pawn in Frankincense, ch 26: Constantinople: Pawn's Move

#ok um.

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just remembered this meme i used all the time during my lymond brainrot and i'm laughing but this was genuinely me every night

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house of niccolò reread rambling thoughts: niccolò rising edition (final part)

writing this like a week after finishing the book because i'm lazy but hey! at least i'm doing it!

i think niccolò rising is a great introduction to the series. it's not as emotionally gripping as the game of kings, but it is way more polished and easier to understand and get into, i think.

that being said, it's still one of my least favourite dunnett books. which says a lot about the quality of her novels because i still really, really love it.

so yeah, a couple of reread thoughts before i (eventually) move on to book 2 :)

1.

“Although,” said Tobie, “we’ll never know, will we, what brought it on? Relief or disappointment?”

i think it's fascinating that after 8 books, and considering nicholas is one of my favourite characters of all time (possibly even my number 1!), i still can't 100% tell if something is a part of his plan, or fate making those things happen.

did he always plan to marry the widow? on paper it seemed like a last resort because he didn't want her to sell the company, and it gave him status so it was, mostly, a win/win situation (if we ignore the fact that she brought him up and he was ten, which i definitely can't ignore, but i do wonder if it bothers nicholas especially considering his childhood).

did he want felix to die, even if he wasn't happy about it? he was the one to encourage felix to go to battle, though trying to convince him not to go would've had the opposite effect. and right before felix gets shot, julius was thinking that people on horse make an easier target (something nicholas would know because the dauphin's men threw him off his own horse before that). so maybe if nicholas hadn't tried to save felix, felix would be alive. but who knows!!

and i love this. i think some readers are frustrated by how little they understand of nicholas as they read the series, but to me that just makes him more complex and more real. it's a testament to dunnett's prowess as an author that she can create a protagonist like this, and not only does she make it work, she keeps adding layer upon layer as the series continues. and nicholas is already super complex in this first book! by the end of his series there's so much going on with him, and somehow it's not chaotic at all. or, well, it is a chaotic, but a controlled and deliberate sort of chaos.

i could talk about nicholas's characterization forever. and i will in this ramblings 😁

let me finish this part with THEE quote of this book for me:

Nicholas said, “I thought of a way to do it. That was all.”

“And did it,” said Adorne. “Why?”

“To see what would happen,” said Nicholas flatly.

2.

For himself, Julius felt neither anger nor envy but a growing pleasure, and a growing curiosity. For whatever reason, it had begun. And now, what would come of it?

i know for a fact there are fans who don't like the julius reveal in gemini and don't think it makes sense on reread. i can't say i loved it when i read it, and i don't know yet how much sense it does or doesn't make, but at least i can say that in book 1 it was super fun to look at julius under a microscope.

i think i've mentioned this in my previous post, but julius was one of my favourite characters in the series because i think he's funny, and i love his reactions to the things nicholas does. because most of the time he's out there winning the idgaf war while everyone else is horrified. like tobie, he fulfilled his role in the story perfectly, but he was never that deep; and i was never going to write essays about him. he was just a silly guy.

but julius going from an amoral, selfish, entertainingly idiotic jerk, to a perfect example of lazy and opportunistic evil (while still being all those other things lol)? i do criticize dunnett's choice of leaving the reveal for the last half of the last book, but i do think that's really fun. and whether or not there are enough clues, or if they don't add up or only add up when dunnett wants them to, i will judge for myself. either way, taking a character that i enjoyed a fair amount on first reread because he was kinda dumb, and making me look at him really closely on reread... well i think that slays and i commend dorothy for it

#great analysis #might be time 🤔

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—Dorothy Dunnett, Niccolò Rising / Gemini

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#ngl i was fooled a lot first time round

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Please also tell me why (in tags) because I really want to know!

#gok bc i keep saying i’m gonna reread all of them but i don’t like qp

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“No one had been steering. Everyone had been steering. One of the lightermen, pressed, admitted suddenly that that apprentice called Claes had been steering. All eyes on Claes. My God: goodnatured, randy, innocent Claes, who knew nothing but how to make jokes and mimic his betters. Claes, with the biggest mouth in Flanders. Claes who, standing in a pool of light mud, opened his eyes, large as moons, and said, Of course, minen heere, he had been steering, but not inside the lock. The osprey feather would have been an improvement. His hair, darkened to the color of gravy, hung in screws over his eyes and coiled over his cheeks and dripped into the frayed neck of his doublet. He shook himself, and they all heard his boots give a loud, sucking sound. A liberal smile crossed Claes’ face, and faded a little when no one responded. He said, “Minen heere, we did our best, and got a ducking for it, and lost our day’s sport and our crossbows. And at least the Duke still has his bath.””

— Dorothy Dunnett, Niccolò Rising

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“The boy had the open smile of the child, the idiot, the aged, of the cloister. He said, “Claes vander Poele, minen heere.” The surname had been given to him. He had none of his own. Anselm’s steward, who could nose out anything, had known all about Claes. The youth had come as a boy of ten to serve in the Charetty dyehouse. Before that, he had lived at Geneva, in the merchant household of Thibault and Jaak de Fleury, being Jaak’s niece’s bastard. He had never gone back to the de Fleury family, who seemed to have discharged their duty towards him when they paid his apprenticeship fees to the dyers. It was a common story. A servant of one household or the daughter of another made a mistake, and the mistake was reared thriftily, and appeared with blue nails in Flanders.”

— Dorothy Dunnett, Niccolò Rising

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“The crowd of men lifted their eyes. From its tall, hooded niche on the corner, the oldest burgess of Bruges, the White Bear, the het beertje van der logie, does not look down on his peers but up, to the clouds and the rooftops. He wears a high golden collar, and golden straps cross the white painted fur of his chest, and between his two paws he clutches the red and gold shield of the city. He stood there that night, his gaze lofty, and ignored the two battered arms which encircled him; the thicket of dun-coloured floss at his cheek-bone; the amiable chin which pressed into his shoulder. From one of the embracing fists, hopelessly damning, dangled the stained leaden club of the hondelagger. “Take me, I’m yours,” said Claes peacefully. “I don’t deserve to have a nice girl like Mabelie and then go off killing dogs; and I’m giving a terrible smell to your beertje.””

— Dorothy Dunnett, Niccolò Rising

#loml

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“And across the water, you would swear you could sniff it all; the cinnamon and the cloves, the frankincense and the honey and the the liquorice, the nutmeg and citrons, the myrrh and the rosewater from Persia in keg upon keg. You would think you could glimpse, heaped and glimmering, the sapphires and the emeralds and the gauzes woven with gold, the ostrich feathers and the elephant tusks, the gums and the ginger and the coral buttons mynheer Goswin the clerk of the Hanse might be wearing on his jacket next week.”

— Dorothy Dunnett, Niccolò Rising

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me: I need to find other metaphors for realizing you’re in love than “heart pounded” or “skin felt too tight”…

dorothy dunnett: And deep within him, missing its accustomed tread, his heart paused, and gave one single stroke, as if on an anvil. “We’re there, sir,” Nicholas said.

The air hurt his skin. His nerves, unsheathed, left him over-sensitized and defenceless, as sometimes happened: exposed raw to the touch of his clothes, as if his flesh had been stripped off with acid. He remained perfectly still.

#…

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like yes this is tragic and all especially in reference to everything that happens later in the series but also like. it’s so funny to me because SO MUCH of lymond chronicles is people loving or being in love with francis and never saying it out loud like that’s at least 80% of the characters and i think francis has come to expect that too, and his relationship with will is like others that he’s had where actually saying ‘i care about you’ is something that NEVER happens but then of course. will scott (my beloved)‘s main personality traits are BLUNTNESS and IMPULSIVITY so OF COURSE he tells francis ‘i’m trying to be your friend’ :( and i think a big part of the reason francis explodes is that he’s just like, shocked that someone would say that out loud because his modus operandi is NEVER reveal your feelings but Will’s is just like, charge through no matter what… lymond’s emotional suppression vs. will scott’s stubbornness is unstoppable force meets immovable object…hysterical to me…

#the lymond chronicles #dorothy dunnett #game of kings