As my Wimsey Takes me
On leaving Miss Climpson, Lord Peter Wimsey again found himself a prey to Weltschmerz and self-pity. But it now took the form of a gentle, pervading melancholy.
Today’s serendipity, reading an article about German terms, posting about it here, and then reading the very same German term on page 164 of Strong Poison.
As I was commenting to pallid-regina the other day, there are several different layers of difficulty (or in my case, enjoyment) to be had from a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery .
The First Level of fun is just the joy I take in knowing British terms, getting the spanner out of the boot to fix the flat tyre on your lorrie and taking the lift to your flat and all that rot. I remember that it took me forever to finally learn that a “jumper” means a sweater and not the sort of overalls type of dress that we think of as a jumper in the US. It still irritates me that Scholastic “Americanized” the Harry Potter books and took out all the strange words, because that was always part of the fun of reading stories by British authors when I was a kid. Everyone should know that the Queens’s English and the stuff we speak here in the States are actually two separate languages.
The Second Level of fun (or difficulty, depending on how you look at it) is that the books are set in the 1920s and 30s, with all the newfangled technology (cars are still a rarity and not everyone is “on the telephone” by any means), along with all those 1920s and 1930s slang terms. And new words like “week-end” and “cocktail” were just coming into the lexicon. There’s lots of commentary on “new women” and references to the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Club and modern art and music.
I’m still not quite sure what it meant when Mrs. Rumm invited Lord Peter to stay for lunch and said they were having “trotters.” The term wasn’t in my slang dictionary, and the internet seems to think it must be a recipe for “pigs feet” but Lord Peter said, “Trotters want a lot of beating… we’ll accept with pleasure if you’re sure we’re not putting you out.”
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Rumm, heartily, “Eight beautiful trotters they is, and with a bit of cheese, they’ll go round easy.”
Do you beat pigs feet?
The Third Level of difficulty is that Sayers (and Lord Peter) is highly educated, and makes frequent references to literature and poetry. Lord Peter walks around chattering about this and that, quoting Greek and Latin with biblical bits and snatches of poetry, and then bursts into song. He prattles quite a bit, some of it nonsense, some of it very well educated and obscure. Sometimes he swings from one extreme to another, quoting what might be an advertising slogan and a scholarly work in almost the same breath. It’s like his mind races about and instead of keeping it inside his head, it all just comes out of his mouth.
I love all the characters, and her mysteries are smashing good fun. Well plotted, lots of details, and enough red herrings that if I wait long enough between re-reads, sometimes I forget whodunit and am surprised all over again. Not always, but sometimes. Other times I vaguely remember how the book ends and get to watch as each of the clues is revealed.
I catch new things every time I read through the books again. Today it was Weltschmerz.
Today’s serendipity, reading an article about German terms, posting about it here, and then reading the very same German term on page 164 of Strong Poison.
As I was commenting to pallid-regina the other day, there are several different layers of difficulty (or in my case, enjoyment) to be had from a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery .
The First Level of fun is just the joy I take in knowing British terms, getting the spanner out of the boot to fix the flat tyre on your lorrie and taking the lift to your flat and all that rot. I remember that it took me forever to finally learn that a “jumper” means a sweater and not the sort of overalls type of dress that we think of as a jumper in the US. It still irritates me that Scholastic “Americanized” the Harry Potter books and took out all the strange words, because that was always part of the fun of reading stories by British authors when I was a kid. Everyone should know that the Queens’s English and the stuff we speak here in the States are actually two separate languages.
The Second Level of fun (or difficulty, depending on how you look at it) is that the books are set in the 1920s and 30s, with all the newfangled technology (cars are still a rarity and not everyone is “on the telephone” by any means), along with all those 1920s and 1930s slang terms. And new words like “week-end” and “cocktail” were just coming into the lexicon. There’s lots of commentary on “new women” and references to the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Club and modern art and music.
I’m still not quite sure what it meant when Mrs. Rumm invited Lord Peter to stay for lunch and said they were having “trotters.” The term wasn’t in my slang dictionary, and the internet seems to think it must be a recipe for “pigs feet” but Lord Peter said, “Trotters want a lot of beating… we’ll accept with pleasure if you’re sure we’re not putting you out.”
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Rumm, heartily, “Eight beautiful trotters they is, and with a bit of cheese, they’ll go round easy.”
Do you beat pigs feet?
The Third Level of difficulty is that Sayers (and Lord Peter) is highly educated, and makes frequent references to literature and poetry. Lord Peter walks around chattering about this and that, quoting Greek and Latin with biblical bits and snatches of poetry, and then bursts into song. He prattles quite a bit, some of it nonsense, some of it very well educated and obscure. Sometimes he swings from one extreme to another, quoting what might be an advertising slogan and a scholarly work in almost the same breath. It’s like his mind races about and instead of keeping it inside his head, it all just comes out of his mouth.
I love all the characters, and her mysteries are smashing good fun. Well plotted, lots of details, and enough red herrings that if I wait long enough between re-reads, sometimes I forget whodunit and am surprised all over again. Not always, but sometimes. Other times I vaguely remember how the book ends and get to watch as each of the clues is revealed.
I catch new things every time I read through the books again. Today it was Weltschmerz.