Cheryl Sawyer on Dorothy Dunnett
Cheryl Sawyer, author of The King’s Shadow
I first encountered The Game of Kings in my grammar-school library in the mid-1960s, and ever since that enthralling experience I have considered her a master of her genre. I loved historical novels from childhood, my early favourites being writers such as Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece, Rosemary Sutcliff and Barbara Leonie Picard, and Olivia FitzRoy, who wrote a series beginning with time travel to the Battle of Culloden, perhaps an influential precursor to the late efforts of Diana Gabaldon. My reading led on of course to romps such as The Scarlet Pimpernel and These Old Shades and classics like those of Charles Kingsley, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson and Walter Scott. Since then I have progressively bought, devoured and reread all her books, I’ve had the privilege of corresponding with her, I met her on her tour of Australia in 2000 and I can truthfully say that she has drunk my whiskey—a gracious concession on her part, as I can’t claim it was of the best—and I continue to see her as a master, for many reasons.
One reason lies in a comparison between her work and other greats of the genre, and I believe it’s fair to say that her stories are even more romantic than Stevenson’s and she has a more brilliant grasp of history than Walter Scott. And in fiction she has done as much to throw accurate and abundant light on Scottish history as either of these. I for one, a New Zealander who has lived, worked and studied in Britain and Europe, can still say that my knowledge of and fondness for Scotland derives principally from the rich and compelling pictures of her homeland that Dorothy Dunnett offers us in her novels. After she read aloud from Queens’ Play in a Sydney bookstore, I mentioned this and said that her books offer a stimulating portrait of Scotland as a nation on the world stage. I asked her if this had been one of her aims in writing The Lymond Chronicles and whether she felt those books might have influenced the devolution movement in Scotland today. She was genuinely surprised by the question! I don’t think that even then she realised how indelibly her pride in her country informed her books, nor what a gift to the nation they remain.
On those who love her work, her influence is very strong. I thought I could see Dunnett-like hints in a certain scene in Keri Hulme’s great novel, The Bone People, and Keri herself acknowledged to me her keen admiration of The Lymond Chronicles. Long after the Christchurch earthquake of 2011 I was speaking to a fellow publisher whose complete sets of her novels had been looted from his library when his house was destroyed. He was still mourning the loss, so at once I mailed him my treasured, signed copy of Gemini, knowing how much that would mean to him. From childhood I wanted to write novels, but it was not until I was in my thirties that I realised my drive was actually to write historical fiction. Her books had so broadened and illuminated the genre that I felt them as an inspiration. When my first novel was published in 1998 I sent her a copy and she kindly replied, with the warmth, the sharp perceptions and tiny handwriting familiar to thousands of admirers. I am fond of parody and in my second novel, Rebel, I included a scene, set at midnight on the Delaware, that was written as an extravagant homage to her. I had the courage to send her the book but never the impudence to ask whether she recognised the scene.
At the bookstore in Sydney she told her audience that there is a sly joke running through The Lymond Chronicles, too, and mentioned that no one had as yet found it out. My guess is that this is a joke of allusion, in her case to film. There are aspects of Lymond’s appearance and behaviour that to me recall some of the attributes of Peter O’Toole in different roles, and at least two of the thousands of incidents in The Lymond Chronicles seem artfully written to match scenes from O’Toole movies. One is the meeting of Henry II and Thomas Becket on a beach in France (Becket) and the other is the prostration of T.E. Lawrence after he has been flogged by the Turkish Bey (Lawrence of Arabia). For all I know, others may have uncovered the rest of the scenes embedded in her sparkling and gloriously inventive texts—or solved the puzzle in a better way than mine.
Another reason to admire and enjoy Dunnett’s work is the deep penetration of her research, the command of several languages that allowed her to pursue it with accuracy, and her skill in selecting and organising her material so that it flows effortlessly into the narrative and makes whole worlds spring into life. In conversation she told me with relish about a trip to Iceland while researching a Niccolò novel, when she forced a terrified taxi driver far beyond his comfort zone over shaky and steamy portions of the earth’s crust to get next to a live volcano. Back in the foyer of the Reykjavik hotel, passenger and driver alarmed patrons by embracing in relief at their escape. She laughed as she spoke of it, with head thrown back in her characteristic manner. In another mood, on an ABC radio program I heard her speak with wistful regret about not being able to drive to Timbuktu while on a research trip to North Africa, because the dangers at the time were too great. In spirit and in fact, I can’t help thinking of her as the Marco Polo of the historical novel.
The undying reason to admire her novels is of course the writing itself. I am sure contributions to the Centenary celebrations will do justice to her splendidly original characterisations, her mesmerising prose, the sensuality of her descriptions, her mischievous humour, the incomparable richness of her vocabulary, the emotional complexity and dramatic effects in every scene she drew for us, the majestic power of her storytelling. I honour her memory and, most of all, her work—what an intellect, what a talent, what skills she employed, extending to music, painting and all the vital realms of her country’s culture. A truly Renaissance woman.
Cheryl Sawyer is the author of The King’s Shadow, Rebel and many others. More at CherylSawyer.com.
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