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Feb. 3rd, 2011 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarod45So, elsewhere, the topic came up of older novelists very quietly inserting gay characters into their books and never really mentioning it, but leaving clues for those who are interested in seeing them. The best, cleverest example I've come across is Dorothy Dunnett in the The Lymond Chronicles.
Except, there, it wasn't a couple of minor characters quietly doing it in the corner. It was the main character: Lymond himself. The thing is, for all that the signs are there for anyone to see, it's all so subtly done that for the first several books, you're sitting there, thinking you're going insane. Or at least, I was.
In the first book, in retrospect, I suspect that Lymond had something of a crush on a secondary main (male) character. He absolutely slept with at least one and probably several men in the second book. He had a seriously messed-up hate-sex sexual tension/seduction thing going on with a male character in the third book, along with a really adorable crush on yet another secondary main character. And yet, I honestly could not tell one way or the other until the matter was (implicitly!) confirmed in the fourth book. And even during the confirmation, nothing definite was said. It was all done in inferences and innuendos. Including Lymond's implied declaration of love for Jarrett and Jarrett's implied rejection (never mind that Jarrett is in love with Lymond's sister, who is herself basically a female clone -- both in looks and personality -- of Lymond, and who actually made a comment to that effect during that same scene).
Part of my confusion came from the fact that Lymond is not gay. He's very definitely bi. He sleeps with women in the course of the books, and clearly enjoys sleeping with women. Part of it is that you don't expect to see a gay (or, in this case, bi) main character in a series of historical novels written by an elderly British woman in the 1970's. A big part of it was that I was kind of blinded by my own slash goggles. I kept seeing the hints and thinking: "Oh my god, is he actually sleeping with that guy?!" and then responding to myself with, "No, of course not, you've been reading too much slash fanfic. There's a perfectly plausible explanation for how he's really not sleeping with that guy."
Then it turned out, well, yes, he had been sleeping with that guy.
Perhaps the best explanation for how the question could be kept in doubt through three-and-a-half fairly-sizable novels is that, despite Lymond being the main character, he's almost never the POV character. Dunnett is rather casual with her head-jumping, more so than I'm entirely comfortable with, though there is at least enough of rhyme and reason to it that it's not obnoxious. But she almost never jumps into Lymond's head, and never more than for a page or two. And while she's there, Lymond is never thinking anything really important.
That's the thing about Lymond, which both alienates and fascinates me by turn. He's the hero (although I use the term "hero" a bit loosely here), and he's the main character, but I'm not sure that he's actually the protagonist. What you're reading is definitely his story, and he definitely drives the plot, but you don't ever really see the story from his perspective. What he's thinking, what he's feeling, and, frequently, what he's doing are a mystery for most of any one of the books. And you don't always necessarily sympathize with him. He's not a very good man. I mean, really, a serious part of several of the books is that he appears to have done something horrible, he won't deny it, and everyone around him believes it of him. In most cases, so does the audience.
In the third book, there's a scene. All of the stuff leading up to it is complicated, and the audience doesn't even know how much of the situation is unrevealed, and so is left to take what happens at face value. In the scene, Lymond appears to rape an innocent teenage girl. Not knowing how much I didn't know, I thought the scene was pretty clear-cut. Certainly, all the other characters in the book thought so, and Lymond didn't deny it when confronted. And I had to put the book down. Lymond had done some morally questionable (and in a couple of places, reprehensible) things in previous books, but I just felt I could not read a series in which the main character was an unrepentant rapist. (The Thomas Covenant books spring to mind here. I read the first one, and then couldn't continue, firstly because I thought the writing was bad, and secondly because I spent the book wanting Thomas to die.) I think I didn't pick the book up again for most of a year, I was so bothered. However the books are really very good, and upon consideration I decided something must be going on as there was no way Dunnett would actually go through with having Lymond do something so irredeemable. And also, as mentioned above, a recurring theme in the books is that he appears to have done something horrible, he won't deny it, and everyone around him believes it. But then it turns out that either he didn't actually do it, or else there was some serious context that made what he did not quite so horrible. But he'll never explain right then or there because he's too damn proud to offer anything he thinks will sound like an excuse or might not be believed without hard evidence to hand.
Well. Anyway. As usual, I started out with a point, then wandered off-topic and lost steam in the midst of my digression. Never mind. If you're reading this and have never read The Lymond Chronicles, get thee to a bookstore. Run, don't walk. And when you pick up The Game of Kings and find the first three or four chapters impenetrable, don't worry. So does everyone else, and it gets much better as the book goes on. Speaking of which, I now have the urge to go reread that book. So, I'm off to do that.
Except, there, it wasn't a couple of minor characters quietly doing it in the corner. It was the main character: Lymond himself. The thing is, for all that the signs are there for anyone to see, it's all so subtly done that for the first several books, you're sitting there, thinking you're going insane. Or at least, I was.
In the first book, in retrospect, I suspect that Lymond had something of a crush on a secondary main (male) character. He absolutely slept with at least one and probably several men in the second book. He had a seriously messed-up hate-sex sexual tension/seduction thing going on with a male character in the third book, along with a really adorable crush on yet another secondary main character. And yet, I honestly could not tell one way or the other until the matter was (implicitly!) confirmed in the fourth book. And even during the confirmation, nothing definite was said. It was all done in inferences and innuendos. Including Lymond's implied declaration of love for Jarrett and Jarrett's implied rejection (never mind that Jarrett is in love with Lymond's sister, who is herself basically a female clone -- both in looks and personality -- of Lymond, and who actually made a comment to that effect during that same scene).
Part of my confusion came from the fact that Lymond is not gay. He's very definitely bi. He sleeps with women in the course of the books, and clearly enjoys sleeping with women. Part of it is that you don't expect to see a gay (or, in this case, bi) main character in a series of historical novels written by an elderly British woman in the 1970's. A big part of it was that I was kind of blinded by my own slash goggles. I kept seeing the hints and thinking: "Oh my god, is he actually sleeping with that guy?!" and then responding to myself with, "No, of course not, you've been reading too much slash fanfic. There's a perfectly plausible explanation for how he's really not sleeping with that guy."
Then it turned out, well, yes, he had been sleeping with that guy.
Perhaps the best explanation for how the question could be kept in doubt through three-and-a-half fairly-sizable novels is that, despite Lymond being the main character, he's almost never the POV character. Dunnett is rather casual with her head-jumping, more so than I'm entirely comfortable with, though there is at least enough of rhyme and reason to it that it's not obnoxious. But she almost never jumps into Lymond's head, and never more than for a page or two. And while she's there, Lymond is never thinking anything really important.
That's the thing about Lymond, which both alienates and fascinates me by turn. He's the hero (although I use the term "hero" a bit loosely here), and he's the main character, but I'm not sure that he's actually the protagonist. What you're reading is definitely his story, and he definitely drives the plot, but you don't ever really see the story from his perspective. What he's thinking, what he's feeling, and, frequently, what he's doing are a mystery for most of any one of the books. And you don't always necessarily sympathize with him. He's not a very good man. I mean, really, a serious part of several of the books is that he appears to have done something horrible, he won't deny it, and everyone around him believes it of him. In most cases, so does the audience.
In the third book, there's a scene. All of the stuff leading up to it is complicated, and the audience doesn't even know how much of the situation is unrevealed, and so is left to take what happens at face value. In the scene, Lymond appears to rape an innocent teenage girl. Not knowing how much I didn't know, I thought the scene was pretty clear-cut. Certainly, all the other characters in the book thought so, and Lymond didn't deny it when confronted. And I had to put the book down. Lymond had done some morally questionable (and in a couple of places, reprehensible) things in previous books, but I just felt I could not read a series in which the main character was an unrepentant rapist. (The Thomas Covenant books spring to mind here. I read the first one, and then couldn't continue, firstly because I thought the writing was bad, and secondly because I spent the book wanting Thomas to die.) I think I didn't pick the book up again for most of a year, I was so bothered. However the books are really very good, and upon consideration I decided something must be going on as there was no way Dunnett would actually go through with having Lymond do something so irredeemable. And also, as mentioned above, a recurring theme in the books is that he appears to have done something horrible, he won't deny it, and everyone around him believes it. But then it turns out that either he didn't actually do it, or else there was some serious context that made what he did not quite so horrible. But he'll never explain right then or there because he's too damn proud to offer anything he thinks will sound like an excuse or might not be believed without hard evidence to hand.
Well. Anyway. As usual, I started out with a point, then wandered off-topic and lost steam in the midst of my digression. Never mind. If you're reading this and have never read The Lymond Chronicles, get thee to a bookstore. Run, don't walk. And when you pick up The Game of Kings and find the first three or four chapters impenetrable, don't worry. So does everyone else, and it gets much better as the book goes on. Speaking of which, I now have the urge to go reread that book. So, I'm off to do that.
