A legend inspires…
Today I read a sharply written post on the role of Dorothy Dunnett in many writers’ lives.
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/27/371710986/all-the-writers-you-love-probably-love-dorothy-dunnett
And it was this below statement in particular that would cause me to wonder how I have been influenced by her…
‘Science fiction giant Kim Stanley Robinson first read the Lymond novels when he was a teenager, and identified particularly with Dunnett’s style: “[Her] writing was lush and her sensibility romantic.”’…
And I thought that was it – once I began writing, I wanted to write very much in her style.
I love the lushness of her language, the density, the impossible romance of her narrative when there is no way that one could label her historical fiction as an historical romance. I love the long, sometimes overblown sentences, the obliqueness of her poetic inclusions. I love that I have to return to a sentence frequently before I comprehend its meaning. I love that with every read (and like most DD aficionados I re-read often), I find something I missed before.
It’s like being taking on a familiar journey but being given a wholly different map drawn by some wildly Niccolo-styled cartographer whereby one must find one’s way through more convolutions than one ever knew existed.
I found Dunnett in a little seaside library – one volume only. The first of The House of Niccolo. The Macchiavellian vein that runs through the novel caught my attention and I became addicted before Claes and Julius had even left the Duke of Burgundy’s bath as it floated between locks near Bruges.
Within days I had finished the book and within weeks had ordered everything that was available at the time. And at that time, I had no thought at all that I would eventually become a published writer of historical fiction and historical fantasy. I only knew that above and beyond any author I had ever read, this wonderful Scots writer would be my favourite.
When the time came and I began to write the first novel I would take to the public, words began to appear and a narrative and language developed. Was it dense? Not too much. Was it obliquely perfect? Not at all. But I found I was writing in a style that was vaguely familiar to me, if not to Dunnett aficionados. If I am objective, I might say that my writing style has a mild lushness, even a poetic manner to it. It’s a style that resonates from deep in my soul outward and I owe that to Dunnett.
So what else have I learned from the eight volumes of Niccolo and the six of Lymond? I learned never to be afraid to write the way I want, and not the way a perceived readership might want me to write. I learned to let my wordage sing and to take my protagonists and antagonists and manipulate them unconscionably if I wanted – even and unto the point of death if it moved a narrative along and no matter how much it might upset my readers.
I suppose more than anything, Dunnett taught me to be unafraid. I wished I could have told her what respect I hold for her work but I imagine it is enough that every time I write a word, I think of her and that for me, she will always remain my icon.
She was the first person (and maybe the last) to make me appreciate my very expensive education. I read her with delight, and “read” can be either the past or present tense, translating her quotes and identifying her references. She is a treasure trove for reminding me of history and literature and humor.
Once I heard The Name of the Rose” compared to her books but it is so shallow and empty by comparison–this book merely echoes the surface of 12th grade and undergraduate reading, whereas Dunnett spills erudition with every sentence.
I translate her quotes on a regular basis, Erica, with The Dunnett Companions Vol 1 and 2. I once wished I had owned those on my first reads but subsequently decided it was better nOt to have digested and translated everything in the first instance. It has given every subsequent read such dimension.
Her wit, a very intense wit, is something one doesn’t see in historical fiction very often and she does it without belittling her characters (both historical and fictional) in any way, don’t you think?
The Name of the Rose is a wonderful book but it doesn’t ‘live’ like Dunnett’s do. With Dunnett I feel as if I’m part of Lymond’s or Niccolo’s cadres whereas in Rose, I was a mere reader. As a writer, it is what I want my readers to do – be a part of the novels, ride with the characters and turn quickly as if they expect to see the protagonist in the saddle beside them, passing them a string puzzle or speaking like Thady Boy Ballogh.
Erudition? Definitely.