Dorothy Dunnett (1923–2001)
Autor(a) de The Game of Kings
About the Author
Dorothy Dunnett was born on August 25, 1923 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. She attended Gillespie's High School for Girls. After graduation she attended Edinburgh College of Art, and transferred, upon her marriage, to Glasgow School of Art. From 1940-1955, she worked for the Civil Service as a mostrar mais press officer. Her first novel, The Game of Kings, was published in the United States in 1961 and in the United Kingdom the year after. During her lifetime, she wrote over 20 books including King Hereafter, the six-part Lymond Chronicles, and the eight-part House of Niccolo series. She was also a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1992 she was awarded the Office of the British Empire for services to literature. She died from cancer on November 9, 2001 at the age of 78. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Image credit: Photo by Alison Dunnett from DorothyDunnett.co.uk
Séries
Obras por Dorothy Dunnett
Associated Works
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1923-08-25
- Data de falecimento
- 2001-11-09
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- UK
- Local de nascimento
- Dunfermline, Scotland, UK
- Local de falecimento
- Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
- Locais de residência
- Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
- Educação
- Gillespie's High School for Girls
- Ocupações
- novelist
painter
press officer - Relações
- Dunnett, Ninian (son)
Dunnett, Alastair MacTavish (husband) - Organizações
- Edinburgh Festival
- Prémios e menções honrosas
- Order of the British Empire (Officer)
Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425- According to her fan site, Dorothy Dunnett was pursuing a successful career as a professional portrait painter in the 1950s when she complained to her husband Alastair that she had run out of reading material. He suggested she write something herself. With the erudition and depth of research that was to become her trademark, she spent the next 18 months writing The Game of Kings. It was rejected by 5 British publishers before being published in the USA in 1961 and launching her writing career.
Membros
Discussions
Spoilers ahoy! Spoilerific discussion of Dorothy Dunnett's Rum Affair em The Green Dragon (Março 2013)
Críticas
Listas
Read This Next (1)
Favourite Books (1)
Prémios
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 33
- Also by
- 1
- Membros
- 17,014
- Popularidade
- #1,307
- Avaliação
- 4.3
- Críticas
- 363
- ISBN
- 460
- Línguas
- 5
- Marcado como favorito
- 149
The life of historical Macbeth is quite different from Shakespeare’s version, and I was excited to read a novel about him. The writing hooked me, it felt so right for the times and the characters – there was a cadence of Icelandic sagas in the background, which was lovely. I am not an expert on European history of the 11th century, so there was a lot of fascinating stuff in the book: the end of the Viking Age; the melting-pot of cultures and languages in Northern Europe; kings and queens and earls and bishops and emperors and popes. Let’s not forget the intrigues and the battles (naval battles with longships!).
I loved Thorfinn (Macbeth) and Groa his wife. The romance was cringy, to be honest-“I’m treating you abominably, because I am in love with you and I am afraid of loving you.” Sigh.
Their marriage, after”the Macbeths”learned how to relationship, was wonderfully described and made me feel for them both. (My favourite part was Groa ruling her own lands by herself, though.)
My buddy readers disliked the chapters about Thorfinn’s journey to Rome. I think that my fascination with and love for Rome helped in this case. The descriptions were beautiful, despite the political maneuvering that went on and on, chapter after chapter.
“The voices rose, and fresco and mosaic gave them back. Gold sparkled and winked through the mists of burned spices.”
“Below the liquid eyes of the Prophets, among the clear peacock wings of the angels, his men stood behind in the aisles and forgot who they were and where they came from.”
But why the disappointment?
This is a very ambitious book, with a lot of passion for history, and for Scotland’s nation-building. Unfortunately, it means that as the book went on and the author forgot about her editors (if she had them in the first place, which I doubt), there was more and more history and less and less historical fiction. In the meantime, I just wanted “a Dorothy Dunnett novel”, with characters that I would love, hate, despise, admire, root for, cry over. This is what the first four books of the Lymond Chronicles taught me to expect. Nope, it wasn't to be. The characters kept getting flatter and flatter and flatter. They were crushed by the weight of history, I suppose. Ha ha! The endless info dumps made my head swim, my eyes glazed over. I couldn’t tell all the secondary characters and historical figures apart any more.
It’s interesting that history started crushing everything after Rognvald (an amazing character, he was very Dunnett ;) ) disappeared from the book. I’m guessing that it was the end of the Viking age for the other characters, so that they could go about nation-building. This insight doesn’t help me much, the info dumps were still boring and unnecessary. It was frustrating to find flashes of brilliance in there, and imagine what this book could have been like.
The last two chapters were excellent, they made my heart ache. But now what I mostly feel is “Phew. Freedooom! Freedoooom! Freedooooom!”… (mais)