#king hereafter

[pricklysplendours]

Above, the sun shone: a disc of pale, hazy yellow in a milky grey sky, below which unrolled a waste of glittering white. Like melting ice, it dazzled the eye. The sparkle of spray, the glassy mist hanging over the water were pretty enough to taste on the tongue. Now and then, as they rolled, you could see the flanks of the waves, swollen fawn with sand and with mud, or pale green gorged with half-consumed white.

Some gorgeousness from King Hereafter, Dorothy Dunnett

[yekoc]

240 pages into king hereafter, barely understanding a word as is my way the first time I read a dunnett novel, but I just got to “lovely as Baldur, with the golden hair lit by the sun from the doorway, and the blue eyes filled with hilarity, and in his uplifted arm a sword, down which a river of fresh blood was streaming,” and I’m 👀. when she gives you that golden hair and blue eyes… when it’s in contrast to the dark hair and features of Thorfinn himself… time to watch out!

[oldshrewsburyian]

🪅 for the book ask

This was an interesting one to ponder. I'm not sure about the extent to which a book can come as a complete surprise to one. But I'll pick Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter, because no one expects Dorothy Dunnett's prose (complimentary), and the last sentence knocked me over like a wave, because it made me realize that the entire book had been about something that I didn't see coming, in addition to all the other things it was about.

[morethanfantasy]

you are my conscience! when you cease to hurt me i shall be either perfect or dead! i wish i could lay my whole heart on your altar-table! this had always been one of the risks! he knew what sulien intended him to feel and he felt it! no enemy he had ever faced had been as hard as sulien could be!

[leojurand]

i still think this is the most romantic scene dunnett wrote in any of her books, no competition

[grandturtleperson]

This is Dorothy Dunnett in 1970 talking about how we often ape the language of books and movies in moments of intimacy and so they sound trite and forced and unspecific. I would love to say the words "I want you. I'm so dirty. Beloved, will you take me?" (King Hereafter) but unless you're about to challenge your nephew to a duel to the death on which depends the kingship of Alba... yeah, no. Even within fiction this quality of dialogue is vanishingly rare. So often it's just the rote "I love you" and "I love you too." I can't think of a present-day romantic utterance in the same league as those in Dunnett's historical fiction. But if anyone can think of one, I'd like to know!

[mblematic]

ok when @pricklysplendours & I do a King Hereafter buddy read would anybody else be interested in joining?? tapatalk style.... 👀👀👀👀 first reads and rereads welcome!!

[weirdsociology]

i have finally started king hereafter and i'm blaming all of you