Tokyo Juliet: it's got the world's prettiest hero (now with added Lymond at end!)

[lesbiassparrow]

Things that I like about this show:

1. Evil dad. He's really, really evil as you can tell by his smirk. His business empire (don't laugh) is built upon a design idea he stole off a 5 year old. The five year old has held a grudge ever since (seriously, she is mad about it, even if it does seem a bit insane as he presumably changed the design a fair bit to make it work. But he also ran off with her mum, which doesn't really seem to faze her.) Anyway, he's great and every show should have one.

2. Liang, the prettiest hero ever. If you don't believe me look at dangermousie's picspam: Click for lovely pictures. It should be illegal to be that pretty and wander around in public. As I find the heroine a bit wearing with her endless tears and wailing about how she will be a famous designer one day, I tend to watch for him and his very well-lit angst.

3. Er...I am not sure I have a 3. But look at the pictures of Liang! Yes.

Things that I don't like:

1. The heroine (Sui) is a bit of a wet blanket. There's a lot of clinging and very fetching tears and whining. She's alright when not whimpering but that's not a lot of the time. And unlike other the few other heroines of taiwanese soaps I've seen she doesn't actually have that much to complain about. Okay, evil designer stole her drawing as a five year old (how the hell did she even know about it? was she reading fashion magazines as a wee child?) and ran off with her mum (which no one - not even dad - seems all that upset about) but in the grand scheme of things it's perhaps not enough to have a desire for revenge that makes some Jacobean tragedy look tame by comparison.

And in incredible animal stories: Sooty shearwaters migrate for 40,000 miles. Really. Sooty Shearwater migration

ETA: I started reading The Lymond Chronicles and I know I've been told it's slow for the first 100 pages but no one said anything about the language! 'His whiskers promenaded!' 'which dislimned every shade of their privacy.'! It's like Walter Scott on acid - which might not necessarily be a bad thing, mind you.

ETA 2: There are wheens of things. And wily choleric eyes (how is that even possible? Surely if your eyes are angry they cannot really simultaneously be wily?) Soon I am sure there will be scrips mentioned! Tell me it is worth continuing with this book because otherwise it is like reading a melange of RL Stevenson and Walter Scott - authors whom I like but who are very much of their time. Which is not the 20th century.

ETA 3: Lymond has been 'infused with fresh, delicate energy' and also used a reference from Horace. One which, I might add, made no sense in this context unless he thinks his male companion is going to feck off with another man and suck his life blood dry. But I do not think I am supposed to imagine Lymond is in love with this man, so I don't quite understand.

Comments

[k-julia.livejournal.com]

I've had the Lymond Chronicles pimped to me by someone whose taste I almost always trust, but good god... it actually made me feel stupid. Non parler your language!

Judging by the creases on the cover, I made it to page 200 or thereabouts, after which I... conveniently forgot to pick it back up, I think.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

At the moment it is as if the author had a book of dialect terms which she is using without bothering to alter the rhythms of the language. People whose taste I trust have reccommended this thing to me so many times that I am willing to give it a try for long. And I have only just started it so maybe she calms down a bit? Because otherwise it will be a very long read.

[chelseagirl47.livejournal.com]

I'd read these in high school; recently, I started on a reread inspired by, as in your case, people whose taste I trust (I'm thinking queenofthorns and menikoff) -- I had a tough time with the first as well, even with youthful memories of loving them. The second went a lot better, but I've been interspersing them with lots of other stuff.

Lymond nearly lost me, though, when he made a completely anachronistic reference to, I believe it was mesmerism (named after someone who lived centuries later) or possibly something vaguely Freudian.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I am willing to persevere because there is no way the author can keep this up - and so many people have said this is good. But the references and the language! Some of the reference seem to make no sense at all in the context which is a bit annoying - like the Horace one.

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

Heh! The language tones down by the end of the first one, but you're right about the first :P (I just have a high tolerance for "florid.")

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I figure that there is no way Dunnett can possibly keep this style going so at some point the story has got to take over, but at the moment I must say she reads like one of the madder Loeb translations. (These are those translations made of Latin and Greek literature with the original language facing the English; they are notorious for their fondness for archaic English and dialect terms).

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

It was her first book, too, so I think she’s just waaaaaay florid in this one (to be honest, the constant quoting drives me a little crazy too, but she tones that down as well, later on ...) One of my very good friends, to whom I've successfully pimped many books, just can't bear her style and couldn't get through even a hundred pages of A Game of Kings :P (I actually started my Dunnett reading with King Hereafter, which is less high-falutin' and more ... bardic, which suits the story a lot better.)

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The quotes are just quotes, right? They don't actually fit the context, do they? Because the references and quotes that I can identify don't seem to but maybe I am missing something.

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

I think later on, there are moments where Lymond quotes love songs that ARE important, but most of the time, I feel that he's just showing off. He's like some overly keen undergrad :P

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, songs he quotes in 6 are important and all that (and at the end of 4) but in 1, he really is a show-off.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It really does get better. Honest. Actually, if you want to short-cut (I fell in love with Game of Kings about a hundred pages in but ymmv), just ditch the first two and start with Disorderly Knights (3-6 are basically one long book but one or two, while connected and important are much more unitary and can be read later or even if you hate them, not much at all). The prose in DK is not like that at all, and the plot moves really fast. And it's really angsty. Honest.

I am supposed to imagine Lymond is in love with this man

I don't think it's spoiling much to mention Lymond has catholic tastes.

And re: Tokyo Juliet. Oh yes. YES.

P.S.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind a massively MASSIVELY spoilery post for Book 6, here is a very long passage from book 6 that shows her later style is much less ornate.

Re: P.S.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Will it make me like him? Because at the moment I find him really annoying and want to give him a good kick (though this is a bit of a snap judgment as I am only at page 120).

Re: P.S.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. I have no idea how the scene reads without context. I seriously think you should just drop GoK if it's not working and go for Disorderly Knights.

Re: P.S.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The only one I have at the moment is Gok though and I am not really eager to invest in the others based on this so far, so it will have to wait until I get to the library, I think.

I read the extract; you're right about her calming down with the langauge. But however did she get this first one published?

Re: P.S.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I confess to falling in love with GoK (and staying in bed all day, not eating, reading it), so I am rather biased, but I did find GoK gripped me despite the language because I sort of fell for the characters. The language eases up in the second half of the book as well. GoK is rather different in style than the rest.

If you feel tired of Lymond, but do want to give Dunnett another chance, I recommend 'King Hereafter' which is a very fictionalized novel about Macbeth. It's only one volume, the language is spare, and there are no quotes. And Thorfinn (her version of macbeth) is nothing like Lymond except in my mad love for him.

[morwen_peredhil]

Several people whose taste in books I respect love The Lymond Chronicles, but I have been unable to get past the painfully purple prose.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

It is a bit dense at the moment. And if the hero drops one more not all that appropriate reference....