Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
When Harriet Vane returns to her alma mater, Shrewsbury College (I believe this is a fictional college. While worrying about spoilers for a book seventy years old is silly, I don’t trust websites and wikipedia to not spoil me for Busman’s Honeymoon enough to investigate.) she reconnects with her old friends despite her fears of being shunned due to her murder trial five years earlier. Months later , she’s contacted by the dean about a problem the college is having with someone pulling pranks and leaving poison pen letters, and is asked to stay at the college and help get to the bottom of things. (A bit off topic, but I have to wonder if that’s a deliberate parallel to Peter being asked to return to the village months later in The Nine Tailors.)
Despite this technically being a mystery novel, and a Lord Peter Wimsey one at that, the book isn’t actually a mystery-though it does have a mystery in it-nor is it about Peter, who’s barely in the book. Instead it’s about Harriet, and her internal war of intellect versus emotion as she attempts to come to terms with her feelings about Peter, and what to do about them. Despite the fact that we initially met her when she was on trial for the murder of a lover she refused to marry, Harriet has struck me from the start as being rather Victorian in her views, while also clearly valuing her independence and career. As such, it’s no surprise that she would view marriage to Peter as giving a part of herself up, as sacrificing some of who she is to become part of who he is. (This is, sadly, still a concern seven decades later, as marriage still has the stigma of wives submitting to husbands, and women being the ones to give up careers for family.)
Insterestingly, I don’t remember Harriet ever questioning whether or not she loves Peter, only how much she’s willing to sacrifice for him. Her “cruelty” to him is very interesting in how it manifests. She’ll reject him out of hand, refuse to meet his family (but then easily befriend his nephew when they accidentally meet) and do anything she can to get rid of him, except the one thing that would get rid of him: reveal that their friendship has resulted in her receiving poison pen letters for the last five years. And yet, I don’t think that this is because she doesn’t want to do that one last thing that could free her of Peter for good, but because it would be someone else hurting him then, and telling him that he’d only made things worse for her than they would have been otherwise.
From the start, I think, even when shown through Peter’s perspective, we’ve always been meant to see Peter and Harriet’s relationship through her eyes: through his pushing himself at her, putting her into the impossible position of rejecting him or entering into a relationship with a man who just saved her life, and through his pursuit. It’s clear from the start, to me, that Peter, in his honesty, does his best to dig his own grave with Harriet by creating a difficult situation for her. In truth, given that and how much focus here is on the idea that a woman has to sacrifice a part of herself when she marries, I have to wonder if anyone who hasn’t read the books without Harriet would think he was good enough for her. IMO, Peter, while admirable, is not always at his best in Have His Carcase and Strong Poison, and while he deals with Harriet much better in Gaudy Night, I think it’s in the books without Harriet that he shows they’ll deal well together once he works his issues out.
I also can’t help but think that this is a book that Sayers wanted to write for herself as much as it was a part of Harriet and Peter’s story. While the exploration of intellect and emotion and how they clash, as well as academic life, are very important to Harriet and her story, I also get the feeling that Sayers was working out her own views there. While Harriet’s problems and conflict still ring true today, they were still in the early stages of developing as a conflict for women at the time, and certainly something Sayers herself likely would have had to consider. (I also don’t trust biographies of Sayers to not spoil me, so I haven’t really looked into her life, though various comments have made me very curious.)
Despite this technically being a mystery novel, and a Lord Peter Wimsey one at that, the book isn’t actually a mystery-though it does have a mystery in it-nor is it about Peter, who’s barely in the book. Instead it’s about Harriet, and her internal war of intellect versus emotion as she attempts to come to terms with her feelings about Peter, and what to do about them. Despite the fact that we initially met her when she was on trial for the murder of a lover she refused to marry, Harriet has struck me from the start as being rather Victorian in her views, while also clearly valuing her independence and career. As such, it’s no surprise that she would view marriage to Peter as giving a part of herself up, as sacrificing some of who she is to become part of who he is. (This is, sadly, still a concern seven decades later, as marriage still has the stigma of wives submitting to husbands, and women being the ones to give up careers for family.)
Insterestingly, I don’t remember Harriet ever questioning whether or not she loves Peter, only how much she’s willing to sacrifice for him. Her “cruelty” to him is very interesting in how it manifests. She’ll reject him out of hand, refuse to meet his family (but then easily befriend his nephew when they accidentally meet) and do anything she can to get rid of him, except the one thing that would get rid of him: reveal that their friendship has resulted in her receiving poison pen letters for the last five years. And yet, I don’t think that this is because she doesn’t want to do that one last thing that could free her of Peter for good, but because it would be someone else hurting him then, and telling him that he’d only made things worse for her than they would have been otherwise.
From the start, I think, even when shown through Peter’s perspective, we’ve always been meant to see Peter and Harriet’s relationship through her eyes: through his pushing himself at her, putting her into the impossible position of rejecting him or entering into a relationship with a man who just saved her life, and through his pursuit. It’s clear from the start, to me, that Peter, in his honesty, does his best to dig his own grave with Harriet by creating a difficult situation for her. In truth, given that and how much focus here is on the idea that a woman has to sacrifice a part of herself when she marries, I have to wonder if anyone who hasn’t read the books without Harriet would think he was good enough for her. IMO, Peter, while admirable, is not always at his best in Have His Carcase and Strong Poison, and while he deals with Harriet much better in Gaudy Night, I think it’s in the books without Harriet that he shows they’ll deal well together once he works his issues out.
I also can’t help but think that this is a book that Sayers wanted to write for herself as much as it was a part of Harriet and Peter’s story. While the exploration of intellect and emotion and how they clash, as well as academic life, are very important to Harriet and her story, I also get the feeling that Sayers was working out her own views there. While Harriet’s problems and conflict still ring true today, they were still in the early stages of developing as a conflict for women at the time, and certainly something Sayers herself likely would have had to consider. (I also don’t trust biographies of Sayers to not spoil me, so I haven’t really looked into her life, though various comments have made me very curious.)