Elizabeth Chadwick on Dorothy Dunnett
Elizabeth Chadwick, author of the Eleanor of Aquitaine series
When I was fourteen, I graduated to the adult section of our public library and immediately began my relationship with Dorothy Dunnett. It wasn’t love at first encounter, rather a meeting of polite strangers. crossing paths and moving on.
I was entitled to borrow six books at a time and being a fast, voracious reader, devoured three books a week. I had a system. I would choose a couple by favourite authors and read them first – perhaps a Mary Stewart or a Norah Lofts. Another couple would be selected because I was drawn to the cover, the title, or the blurb. I might find books on the returns trolley which often carried interesting titles waiting to be re-shelved. I always chose my sixth book alphabetically just to surprise myself. I’d take one from the A shelf one week, a B the next, a C the next and so on.
I discovered Dorothy Dunnett as my sixth book on the ‘D’ week and it was Pawn in Frankincense. I was a mature reader for my years, but this was the fourth book in a complex series and it was like reading a foreign language. I returned it to the library unread. Nevertheless, the bug had bitten me. Although I wasn’t ready for Dorothy Dunnett then, and moreover had walked through the wrong door, I continued to borrow her books at regular intervals, frustrated, but inexorably drawn. The Game of Kings, first in the series, remained elusive. It was always out on loan.
In my late teens I finally obtained The Game of Kings and by this time had acquired an ‘A’ level in English literature and had begun to write historical fiction for my own pleasure. Borrowing The Game of Kings coincided with a bout of flu, and while on the mend, recuperating in bed, I picked up The Game of Kings and this time, it was different. It was like being given the key to a wonderful garden. Finally, I had found the right door and in that moment, sitting up in bed propped up on pillows, Lemsip in hand, I experienced an epiphany. Suddenly the key clicked in the lock and I understood when I had not understood before.
Many of the metaphors and references went right over my head I admit, but I absorbed the gist, and it no longer mattered because I had entered a different, magical reality. The characters this time, sprang from book to mind to physical existence, and stood before me, every one of them possessed of a vibrant, individual personality.
I read the novel at running pace, and then went back and read it again, and then again, savouring moments I had missed, the first time, loving every moment, and filled with anticipation of more to come.
I borrowed the rest of the series, reserving them this time, to read in order. I was hooked and even became a little obsessive – an addict. The more I read, the more I came to appreciate Dorothy Dunnett’s meticulous and copious research. Her use of language and her scope amazed me, as did her stunning ability to craft scenes, and engage the emotions of her reader, viscerally, and cerebrally. She could go from raucous and bawdy to delicate and ethereal in a single deft turn of phrase, while twisting the tale to the opposite of expectation.
I found myself thinking about the characters and situations as I went about my daily life, reliving the scenes in my mind’s eye. Sitting down to write my own work, I would ask myself ‘How would Dorothy Dunnett have approached this scene?’ She taught me to experiment and to make bigger, bolder leaps of the imagination. She taught me the unfettered pleasure of painting with words. Her prose always raised me up and inspired me. She was the master and I was the eager apprentice colouring in the corner while she created a glorious fresco. If a Dunnett novel was a song, it would be Bohemian Rhapsody.
As a young adult and then young married woman bringing up children and paying the mortgage, money was tight, but I scrimped and saved, and requested the books for birthday and Christmas gifts until I had the full set. I read and re-read them, always finding moments I had missed, and each time, I came to a new level of understanding. One of the defining factors of an exceptional work is that there is always more to discover no matter how many times you go back.
By the time I was half way through the new House of Niccolò series, I had become a published author, and was freshly overwhelmed in an ecstatic way by the Renaissance world Dunnett had created. I was awed by the breadth and scope of her research, and her ability to bring a new cast of characters to life on a broad sweep of canvas and yet in minute and exquisite detail. That takes genius. Once you ‘get’ Dunnett, nothing else comes close. She occupies her own pinnacle.
I confess I have yet to read all of her works. Her lighter detective series remains to be explored and I have yet to read what is often cited as her greatest work, King Hereafter. It is on my bedside book pile, and I look forward to taking another key and opening the door into an unexplored area of the glorious Dunnett garden.
I am sometimes asked which is my favourite Dunnett book or scene, but I honestly do not have one because all of it is magnificent and memorable for its own reason. But if there is a defining moment when I became a reader forever, it was the sword fight between the Crawford brothers, Francis and Richard in The Game of Kings.
Everything that is Dunnett is encapsulated in that scene – the emotion, the drama and tension, the twist, the deep research, all working in merciless tandem to keep the reader barely daring to continue, but compelled and hungry for every crafted cutting-edge word and not just wanting, but needing more. Always more. You don’t just read Dorothy Dunnett once, you read her forever.
Elizabeth Chadwick is an award winning best-selling author of historical fiction, including A Marriage of Lions (2021) out now from Sphere Books. She lives in the UK. More at www.elizabethchadwick.com.
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