Big Fat Book October Update: The Game of Kings

Reporting progress on my Big Fat Book Project. I have now finished 12 of 25 hours of The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett. This means I should've read around 250 out of 554 pages in the paper copy.

BUT Dear Reader, I cheated. The book got too exciting for me. I raced ahead and devoured the paper copy. Or rather, the story devoured me.

My exercising was hijacked by an old injury on my right knee flaring up and worsening. As a result, the audio part of the BFB Project went kaput. As I have mentioned before, without a mindless activity to occupy my body, my mind doesn't merely wander, it roams far and wide. Sitting in a chair listening is not an activity for me. So while I have now thoroughly enjoyed, finished, and digested the paper copy, I have given myself till December 31 to finish the audiobook. I sincerely hope I can achieve that goal comfortably, and I'm not up late in the week between Christmas and New Year's swotting.

As I read ahead, I—guiltily—abandoned reading with the dictionary and Google at my elbow. Even assiduous googling didn't always yield satisfactory results. In the comments of my September post, reader simhedges had recommended The Ultimate Guide to Dorothy Dunnett's The Game of Kings by Laura Ramsey as the perfect companion guide to the book. I had planned then on reading it as a side-by-side-third-go-through of the main text. That book has been bought, but remains largely unread.

I gave up on understanding every word and every phrase and every nuance. There were far too many of those pesky references to historical events, movements, and people; literary allusions; and foreign languages. I was too engrossed in the story to take the time to slow down and really understand every word. I hope to read the companion book next month as I continue with the audiobook.

I really wonder what Dunnett's personal library looks like for her to be able to sprinkle all these into her narrative.

I do understand that some books are like a thin-crust pizza: everything is visible on the surface. And yet others are like onions, you peel and peel and peel and uncover something more you hadn't noticed before. Discovery is the joy of re-reading books such as these. While this is certainly the case with Dunnett's book, it did cross my mind a time or two that it was striving to be so more than being organically so. A minor quibble in an overwhelmingly fabulous read on many levels.

For a tome with a huge cast of characters and movement of said people hither and yon and involved in this or that, the book is paced perfectly. It's neither so fast as to be overwhelming and discombobulating, neither does it drag. That was my primary fear of taking on a big book: Would I have to slog through the book page by torturous page just to say, "I did it"? I did not want this to be my Crime and Punishment.

Fortunately, that hasn't been the case, in fact, far from it. It was engrossing reading whether or not Lymond was in the scene. The Lymond scenes were admittedly slightly anxious reading/listening ones for me: I was always anticipating his perpetrating some other outrage on some other hapless head.

At the beginning of the month, I remember thinking: I am eagerly awaiting the scene where something or someone is going to give Lymond his comeuppance. Oh, certainly not bring him to his knees—that would be too common—but just put a check in his arrogant, insouciant stride and give him a moment of mental discomfort.

Let me tell you that there was karma even in Lymond's world!

Last month, I had written: "This has got to be one heck of a character arc for Lymond. My imagination fails me in picturing Lymond's transformation from anti-hero to hero."

Well, let me also tell you, Dunnett delivers! By God, she does.

[For reference, here are my July, August, and September updates.]