Category Archives: Book discussion

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This is the first in a series I’ve been planning to write that looks at some of the favourite Dunnett quotes that I suggested we collect, and analyses them in the context of the passages they appear in. I’m starting with one of the classics. Or maybe two…

“Kate, my dear? Haven’t your raspberries been marvellous this year? Come and be licked; I haven’t dined yet.”

This has to be one of my favourite quotes in all of Dunnettworld, because it isn’t just a delightful visual image – it tells us so much about the characters and their interaction that it’s almost a backstory in itself. This is something that Dorothy is so very good at; sometimes she will take considerable time describing a scene in great detail, layer upon layer, when the pace of the narrative makes it appropriate, but at other times when it might interfere she has this wonderful ability to encapsulate matters into a short passage, a sentence, or sometimes just a couple of words.

Let us set the scene. We are in the middle of major difficulties, Richard has barred Lymond from his door after the episode with Joleta in Dumbarton, Gabriel is trying to take over St Mary’s, and we have recently had the Hot Trodd and the tragedy of Will Scott’s death. In the midst of this Francis Crawford visits Flaw Valleys, where he hasn’t been since having had to knock out Philippa to save her from harm.

Dorothy then described Kate’s feelings as she sees him approach, and then, as she enters the music room, describes how she looks at him, observing his skin colour and fitness. He turns and delivers that wonderful line.

In this case Dorothy is telling us a number of things:

The brilliant strategist and political schemer, the highly strung athlete and swordsman, who seems constantly above mundane matters, actually has a simpler side to him as well. He observes nature and delights in it, he enjoys the flavours and colours of the countryside.

Despite worries and events that would crush a lesser man, and as we will shortly discover despite severe exhaustion, he still has time and wit to greet Kate with humour and consideration.

He and Kate enjoy a close friendship. He has been shown, or maybe just enters without being shown, straight into the innermost rooms of the house and is clearly trusted to be there by the servants. He is able to tease her lightheartedly with no fear that she will be offended. He understands the demands that running an estate make on her and is immediately aware that she will be embarrassed at not being at her best for his surprise visit. That he can deflect her embarrasment and put her at ease shows both his kindness and affection for her and his wider ability to be comfortable in a woman’s company.

What an amazing amount of information is packed into that one quote!

The prior thoughts we see from Kate also tell us a great deal about her. In Game of Kings we saw how she was able to confidently probe and engage Lymond in a way that few others could manage intellectually and fewer still could get away with without attracting his withering scorn. In some part that was assisted by her being thoroughly grounded in a solid marriage. Now of course Gideon is dead. We’d seen glimpses of what a perceptive man and a loving and engaging father and husband he was. Kate will have mourned him deeply and may have been assisted by her new friends in the Crawford family. Clearly she misses him. But now her relationship with Lymond has taken on new qualities. She is still a young woman and must be very conscious of his attractions while not wanting to risk their friendship. So we see the ever-practical, sensible, down-to-earth Kate, concerned about her daughter’s safety, nevertheless worrying that she isn’t looking her best for him. His presence confuses her and causes conflicts in her mind. While remaining a loyal and concerned friend she is showing signs of being ready to fall in love with him if he were to give the slightest encouragement.

All this of course presages a passage during which we see her appreciating his extreme tiredness (and having the temerity that few others would have of advising him to rest because it will affect his judgement and leadership), showing her intelligence in analysing a series of complex facts and drawing conclusions, and despite receiving a shock about how much danger Philippa is in she is able to appreciate that it is Gabriel who is the danger to Lymond’s leadership of St Mary’s (and maybe a few more things besides.) And at the end of this passage, as Lymond succumbs to fatigue and near despair when for a moment he is afraid that she thought he might strike her, there is another wonderful one-liner. Probably a favourite of most readers, this time spoken only in Kate’s mind, and which acts as a perfectly matched bookend to the first.

“My dear, my dear, I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie; and a knife to cut it with.”

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One of the delights of reading Dunnett are those marvellous one-liners and short descriptions that perfectly capture the scene or character that she is writing about. Sometimes they make you laugh out loud, sometimes they give you that perfect visual image that helps cement the moment in your mind.

In the latest issue of Whispering Gallery, the magazine of the DDRA, I mentioned that I felt that one way to try to attract new readers might be to collect some of these little fragments of linguistic magic, and when trying to convert a potential reader to point them to them to whet their literary appetites. So that’s what I intend to do here on the Dunnett Blog, and I’d like your help in doing so.

Send me your favourite quotes, not just the well-known set pieces but those almost incidental ones that enlighten our view of a character or place or critical moment in that way that only she could. I’ll collect them together and publish them here and then archive them on the main site once we have a big enough collection.

Here’s one of my favourite short ones to start you off.

“Quarrelling with the Prince of Barrow was like fighting a curtain.”

Doesn’t that just provide the perfect visual counterpoint to Lymond’s attempts to talk round the singular Phelim O’Liam Roe?

While a slightly longer one gives Will Scott the essence of just how important and burned into Lymond’s psyche is the captive lady in the tower.

My brilliant devil, my imitation queen; my past, my future, my hope of heaven and my knowledge of hell … Margaret, Countess of Lennox.

I’m looking forward to hearing your favourites.

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I was delighted to hear from one of my fellow DDRA committee members that Alastair Dunnett’s book The Canoe Boys has appeared in a new edition. I hadn’t realised that the previous edition had run out, as it was still on the shelves the last time I’d checked for it. Which rather shows how easily, even after 21 years in the book trade, you can lose touch with things once you’re no longer working with them day to day.

Canoe Boys really is a classic. Alastair had a lovely writing style and the descriptions of pre-war West of Scotland life and the people that he and Seumas Adam encountered on their voyage north are truely evocative of a culture which has largely passed into history. At that time the sea was still the main means of communication for much of the west coast – roads were poor and slow going – and apart from the Clyde puffers the areas were pretty much isolated away from the Oban and Fort William railheads. You can get a real sense of the feelings he had for the area and the positive attitudes he would take into his work at the Scottish Office and later as editor of The Scotsman. The book now has an introduction and extra notes by his son Ninian and we must hope that it stays in print for many more years. Though I’ve long had a copy of the previous edition I’ll be buying a copy of this one too.

Published by In Pinn,
ISBN-13: 978-1903238998

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One of the contributors to the Game of Kings discussion list recently uncovered a little gem of information. The name Donati – as in Evangelista Donati, who looks after Joleta and later hands Kuzum into the care of Philippa at Zakynthos – is apparently the Italian form of Dunnett. One of those ‘obvious as soon as you know it’ snippets of knowledge, yet I don’t think anyone had discovered it previously. Well found Viviana.

So like Dorothy to drop such a connection into the story knowing that it might lay undiscovered for years. I can just hear her laughing – ‘oh good, they found one, but there’s plenty more to go’.