Have His Carcase Recaps: Chps 1 - 3
Last time on talking_piffle: Lord Peter solved the case, Harriet Vane was proved innocent, and our hero failed to get the girl. Then followed a book set in rural Scotland, focussed on painting and railway timetables, and inexplicably omitting Miss Vane.
Eighteen months later (although the heroine has actually got younger)...
Harriet: When a lady novelist is tired of London, she is tired of life. Not to mention journalists and persistent suitors. What's so spectacular about Peter's manly bosom, anyway? Being a successful mystery writer does bring financial rewards, though, so I can take off on holiday.
(Ed: note that Harriet, though on a walking tour and travelling light, is carefully distinguished from a common hiker, and wears a skirt, not shorts.)
The conversation method doesn't work for chp 1, it's all Harriet. So, suffice it to say she sits down with Tristram Shandy (Clue to theme!) and understandably falls asleep. Then she wakes up and finds a corpse on a rock like a "gigantic wedge of cake".
Harriet: Yuck! Oh damn, writing detective novels and skipping the tricky bits does not prepare oneself for finding a corpse in real life. There's a lot more blood for a start. What Would Lord Peter Wimsey do?* Not that I'm thinking about him. What would Robert Templeton, the physical opposite of Peter, do? Whatever, despite the feeling of yuck and feminine frailty meaning that I can't drag a heavy weight down a big drop and a hundred yards up the beach, I shall be competent and take lots of evidence.
Footprints: *mysteriously absent*
Despite the fact that Harriet is on a walking holiday, she doesn't seem to have a map with her. OK, this is the south-west England coastal trail, I don't think she needs a compass. But a map would be logical for a long route. As a result of this uncharacteristic ill-preparedness, Harriet then spends ages failing to find a phone before eventually finding a village. En route she meets a number of Suspicious Characters (or comically rural characters) in encounters like this one:
Harriet: Hello! Tell me, plebian person, where can I find a phone? Or the village?
Suspicious Characters: *is suspicious*
Eventually Harriet finds the village and the phone, and rings the police.
Harriet: Hi! I've found a body with its throat cut on the beach. Erm, yes, I'm that scandalous woman who got tried for murder. And, well, it did take me a while to get here. And the body probably isn't there anymore.*thinks* Hi, Morning Star, in case the police try to fit me up, I'm not making any secret of finding a corpse on the beach.
Hotel receptionist: Sorry, no rooms for grubby hikers entering with the police.
Inspector Umplety: Watch it, that's Lord Peter Wimsey's mistress, that is!
Hotel receptionist: Oops.
Harriet decides not to ring Peter, because he'd only get the wrong idea (she's probably right), but thinks about him, and the benefits of marrying him, quite a bit. Also on feminism, women's increased economic independence, annoying tedious people, women who refuse to be independent, and whether it is better to be single and desperate or married and boring. Then she goes and does some work, which seems to be DLS's answer to emotional distress.
Sorry, I only got back from holiday this afternoon, so I haven't had time to come up with lots of further stuff beyond recapping. A couple of things that people might talk about:
Proposals
None - Peter's off-stage throughout. This absence notwithstanding, what impression do you get of his and Harriet's relationship in the period since Strong Poison?
Society
The police, the hotel, the guests, the local population, the telephone technology, Harriet's falling into Victorian assumptions about men and women that she knows are silly, but can't shake. Thoughts?
*I'd like to note that it was this very question somewhere on LJ (answer: "The right thing, then have a nervous breakdown") that first prompted me to pick up a Sayers novel.
NEXT MONDAY: Peter turns up, plus Russians, widows, and ham.
Eighteen months later (although the heroine has actually got younger)...
Harriet: When a lady novelist is tired of London, she is tired of life. Not to mention journalists and persistent suitors. What's so spectacular about Peter's manly bosom, anyway? Being a successful mystery writer does bring financial rewards, though, so I can take off on holiday.
(Ed: note that Harriet, though on a walking tour and travelling light, is carefully distinguished from a common hiker, and wears a skirt, not shorts.)
The conversation method doesn't work for chp 1, it's all Harriet. So, suffice it to say she sits down with Tristram Shandy (Clue to theme!) and understandably falls asleep. Then she wakes up and finds a corpse on a rock like a "gigantic wedge of cake".
Harriet: Yuck! Oh damn, writing detective novels and skipping the tricky bits does not prepare oneself for finding a corpse in real life. There's a lot more blood for a start. What Would Lord Peter Wimsey do?* Not that I'm thinking about him. What would Robert Templeton, the physical opposite of Peter, do? Whatever, despite the feeling of yuck and feminine frailty meaning that I can't drag a heavy weight down a big drop and a hundred yards up the beach, I shall be competent and take lots of evidence.
Footprints: *mysteriously absent*
Despite the fact that Harriet is on a walking holiday, she doesn't seem to have a map with her. OK, this is the south-west England coastal trail, I don't think she needs a compass. But a map would be logical for a long route. As a result of this uncharacteristic ill-preparedness, Harriet then spends ages failing to find a phone before eventually finding a village. En route she meets a number of Suspicious Characters (or comically rural characters) in encounters like this one:
Harriet: Hello! Tell me, plebian person, where can I find a phone? Or the village?
Suspicious Characters: *is suspicious*
Eventually Harriet finds the village and the phone, and rings the police.
Harriet: Hi! I've found a body with its throat cut on the beach. Erm, yes, I'm that scandalous woman who got tried for murder. And, well, it did take me a while to get here. And the body probably isn't there anymore.*thinks* Hi, Morning Star, in case the police try to fit me up, I'm not making any secret of finding a corpse on the beach.
Hotel receptionist: Sorry, no rooms for grubby hikers entering with the police.
Inspector Umplety: Watch it, that's Lord Peter Wimsey's mistress, that is!
Hotel receptionist: Oops.
Harriet decides not to ring Peter, because he'd only get the wrong idea (she's probably right), but thinks about him, and the benefits of marrying him, quite a bit. Also on feminism, women's increased economic independence, annoying tedious people, women who refuse to be independent, and whether it is better to be single and desperate or married and boring. Then she goes and does some work, which seems to be DLS's answer to emotional distress.
Sorry, I only got back from holiday this afternoon, so I haven't had time to come up with lots of further stuff beyond recapping. A couple of things that people might talk about:
Proposals
None - Peter's off-stage throughout. This absence notwithstanding, what impression do you get of his and Harriet's relationship in the period since Strong Poison?
Society
The police, the hotel, the guests, the local population, the telephone technology, Harriet's falling into Victorian assumptions about men and women that she knows are silly, but can't shake. Thoughts?
*I'd like to note that it was this very question somewhere on LJ (answer: "The right thing, then have a nervous breakdown") that first prompted me to pick up a Sayers novel.
NEXT MONDAY: Peter turns up, plus Russians, widows, and ham.