What the Hell Are the Lymond Chronicles? and Why You Should Totally Read Them

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I’ve been babbling incessantly about the Lymond Chronicles lately, and I know a lot of my flist has no idea what I’m talking about, so if you’re interested, here is an explanation of why the Lymond Chronicles are awesome and why you should totally read them.

(I’ll most likely get back to Doctor Who eventually, but in the meantime, I’m off in Lymond-world right now and my brain only has room for one all-consuming obsession at a time.)

The Lymond Chronicles is a series of six novels written by Dorothy Dunnett between 1961-1975. They focus on a Scottish nobleman, Francis Crawford of Lymond, in the historical era between the fall of Henry VIII and the rise of Elizabeth I. The main story is how Lymond makes his own way and finds his place in the world. More broadly, the novels are an exploration of identity, morality, politics, and history.

Through Lymond's life and relationships, Dunnett explores moral questions with depth and nuance and without easy answers. Even when I don't agree with the solutions she suggests, I love the way she brings the questions to light. Among the many topics she tackles: To what extent are we bound by fate or free will? How important is nature vs nurture? What are the responsibilities of parents to their children, and of leaders to their followers? When do the ends justify the means? What do we each owe to our families, our leaders, and our nations? In a world that demands compromise, how do we maintain our personal and ethical independence without selling out?

And what is the psychological impact of dealing with these issues? Dunnett's world is full of shades of grey; part of the reason her hero is so compelling is that he's so human, passionate, vulnerable, and emotional. He struggles, and falls, and grows and changes; he's both larger than life and deeply relatable, and the way his mind works is fascinating.

The books are incredibly well-researched; Dunnett immersed herself in the historical period and went to all the places she writes about, and she describes them with the eye of an artist. In the end, you feel like you've actually been to all the places she describes, like you've seen the sights and smelled the air and known the people. I knew nothing about 16th century politics when I started the series, but I was absolutely drawn in and have put tons of books about the period on my Amazon wishlist as a result (which I'm totally going to read as soon as I finish devouring the Lymond Chronicles themselves for the fourth time). And, as someone who loves to travel, I adore the travelogue aspects of the series. It goes from Scotland under little Mary Queen of Scots, to the French court of Henry II, to Malta and the Knights of St. John, to a journey throughout the Mediterranean culminating in Ottoman Istanbul under Suleiman, to Moscow under Ivan the Terrible, to England under Mary Tudor. These books are the best history lesson ever.

And I will be honest with the shallow: these books totally hit my kinks. For one thing, if you like hurt/comfort, seriously just trust me and go buy the books right now. And on one level the books are very much a proper romantic adventure, with a witty rogue hero, swordfights and royalty and battles and quests and costumes and spies and sex. They're a lot more than that, and on another level they go way beyond those cliches by exploring the complex moral issues they invoke and what their actual psychological impacts might be, but they're also classic good fun. Lymond is a completely awesome character, dripping with snark and wit and genuine laughter, a musician, a performer, a brilliant intellect, a leader and strategist, a disillusioned idealist, a deeply independent and private man struggling to live up to his own personal moral code. If you love characters like Spike, Jaime Lannister, the Doctor, Methos, Brian Kinney, you will totally fall for Francis Crawford of Lymond. Did I mention that he's blond and blue-eyed and delicately-boned and has thick eyelashes and beautiful long-fingered hands? And that he moves like a cat, sings like an angel, and has the tongue of a viper? (And no, he's not a Mary Sue; for all his brilliance he's got more than enough flaws and issues and vulnerabilities to go with it.)

The female characters are also really wonderful. I think I said this in another post already: Dunnett writes about a sexist world, but she never writes in a sexist way. Her female characters are as complex, nuanced, three-dimensional, and interesting as her male characters. And one of the great appeals of Lymond is that he's a roguish male hero who's not sexist, not even in that annoying pretends-to-be-sexist-as-a-defense-mechanism-but-isn't-really way. Lymond genuinely likes, respects, and understands women. And the series has one of the best love stories I've ever read, one of the only love stories that's completely convinced me that the characters are equals who truly connect, understand, and need each other, mind, body, and soul.

The series is also deeply moving on an emotional level that I'm not even sure how to put into words. Perhaps it's Dunnett's psychological insight, her ability to tap into core human needs and motivations, our conscious and unconscious feelings and needs for our parents and siblings and lovers and friends and children and home. Or maybe it's her disciplined style, her ability to suggest so much but never spell anything out, to draw the reader in and force the reader to bring so much of her own mind to putting the puzzle together, but Dunnett has this ability to take situations that would be melodramatic and sentimental in the hands of a lesser writer and get to their emotional core in a deeper and more compelling way than anything I've ever read. I never just burst into tears while reading Dunnett, but I felt moved to the core in a way that no other work of fiction has approached.

I will give the warning that a lot of people have trouble getting into the series, and find Dunnett's writing style to be frustrating. She expects a lot from her readers, as she throws characters and titles and historical relationships and politics and strategy and three different languages at you at once, and doesn't stop to spell anything out. But trust me. Her writing style improves quickly (the first Lymond book was her first novel), everything gets explained in the end, and it is all totally, totally worth it.

The first book in the series is The Game of Kings. You can get a copy from Amazon right now for $.43, and the rest at similarly low prices, so what are you waiting for? ;) Plus, unlike that other series I keep trying to get my friends into, this one is complete, and I can guarantee that it's meticulously well-plotted, that the conclusion is incredibly satisfying, and that every thread is wrapped up in the end.

(I'm not sure if I explained this well. If any other Lymond fans want to step in and mention anything that I missed, please do.)

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