The courses I am taking in school, however, have better prepared me (I think) to go about reading the Lymond Chronicles and the prequel series. I have a much better grasp of the Classics and am beginning to delve into the world of the Roman Catholic empire that I think has its earliest life in the Councils of Nicea.
Mrs. Dunnett must have either had a fabulous education or one hell of a voracious appetite for knowledge of all kinds. Perhaps she had both. I can only envy her imagination and the scope of her knowledge. She leads us on a merry chase from beginning to end of all of her stories and what a truly awesome feat for any author to accomplish.
I have had many friends throw up their hands in frustration after the first book, perhaps making it to the second, but I almost pity that they won't ever experience the highs and lows and all the wonderful and awful human emotions that Mrs. Dunnett portrays. Perhaps the best part of her novels are the fact we can see ourselves in her characters - we are all flawed in some way. We may not suffer from a debilitating drug addiction like Lymond (and all his other questionable behavior) but very often humans are subject to some kind of obsessive behavior we must learn to control before it controls us.
That being said, I have a bad habit of comparing modern literary or movie characters to our beloved Lymond and the closest I seem to get, though he is not at all how Lymond is physically portrayed, is Don Draper from 'Mad Men' on AMC. He has the bad behavior and scathing temperament but deep emotional complexity that confounds followers. Like Lymond, we want to love Draper because of his physical and mental prowess but his naughty behaviors often make us cringe and wish our hero could be complete and worthy of sainthood. Could Dunnett be teaching us an ultimate life lesson? Trust not in princes, but an honest thief is worth his weight in gold?
Could we please seem some blonde hair and blue eyes on Laurence Olivier? Regardless, the face of Lymond for me, I think, will always be a bit obscure but one can try to get as close as he might have looked like.
Until we meet again (soon)...
5 comments:
Look for pics of Olivier as Hamlet - in black and white, inevitably, but he does have blond hair!
Very nice post. I love all of Dunnett's books. Lymond was one tortured devil.
Happy you're back! I have never been able to talk anyone into reading more than the first couple of pages of Game of Kings. And I know what you mean about the highs and lows of emotion; on my first read I flung one of the books across the room I got so angry. I am not a very dramatic person.
On another note, if you like light-hearted mysteries you should check out Elizabeth Peters' Vicky Bliss novels starting with Street of the Five Moons. One of the main characters is purportedly based on Lymond. It's actually how I came across the Lymond series years ago.
John Hamm would make a great Lymond if he were blonde.
My vote is for a young Peter O'Toole for Lymond - please google his photos as Lawrence of Arabia to see what I mean. IMHO, a dead ringer per Dunnetts descriptions!
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