Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers
seeing charismitaine geeking out over the Lord Peter Whimsy (on Tumblr and elsewhere) as well as wanting to get a better edumacation
I read Gaudy Night yesterday.
Allow me to backtrack. I was very interested in the series, it seemed like the hero was quite my favorite type. So i got a copy of "Whose Body" and...just couldn't get on with it.
There was a glimpse of the appeal I'd been expecting, but the syntax was cloudy and maybe I also wasn't quite in the mood.
At the library some time later, though, I was in a rare mood for mysteries (though this rare mood has settled more and more frequently until it's becoming more an alter-ego--my mom's genre finally emerging in my blood!) and since the local library I don't love as much as my Heart Library over toward Tulsa has a section full up of them, I looked for one of the series with Harriet Vane
this is actually cleverly put in this edition's heading, for the series "Lord Peter Whimsy mystery with Harriet Vane"
But I looked this one up, and while it wasn't the first book with her, it was the first mystery she's helping to solve that's not her own personal problem, and the opening was less muddy, so I took it home.
Have His Carcase was much better reading, though I found some of the descriptive passages glazed my eyes over. (It's a problem with me. The writing was not problematic, except for my preference.)
I enjoyed it, though I found the Agatha Christie, with Miss Marple, a bit lighter-going.
Gaudy Night was mentioned as a favorite by several people, though, so I went into it quite optimistically, having ordered it because I was in the mood. Also, I was promised a resolution to the love-line, which I must say weighs quite heavily with me...
Now I've read it I'm ready to go back and read all the others.
It is DELIGHTFUL.
And I'm definitely going to say, there's a competence difference. In fact, it reminded me of The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice books, which are some of my top favorites of recent reads, across any genre. Part of this lies in the college-setting. The charm of Oxford becomes a charm of the book, as well as its personality.
If I were to hear Laurie R. King say that Gaudy Night did not influence her series at all I would be very surprised...and a little skeptical.
The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice was the work of a practiced writer, where Whose Body has the feeling of a writer with a definite style in mind but a rather heavy hand with it. In both Guady Night and Have His Carcase, the style works, but is lighter, more natural and fluid. Whimsy's style of speech is an idiosyncracy that does not fool Harriet by this point, so maybe that helps.
I think Harriet is a great point-of-view character for Sayers, too. She's got a different vantage point on Whimsy, and while I had to put together pieces of how that came about, I enjoyed the tension of their close relationship that was to an extent an undesirable for her...and him, too, at times.
I loved the philosophical digressions, so necessary to a room full of professors (and again, one of the things I loved most about A Monstrous Regiment of Women.)
Wanted to write up my thoughts, in case anyone else wanted to discuss any of them! Or just the series in general. I'm going off to order an earlier volume...
I read Gaudy Night yesterday.
Allow me to backtrack. I was very interested in the series, it seemed like the hero was quite my favorite type. So i got a copy of "Whose Body" and...just couldn't get on with it.
There was a glimpse of the appeal I'd been expecting, but the syntax was cloudy and maybe I also wasn't quite in the mood.
At the library some time later, though, I was in a rare mood for mysteries (though this rare mood has settled more and more frequently until it's becoming more an alter-ego--my mom's genre finally emerging in my blood!) and since the local library I don't love as much as my Heart Library over toward Tulsa has a section full up of them, I looked for one of the series with Harriet Vane
this is actually cleverly put in this edition's heading, for the series "Lord Peter Whimsy mystery with Harriet Vane"
But I looked this one up, and while it wasn't the first book with her, it was the first mystery she's helping to solve that's not her own personal problem, and the opening was less muddy, so I took it home.
Have His Carcase was much better reading, though I found some of the descriptive passages glazed my eyes over. (It's a problem with me. The writing was not problematic, except for my preference.)
I enjoyed it, though I found the Agatha Christie, with Miss Marple, a bit lighter-going.
Gaudy Night was mentioned as a favorite by several people, though, so I went into it quite optimistically, having ordered it because I was in the mood. Also, I was promised a resolution to the love-line, which I must say weighs quite heavily with me...
Now I've read it I'm ready to go back and read all the others.
It is DELIGHTFUL.
And I'm definitely going to say, there's a competence difference. In fact, it reminded me of The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice books, which are some of my top favorites of recent reads, across any genre. Part of this lies in the college-setting. The charm of Oxford becomes a charm of the book, as well as its personality.
If I were to hear Laurie R. King say that Gaudy Night did not influence her series at all I would be very surprised...and a little skeptical.
The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice was the work of a practiced writer, where Whose Body has the feeling of a writer with a definite style in mind but a rather heavy hand with it. In both Guady Night and Have His Carcase, the style works, but is lighter, more natural and fluid. Whimsy's style of speech is an idiosyncracy that does not fool Harriet by this point, so maybe that helps.
I think Harriet is a great point-of-view character for Sayers, too. She's got a different vantage point on Whimsy, and while I had to put together pieces of how that came about, I enjoyed the tension of their close relationship that was to an extent an undesirable for her...and him, too, at times.
I loved the philosophical digressions, so necessary to a room full of professors (and again, one of the things I loved most about A Monstrous Regiment of Women.)
Wanted to write up my thoughts, in case anyone else wanted to discuss any of them! Or just the series in general. I'm going off to order an earlier volume...