Books - Thessaly (The Just City, The Philosopher Kings, Necessity) - Jo Walton

In her fantastic Among Others, Jo Walton perfectly captures the wonder of books, and their ability to open whole worlds to a reader, as well as new ways of thinking. I was completely blown away by that novel in 2011, and immediately sought out more of our intelligent and captivating fiction, and landed on Tooth and Claw, sold as Jane Austen, but with dragons. You'd have thought this would be a sure winner, but I found it a bit slow and ponderous, and didn't really get along with it, much to my disappointment. So when The Just City came out a few years later, I missed it, and wouldn't have seen this gem were it not for a great review on The Idle Woman.

By Alvesgaspar - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43523056

The Thessaly novels have one of the best (and most contrived) premises ever. The gods (particularly the Greek pantheon) are real, and we pick up with Apollo, fresh from harassing the nymph Daphne, and Athena, who has thought up a particularly diverting experiment on justice. What if, she asks, someone tried doing Plato's The Republic for real? She gathers up a set of 'volunteers' from across history, with the rule that they all need to have prayed, to her, to have lived in Plato's Republic, meaning lots of greeks, but also scholars from more modern times, including Pico della Mirandelo, Lucrezia Borgia, Cicero, and, one of our key POV characters, Maia, an inquisitive Victorian woman, dismayed at the thought of being someone's trophy wife. Then Athena scoops up a bunch of children, mainly Peloponnesian slaves, and drops the whole lot onto a secluded Mediterranean island in the age of Troy, to act as an experimental 'bubble'. To try and avoid her experiment 'infecting' classical society, she chooses an island doomed to destruction after a few generations - Atlantis.

Apollo, who is struggling to understand why Daphne preferred life as a laurel tree to being ravaged by a divine, chooses to experience mortal life as one of the children, and we follow his story, Maia's, and Simmea, an ill-made but sparklingly intelligent child, through the trials and tribulations of the Republic.

Walton does a bit more narrative heavy lifting to set up her thought experiment, with some timey-wimey rules about how Gods work (they can drop in and out of any period in time, but can only experience each moment once, and are paradoxically self-policing, in that they can't change things that they know have already happened), and the addition of a bunch of futuristic robots, 'Workers', to the island to fulfill the roles of the slaves that would have been required to service Plato's society of philosophers. Oh, and to give plenty of inspiration, the Republicans get to rescue works of art from historical disasters, like the burning of the Alexandria library, to kit out their new island. Last, and best, Walton flies in Sokrates, who is dismayed by the concept Plato has constructed in his name, and relishes the opportunity to query every aspect of this utopia.

What follows is an erudite analogy about the issues of Plato's 'perfect' society, raising the flaws in his disavowal of 'maternal' instincts to one's own children in favour of collective upbringing and yearly eugenically led mating between the best 'souls' in the colony, as well as a touching story of self-discovery for our major players. We sail the Aegean looking for rogue colonists, venture through space and time, and learn to love, and are loved in return, by a God.

The book is stuffed full of classical and philosophical references, but was very easy to follow, even without my having any knowledge of The Republic, or much history of the period. As you would hope from a book about Sokrates, it mainly pushes the reader to think for themselves about what utopia means, and in each of the three books there is a narrative 'debate' to be had, touching on issues of self-determination, the ethics of slavery, the meaning of democracy. At no point to me did the book feel dry or overly serious, and Walton's narrative confection, whilst always inquisitive and well-plotted, ends up spiralling into some pretty crazy places by the end of the three novels.

There were two main threads I particularly enjoyed. 

Through the books, we follow Simmea, and later her daughter Arete, who prove to be the best of the 'philosopher kings' intended by Plato, and their abundant humanity leads to some lovely passages detailing their experience of love, in all its Greek forms. Walton writes powerfully about what it means to 'do agape', the selfless, connecting of souls love of true partners, but also explores darker areas of obsession, as well as the cool, comforting light of platonic love.

Secondly, like in all the best sci-fi, Walton holds up a mirror that changes the way you look at the world.

The book opens with a quote from Mary Renault's The Last Of The Wine, which I read after finishing these three (it's great), and is clearly a huge influence, from the characterisation of Sokrates as the perfectly inquisitive philosopher, to the conclusions that Walton draws on the aspects of a 'perfect' society. In her book, Renault's character Lysis says, in a passionate defense of democracy:

Men are not born equal in themselves, so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me...On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a city where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will. 

Walton explores the gap between this version of a democratic utopia and Plato's formulation, where in the 'myth of metals', the citizen's value is ascribed at adolescence, splitting off the working class from the thinking class. In Plato's republic, the idea of merit is controlled by the state, but in Lysis', it is part of each citizen's role to find and relish ones place. Walton explores this and other aspects of citizenship in a terrifically engaging way, and in a tumultuous year for democracy in the real world, this was a timely and thought-provoking series.

I can't recommend these books enough for anyone who likes Greek history or social science fiction. Walton's writing is immaculate, and it really is breathtaking how she has combines a masterful Socratic exploration with an exciting and emotional storyline. Just as at the end of Among Others, I'm in awe.

Book - Baudolino - Umberto Eco

I heard this week that Umberto Eco had died at the age of 84. This was undoubtedly sad news; he was in a rare breed of 'intellectual' personalities who had made a sizeable impact on public life, and, I think for my generation, a personification of a type of italian refinement that had been easy to lose sight of in the face of a decade of mismanagement and depression. I was a huge fan of the wonderful, Conan-Doyle-celebrating, The Name of The Rose, and was just finishing Baudolino, which I had heard was a spiritual sequel of sorts.

The standard comment about Umberto Eco (typically based on the aforementioned The Name Of The Rose, a literary phenomenon) is that the books are great because they are 'hard', packed with references to historical and etymological trivia, and full of linguistic double play. I didn't get that with the Name Of The Rose, and in many sense glanced over the period detail to be swept along by the 'damn good thriller' plot and very slight twists on the classic Sherlock Holmes formula; and to be honest I remain a bit suspicious and incredulous when cultural commentators hold it up as truly 'literary' and urbane. I then tried his 2nd book Foucalt's Pendulum and got thoroughly and unpleasantly lost, without the familiarity of style or setting to help me along.

Baudolino saw me on happily firmer ground; it's to all intents and purposes a cousin to two of my favourite novels, Robert Graves I, Claudius and Count Belisarius, and like these forms a Secret History where our Procopius is the eponymous Baudolino, a court favourite and adviser of Emperor Frederick 'Barbarossa' in the early thirteenth century. Baudolino is a peasant's son, taken to court after a chance encounter with the Emperor, and as a result of his precocious gift for languages and inventive memory. The story centres on Baudolino's upbringing, and life lone fascination and search for Prester John.

[As a bit of background here; Prester John was a popular urban myth in the late middle ages, of a Christian king in the east, inhabiting a land of riches and wonder. The thought went that Christianity had been spread east by the apostle Thomas, and, if the west could find him, the resulting alliance could pincer movement the Muslims and reclaim the Holy Land. In the period of Baudolino he was thought to be in 'The Indies', and into the 15th century this conflated into Ethiopia, whose first emissaries to Europe were referred to as being from the land of Prester John]

For me this is a particularly fascinating period in history, and Eco skilfully weaves in real events as being brought about by Baudolino's wise counsel; effectively he's a consummate liar and politician, and has numerous witty pen-over-sword interventions as Frederick struggles to dominate the Italian Free Cities, including the founding of Eco's own home city Alessandria. We follow Baudolino from a callow youth, to an indulged and carousing student in Paris (where he assemble a memorable group of mismatched friends), and into a key adviser of the Emperor. His story is told as an old man, recounting his tale during the Latin conquest of Constantinople, and the story is predicated on this strange loop. Baudolino is a self-confessed master liar, telling a story about his life of telling stories, with no-one, not even himself, knowing what is true any more. The novel becomes progressively more fantastical; from using clever ruses to raise the siege of his home city, in a witty but well researched historical fiction, Baudolino then is ascribed to having fabricated the (real, false) 'Letter from Prester John' sent to the Byzantine Emperor telling tales of fantastical beasts and riches in a magical kingdom to the East. Baudolino then sets out on a voyage to find Prester John, supported by his student friends, and all of his hyperbole comes true; from having been immersed into the struggles of Frederick with an unruly Milan, we are suddenly fighting Manticores and crossing rivers of flowing stone on a journey to the east.

The book begins to take on the air of a dream sequence, as we explore the land of Prester John with Baudolino. Here he finds a nation of cripples - with a race of one-legged men, another of feminist hippies, another of bunny-eared humans, another of giants, all of whom live in harmony despite following various early Christian heresies. This section must be an allegory of some kind, but the religious subtleties were sufficiently beyond me that I just enjoyed the madness of it. In tow, Baudolino has the cowardly Armenian Ardrouzino, who earns his money faking relics, and the dastardly Zosimos, a Byzantine who practices 'necromancy' by various ingenious magic tricks. The plot delights in skipping in circles around this idea of lies becoming truth, tall tales becoming dogma, and belief being more important than reality, with a cast of self-deceiving and arbitrary courtiers.

Inevitably, there is a 'locked room' mystery embedded in the story, and a clever explanation at the end which rounds off the story, but in reality this is a classic entertaining picaresque; and just like (if not quite as good as) The Name of The Rose, Eco has created a book that, for all it's intricate weaving, is just really good fun.

Play - Welcome Home, Captain Fox! - Donmar Warehouse

I am very excited at having been able to secure tickets to all 3 shows in the Donmar's spring season, with Nick Payne's new Elegy something I'm sure I'll enjoy.

First up was the mysterious Welcome Back, Captain Fox!; a translation of a french play, based on the true story of an amnesiac soldier, back from being lost in a foreign prison, with no memory of home or family, and sufficiently aged to not be immediately recognizable to family. I had never heard of the original, and have no idea as to whether it constitutes such a silly and broad comedy as this new version.

In this version, the action has been (somewhat inexplicably) moved to a long hot summer in 1950's Long Island. The setting, with it's oppressive, prickly, heat and the entitled langour of the characters, evokes Eugene O'Neill, and the play makes this joke itself in a particularly knowing aside. However the tone and script could not be more different, with existential misery pushed aside in favour of sitcom stylings and caricatured accents.

The antagonist, Gene, is delivered to the house of the Fox's, in the wealthy Hamptons, by the scheming DuPont DuFort's, an odious couple reminiscent of Thenardier and wife. Mrs DuPont DuFort (last time I'm writing that, let's say dPdF) has 'found' Gene in an asylum in New Jersey, and has assembled a short list of 24 families missing lost boys from WW2, based on his Long Island accent and clear 'good breeding'. Gene has no memories from before his capture by the Nazi's. Mrs dPdF has her hopes set on the Fox's being his real family, seeing the story, of her reuniting the son of a wealthy family, as her chance to elevate herself socially. Her weaselish husband just wants her to stop fussing over the 'nutjob' they have driven across the whole state for the rendezvous. They are played with gleeful uncouth, strictly for laughs, as petty and middle class idiots. I was surprised to see the play immediately take this jocular tone; this was clearly to be no sensitive exploration of Gene's condition.

What ensues is a delicate back-and-forth between the frightened and confused Gene and his 'family'. The matriarchal Mrs Fox immediately recognizes him as her son, his dull and reserved brother George is not sure, the flirtatious maid Juliette is delighted to have the 'young master' back, and George's sotted wife Val is unsettled at the thought of "Jack's" return. It emerges that Jack Fox was not a terribly nice young man; sleeping with the maid and running up gambling debts that have crippled the family since his 'death'. Gene, whilst delighted at the thought of 'family' and the Fox's easy and wealthy lifestyle, is disoriented by the thought that he might have been a 'bad' man in his past life, and Jack's philandering and boorish ways (he is a keen hunter) are clearly offputting. These exchanges, despite the psychological bent, are played as a set of sketches - the uncertain and confused Gene confronted with a series of caricatures - the thoughtful and proud black butler, the skittish and libidinous young maid, the stiff and clottish elder brother, the narcissist mother and, most interestingly, the breathless and bored sister-in-law, Val. Played by an unrecognizable Fenella Woolgar, she is two parts Curley's wife and one part Edina Monsoon. It transpires that Val and Jack had been conducting an affair before he left for war, and her current reduced state, of being constantly two gin's ahead in the family home, in a passionless marriage, would be pitiable where she not such a rude and flighty character. The whole family are unveiled to be something of a bunch of gargoyles, and whether or not their madness was the cause or symptom of Jack's story, Gene begins to wonder whether he's really escaped the asylum at all...

The play escalates as many of the other 24 families get wind of the story and come seeking Gene as their own son, forcing him to make a decision between the wealth and madness of the Fox household, or the penury and normality of another family. This is played, like the rest of the play as a farce, and, to my view, not a particularly amusing one. None of the character's are likeable or redeemable, and the lines aren't waspish enough to make up for the sneers with which they are delivered.

I saw the play on a preview night, and it's possible that with some snappier comic timing that the laughs will flow more freely. More likely, I reckon, is that it will stand as an interesting example of a brave writer trying to create a modern homage to the out-of-fashion farce. Ultimately, I think Captain Fox succeeds in capturing the grotesque and the silliness of those productions, but not the magic.

Book - The Lathe Of Heaven - Ursula Le Guin

I've been meaning to read this ever since a rave recount in Jo Walton's Among Others. In that novel, the heroine Mori reads the book as she explodes into the fascinating landscape of sci-fi, and is swept up in the dense themes and delightful imagery of Le Guin's books, among others.

I'd had a similar experience as a teenager, including Le Guin's Earthsea, as well as Heinlein and the like, but had never crossed paths with this one (considered to be a classic, if something of a dry-run for The Dispossessed - which is coming up soon).

We land in a near-future America, where we discover in hints and off-hand comments that a nuclear war has occurred and been survived, and our protagonist, George Orr, struggles with drugs in a failing, overcrowded Portland Oregon. George has a dark and fearful secret - he dreams, and the dream becomes real, or rather - reality becomes the dream. Where George to dream that the sky was red, he would wake up and find it were the case, had always been the case, and no-one (but him) would remember any different. Terrified by this power, he takes pills to avoid REM sleep, which lead to a run-in with the law, and a mandatory course of treatment with the oneirologist (dream therapist) Dr Haber.

Haber begins to treat George, using a combination of hypnotic suggestion, EEG's and a patented 'feedback' stimulus for the brain which he has developed (the worryingly named 'Augmentor'). When in the room with George whilst he sleeps, he can also recall the previous realities left behind after George awakes, and recognizes the power that George's 'gift' provides. Haber soon begins to exploit George for his 'benevolent' ends, seeking to end the myriad problems facing society, and, heh, helping himself up the ladder along the way.

Here the story settles into an interesting variant on the Faustian myth - with every 'suggestion' from Haber - e.g. create a city where everyone has 'space', being warped in George's subconscious into unintended consquence (a historic plague leading to 5 billion deaths in the 'new' timeline). These range from the horrific to the comical - the solution to 'racial prejudice' being that everyone becomes grey in skin tone.

George, powerless to prevent the increasingly influential Dr Haber from using his dreams, and unable to explain his gifts without being committed to an asylum, seeks advice from Heather Lelache, a mixed-race lawyer he asks to attend one of his sessions. She tries to emancipate George, but again his tricky mind leads to unintended problems. Heather and George's shared struggle leads to a powerful and tender love between the two, and holding the 'original' Heather becomes a key concern for George as timelines clash and morph in his dreams. 

As part of Haber's suggestion for 'world peace', George inadvertently creates a mysterious alien race, against which Earth unites for co-defense. These aliens become more central as the storey progresses, and eventually provide George with the key to find a measure of self peace.

These three storey arcs - the morality tale about the perils of ultimate power, the sci-fi storey  about alien invasion, and George and Heather's across-all-realities love affair combine powerfully to provide a thought-provoking and heart-warming story. I loved the way Le Guins wrote as George, not as a heroic or decisive man, but as a frightened, principled man, terrified at the vagaries of his own mind. Heather is a damaged but caring soul, and even the megalomaniac Haber is written with great three-dimensionality, and is a sympathetic, if stupid, villain.

The novel builds to an exciting and tightly plotted finale, and it is to the book's great credit, that despite a very loopy concept, the internal logic remains tight and believable right up until the end. This mix of the fantastical with the mysteriousness of the human mind means that Le Guin has the scope to go anywhere - and she doesn't miss the opportunity to go to some pretty weird and thought-provoking places.

Play - Hapgood - Hampstead Theatre

Tom Stoppard. Lots of folks' favourite playwright, particularly amongst my very technically-minded friendship group, with his very hard but very human plays. When I was at university, there were about 3 student theatre companies that put on regular shows at the theatre - and Stoppard (along with Arthur Miller) was always a very popular choice - and during my 4 years there I was able to see 'Arcadia', 'The Invention Of Love' and 'The Real Thing'. For a young man from a minor city, these were all pretty mind-blowing in their language, complexity and cleverness - and a far cry from the fare that I had seen back at home, which came from an equally rich but very different tradition, of dark comedy and social commentary (from the likes of John Godber and Richard Bean). Being able to see all these wonderful things was a huge and enjoyable part of my university experience, and Tom was probably the biggest component of that. Now in London I'd frantically grabbed tickets to The Hard Problem when it premiered at the NT (mildly dissapointing), and also scratched the itch with the very Stoppard-y and excellent Nick Payne (and would recommend his Incognito to anyone).

So imagine my excitement when the Hampstead Theatre were reviving Hapgood. I didn't know anything about this except that the '...by Tom Stoppard' bit was an excellent start. A bit of digging began to raise some worries - this seemed to be his 'problem play', it was impenetrable, even by his standards, and had been a flop in the West End. 

On arriving at the (very swish) Hampstead Theatre, my fears were quickly allayed. The play begins with a comically silly series of dead drops, and we are quickly introduced to Lisa Dillon as Hapgood in a bravura performance. Her Hapgood is a cocktail of icy boss, awkward but well meaning mother, playful intellect and trustworthy friend. The men (and this being the secret service in the 80s, they are all men) who rotate around her are by turns awed, intrigued and turned on by her energy and brilliance, and Dillon does a great job of making this heady mix believable. The male leads include the scientist Kerner, who copes manfully as Stoppard's mouth piece, constantly sprouting exposition, seemingly ripped from the New Scientist, in a thick Russian accent, as well as the toffish and unfeeling Blair, Hapgood's boss. The brutish and boorish Ridley, Hapgood's bagman does well, as a man under suspicion for the entire play, blending mystery and menace in good measure.

Unlike some of the Stoppard I enjoyed at university, the science here, whilst prominent, was secondary to the rich comedy; including a clever take on the 'park bench' secret conversations; where the spy (Blair) has to ask the informant (Kerner) to speak more clearly, not because of red squirrels and mother cows, but because his scientific allusions are beyond the arts-educated secret agent; as well as a great segment involving twins (I won't spoil it). The play zips between the main players and scenes, teasing the audience to keep up, but never running out of sight. Far from impenetrable, the key plot twists were always get-able just before the big reveal, allowing one to marvel at the cleverness as well as fully appreciate the dramatic irony.

To be critical for a minute, much of the scientific chatter felt somewhat crowbarred in, and not necessarily illuminating - although part of this may be due to the increasing currency of the key concepts (quantum uncertainty) - which I studied at 6th form, and many of the original audience would clearly have not. Also the play didn't quite succeed in choosing whether to be a mystery or a comedy - and to this end the emotional ending, as Hapgood decides what her career is worth, felt undervalued (and outshone) by the more comedic elements.

All in all though, a delightful evening at the theatre, where I left awestruck (as expected) by Stoppard's wit and plotting, as well as the happy surprise of Lisa Dillon's powerhouse central showing.

Book - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark's classic novel was the pick for January's book club meeting, and, without having seen the film or really having any cultural awareness beyond 'was played by Maggie Smith' (with the associated connotations of a wry, headstrong Miss Brodie), I was expecting a book-club-y read. By which I mean strong focus on characters that you can subsequently psycho-analyse, dealing with broad themes, and, well, objectively good, but nothing particularly radical in form or style.



I was very mistaken. This book is very odd.

The 1930s set novel focusses on the Brodie set of 6 girls schooled from the ages of 10-12 by the eponymous teacher, who Spark quite bluntly describes as a modern sort, part of a growing class of independent (both in thinking and social standing) women, and unusual in choosing to spend her life in such a stuffy and hidebound girls school. Miss Brodie spends her lessons regaling the girls with tales of her private life, from holidays in Italy to her lost betrothal who died in The Great War, all coloured with a heavy streak of superiority, as well as a paranoid disdain for the other staff.

The girls, each quite different in temperament and intelligence, are bound together as Brodie's favourites, constantly being taken out on weekend trips by their fiercely proprietorial mentor, and taught to exhibit a certain snootiness over the other children. This training binds them together even through the junior school, where they are still summoned to report on their lives to Miss Brodie after hours and at weekends, and to listen to her latest escapades (and some of those same stories of her lost love, again and again and again).

 The book is told in a loopy, drifting style, with constant flashbacks and portents which skip the timeline back and forth between the girls 10th and 16th years, and beyond, and we quickly learn that our protagonist, Sandy, considered the most insightful and intelligent of the girls, becomes a nun in later life, and this contrasts with her playful, and at times wanton, girlish behavious. We also learn that Miss Brodie dies at a relatively early 58, sacked and alone, betrayed by one of 'her girls', and these asides lead to a general sussurration of doom which stalks the book, as well as, for me, being very challenging to follow. There are few things more unsettling as a relatively prudish young man, than to be hearing about the early sexual adventures of the 'beautiful one', Rose, with a timeline that skips between her as a blossoming 16 year old and an innocent 10 year old.

This discomfort is coupled with the odd character of Miss Brodie. The story focuses on her relationship with two of the male teachers at the school. It appears (skewed through Brodie's narcissistic stories, and the girls reading of these) that both are in love with her. The handsome and married art teacher, Mr Lloyd, is seen in passionate embrace with her, but otherwise their relationship is unconsummated, whilst the awkward bachelor Mr Lowther (singing master) carries off a long running relationship with Miss Brodie, causing much rumour and consternation amongst the highly conservative faculty. Miss Brodie grooms the young Rose to have the affair that she was denied with Mr Lloyd, whilst obsessively fattening up Mr Lowther in a bizarre display of uxorial prowess. This is coupled with Brodie's regular recounts to the young girls of the wonderful things being done on the continent by those nice Sir's Mussolini and Hitler.

The book does an interesting job of displaying the naivetés of both the children and their supposedly grown up teacher, and the gradual realisation of the girls that their idolised Miss Brodie is in many ways deluded and sad. However I found the self-referential prose very difficult to keep pace with, and the less interesting girls (the clumsy and stupid Mary McGregor, the beautiful Jenny and clever Monica) are very lightly drawn and almost incidental. The same follows for the bitter and scandal-seeking headteacher Miss Mackay, a comic stereotype of a character who lurks for 'dirt' on Miss Brodie, eventually provided by the betraying member of 'the set'. In many ways I think these issues with the book are a consequence of my ignorance and the book's age - the unusual style would clearly have been more groundbreaking at the time, and all new inventions begin to look tatty after many years. Similarly the slight and archetypal characters help focus the story on the all-consuming Miss Brodie, and the book's extensive cultural impact will be a contributing factor in why these seem tired and lazy. Above all else, I think my issue was one of missed expectations - what I had figured as a 'classic' is to all intents and purposes a gentle comedy on the lines of Allo Allo or Keeping Up Appearances, and if I had picked the book up expecting something as waggish I may have had a much better time.

Book - To Lie With Lions - Dorothy Dunnett

Right, this isn't going to be a review as such, mainly because I couldn't synopsise the labyrinthine plot if I tried, and certainly not without prodigious spoilers. Also this is book 6 of 8 in the House of Niccoló series of historical novels, and 12 of 14 in my own infatuation with Dorothy Dunnett books(or, as I like to call it, 2015), and so I should have started a while back if I'd wanted to present any sort of scene-setting to the novels. What I would like to talk about is one specific character, and this post will effectively form a love letter to the wonderful Katelijne Sersanders.

"... it was a relationship, disembodied as that of the mistletoe, which found its nourishment in strange, diverse places: in the excitement of danger; in the marriage of music and word; in understanding allied with compassion. Until now, he had not fully realised how privileged he had been, knowing Katelijne Sersanders."

One of the best aspects of novels, with their easy way of getting you into the author's (or their protagonist's) head, is that you can fancy literary figures. Obviously this can happen in film or TV (I have a major soft spot for Kirstie Alley in Look Who's Talking), but I don't think this can really match the feeling of a novel. My favourite example of this is Dr Zhivago; the chapter where Lara is introduced is titled 'A Girl From A Different World' - and I completely stand by my 17 year old self, who was hopelessly in love with her as a character from those 6 words alone, before a jot of description or dialogue, and in spite of the following description of her tragic adolescence.

In both of Dunnett's grand historical sagas, you have a central character - Francis of Lymond, or in this case Nicholas van der Poele (Nicolló), who are ineffably competent, handsome, literate, brave, prescient and efficient. They are like Indiana Jones, Mycroft Holmes and Edward Rochester rolled into one, and it's a tribute to her wonderful writing that these bizarre male-wish-fulfillment men can be passed off as real characters who the reader will unpick with delight over the course of the books. Following the wish fulfillment theme, in each of the books there is generally a 'Bond Girl' - in the Lymond books these are typically beautiful and doomed, and are rare in their ability to see the good man behind the impassive warlord. In the later-written Niccoló books the women are generally more antagonistic and scheming, trapped in an Argentine Tango with the mysterious hero; here the central theme is whether the seemingly kind and genial hero is as good as he chooses to appear to be, and whether we should be rooting for him at all.

In both cycles there exists a prima donna, a counterpart to the fascinating leading man. For Lymond this is the divine Phillipa Somerville, who we first meet as a meek and mild child, and, through her misadventures with our hero, blossoms into a heartbreakingly beautiful lady of court, whilst maintaining her selfless and christian outlook, and proving herself every bit a match for the witty, urbane and preternaturally intelligent Lymond. We are invited to fall in love with Phillipa as he does, through her infectious and clever sense of humour, as made evident in a variety of courtly games, plays and songs.

Katelijne, introduced primarily in The Unicorn Hunt and central to To Lie With Lions, fulfills a similar role for Nicholas; she is a fantastically good-natured soul, but also can often seem the only character who can keep pace with his ferocious intelligence. For both she and Nicholas, their insight is based on a deep and cultivated empathy with others, though for Nicholas this leads to him using men as tools, to be bent but not broken, and for Katelijne the opposite, a self-destructive absorption of the problems of others, sacrificing her own ambitions and priorities on the altar of her kindheartedness. The key difference with Katelijne is that she is not a romantic match for Nicholas, whilst they are clearly twin souls, his feelings appear more brotherly than romantic, and Katelijne herself is not a romantic soul - as noted:

"From what I have seen of Katelijne Sersanders (...) she will marry whoever commonsense tells her to, and will have as many children as she knows will be reasonable, while conducting a perfectly satisfactory life that has nothing to do with either"
(can you see why I'm in love yet?)

Katelijne finds herself in the same places and situations as Nicholas for a variety of reasons; she is an efficient lady of court, caring, kind and competent, she is an attractive and engaging young lady, and also a tomboyish soul, deeply resentful of being excluded from the 'man's world', and using her cleverness to elbow into the affairs that come automatically do her dull-witted elder brother Anselm. In all of their entanglements she is characterized (and, by me, adored for) a delightful sense of humour, regularly raising the stony Nicholas to laughter by, like all the best comedy, being able to surprise him with her artful mental hopscotch. Her keen insight and sensitivity means she is continually saving our prone-to-nihilism hero from his darker aspects, and her quiet and intelligent competence means she is regularly relied upon to join up the dots in Nicholas' manic schemes. This in particular is a Dunnett trademark - her best scenes generally involve a hare-brained and breathless chase, whether a life-and-death escape along the rooftops of Leon for Lymond and Phillipa, or a drunken game of Flemish Football around the battlements of Edinburgh castle, with Nicholas and Katelijne as reluctant participants in To Lie With Lions. Lymond/Nicholas will turn the tides with a breathless moment of ingenuity - leaping to certain death, diving into a foaming torrent of water etc. - relying on the sympatico heroine to have seen the inevitable need for the lowered rope or embedded knife or carefully placed raft that allows the hero to cheat death. The pair harmonise as though of one mind and soul, and almost literally transcend their circumstances.

For some, a character like Katelijne will prove too good to be true, but for me she is simply a delight to read about, a tumult of wit and kindness, and a warm light that illuminates the rest of the book. It is suggested that, in both series of novels, Dunnett's central characters are at least in part based on her own marriage. Dunnett's husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett, was a towering figure in Scottish culture, as well as editor of the Scotsman, writer and businessman - a polymathic figure who you can imagine inspiring Dunnett's leading, truly 'renaissance' men, and that a wife's love might engender such a flattering portrait. One wonders therefore if Dunnett saw herself in her intoxicating heroines. As a well regarded painter, as well as wonderful novelist and historian, she certainly had the quality and humour - rather than waste my affections on her fictional characters, maybe I should focus on building that time machine so I can go flirt with her in 1948 or so....