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[bookelfe]

I am now three-quarters of the way through my epic reread of Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo books!

Capsule summary of The Unicorn Hunt:Niccolo's newborn baby son is

Comments

[nextian]

I am becoming more in awe, by the way, of Dorothy Dunnett's skill at performing astounding amounts of historical research for the purpose of finding the most symbolically angsty place for a confrontation. For example: learning all about the use of blood in Renaissance salt purification, just so she can have Niccolo engineer a murderous confrontation with his possibly!father in a deserted salt house, in a blizzard, over an enormous pit of boiling hot bull's blood. And that is not even the climax of the book! Some other truly exceptional set pieces over these past two books include:

- the drainage systems of Cairo during the rise of the Nile, in which Niccolo is tied up and left to drown
- the top of Mt. Sinai, where Niccolo and his wife consider the possibility of joint suicide (which: if you are going to offer this option, the top of Mt. Sinai is a hell of a place to do it)
- Venice at carnival-time, which I would not even mention because everyone does Venice at carnival-time, except this one also includes cross-dressing, kidnapping, and a chase across several gondolas
- a castle completely composed of trapdoors, secret springs, and funhouse mirrors for the purposes of practical jokes, in which an epic reunion takes place
- the three-foot-wide, thirty-foot-tall great wall of Edinburgh, where the protagonist and several members of the Scottish royalty play a game of football
- Iceland, where a volcano explodes

OK, I'm definitely reading these books next.

[bookelfe]

HAHAHAHA I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. Your Emma vs. Lymond tag is giving me life. (I wanted to reply to your post on Richard, BECAUSE I LOVE RICHARD, except Tumblr defeated me again and I couldn't figure out how. ;___;)

[nextian]

I'M SO SORRY. He's amazing, though. He is the light of my life and these books.