Gaudy Night: Chapters 11 & 12
A day late and hopefully not a dollar short, but as my chapter opens on 1 April, I thought it appropriate! (Also, I'd never really noticed before carrying the book around with me all the time for this project, but the cover I have-the US paperback cover that ties into the BBC series- has Harriet looking like Harriet Walter but Peter mysteriously looking like Mr. Peanut.)
Brief synopsis:
Chapter 11 mainly takes place over the Easter holiday. Harriet returns to London, intending on getting work done on her novel, but Wilfrid continues to vex. Not to mention that half of Harriet's mind is waiting for an expected letter from Peter. She goes to a literary cocktail party (and the synopsis of Mock Turtle is one of my favorite passages of the entire book; more on that later) and then Reggie Pomfret provides a welcome distraction with dinner and a show. She finally gets the letter, in which Peter is a little jealous of his nephew, but importantly, urges Harriet onward in her investigation. Harriet also runs into Freddy Arbuthnot, who does his awkward best to be chatty and put in a good word for his friend, and reveals that Peter is away on business for the Foreign Office.
Wilfrid quickly proves too annoying for words so Harriet flees back to Oxford and good old academic rigor even if the term hasn't started. She works on her LeFanu study, vaguely picks at the poison-pen letters, writes the octet of a sonnet, has a conversation about gender roles with Annie in the street, and doesn't think about Peter. And when the dons return so does the tension, almost immediately, in the form of a long conversation about marriage and duty to the college touched off by Mrs. Goodwin's absence to take care of her sick child. Miss Hillyard disapproves of the leniency shown to the widows working for the college. On May Day she goes up to the top of Magdalen Tower, and catches Miss Newland getting a bit too close to the edge.
Chapter 12 finds the S.C.R. mostly concerned with the tendency of students worried about their exams shutting themselves up in their rooms or the library and studying too much. Harriet runs into Reggie Pomfret out late one evening and he takes the opportunity to profess his undying love for her and his wish to stand between her and the world, and while Harriet is trying to figure out how to dissuade him it's her that has to do the saving-of Mr. Pomfret from a proctor who's after his tree-climbing party. The ego-bruised Pomfret goes off to sulk. When Harriet returns to Shrewsbury she finds that the over-worked Miss Newland has not only gone missing, but had been a particular target of the poison-pen. A party sets out to keep her from drowning in the river, and they only just save her.
Wtf 1930s Oxford?: What is a pro-proctor as opposed to just a regular proctor? Also I feel rather sorry for them that they can't sit out on their lawn and study; I don't know how I would have got through my writtens if I hadn't been able to take in fresh air and history at the same time.
References: Not a ton, and mostly to Love's Labour's Lost, which, given its plot of giving up romance for the sake of study and then promptly falling in love, makes a certain amount of sense. "Climbing trees in the Hesperides" is from there, and King Cophetua is also mentioned in the play.
Discussion questions:
Proposals: Only one, in the letter, and that one full of bitterness and self-consciousness with regard to Saint-George.
Insert-your-own category: What on earth is Harriet's process? Does she actually dictate her books to a secretary? It seems so movie-like, and I can't imagine actually being able to think creatively with someone sitting there waiting to take your words down. Handing off hand-written pages to the secretary for typing up, sure, but I'd certainly feel too self-conscious for dictation.
I adore Freddy Arbuthnot and I love how he tries to put in a good word for Peter when he sees Harriet. He reminds me, for reasons I can't entirely explain, of a grown up, upper-class Ron Weasley.
Brief synopsis:
Chapter 11 mainly takes place over the Easter holiday. Harriet returns to London, intending on getting work done on her novel, but Wilfrid continues to vex. Not to mention that half of Harriet's mind is waiting for an expected letter from Peter. She goes to a literary cocktail party (and the synopsis of Mock Turtle is one of my favorite passages of the entire book; more on that later) and then Reggie Pomfret provides a welcome distraction with dinner and a show. She finally gets the letter, in which Peter is a little jealous of his nephew, but importantly, urges Harriet onward in her investigation. Harriet also runs into Freddy Arbuthnot, who does his awkward best to be chatty and put in a good word for his friend, and reveals that Peter is away on business for the Foreign Office.
Wilfrid quickly proves too annoying for words so Harriet flees back to Oxford and good old academic rigor even if the term hasn't started. She works on her LeFanu study, vaguely picks at the poison-pen letters, writes the octet of a sonnet, has a conversation about gender roles with Annie in the street, and doesn't think about Peter. And when the dons return so does the tension, almost immediately, in the form of a long conversation about marriage and duty to the college touched off by Mrs. Goodwin's absence to take care of her sick child. Miss Hillyard disapproves of the leniency shown to the widows working for the college. On May Day she goes up to the top of Magdalen Tower, and catches Miss Newland getting a bit too close to the edge.
Chapter 12 finds the S.C.R. mostly concerned with the tendency of students worried about their exams shutting themselves up in their rooms or the library and studying too much. Harriet runs into Reggie Pomfret out late one evening and he takes the opportunity to profess his undying love for her and his wish to stand between her and the world, and while Harriet is trying to figure out how to dissuade him it's her that has to do the saving-of Mr. Pomfret from a proctor who's after his tree-climbing party. The ego-bruised Pomfret goes off to sulk. When Harriet returns to Shrewsbury she finds that the over-worked Miss Newland has not only gone missing, but had been a particular target of the poison-pen. A party sets out to keep her from drowning in the river, and they only just save her.
Wtf 1930s Oxford?: What is a pro-proctor as opposed to just a regular proctor? Also I feel rather sorry for them that they can't sit out on their lawn and study; I don't know how I would have got through my writtens if I hadn't been able to take in fresh air and history at the same time.
References: Not a ton, and mostly to Love's Labour's Lost, which, given its plot of giving up romance for the sake of study and then promptly falling in love, makes a certain amount of sense. "Climbing trees in the Hesperides" is from there, and King Cophetua is also mentioned in the play.
Discussion questions:
- A few years ago I mentioned Mock Turtle to a friend of mine who insisted that the entire business of the literary cocktail party and the mocking of the Book-of-the-Moment had to not only be from Thrones, Dominations but definitely an invention of Patton Walsh. I was initially swayed by her argument as I have a bad memory for exactly where I've read things, but of course the passage is here, and is one of my favorites in the book because it's so ridiculous. It is a bit too strong of a swing from the life Harriet has been living in Oxford. Do you, like my friend, find it a strange interruption, something that feels out-of-step with this book or Sayers' writing overall?
- We often see Harriet short-tempered or impatient with Peter, but when she's thinking about Reggie as not!Peter, there's a bit more explanation of what she feels she's up against: … he did not expose your nerve-centers or his own; he did not use words with double meanings; he did not challenge you to attack him and then roll himself into an armadillo-like ball, presenting a smooth, defensive surface of ironical quotations; he had no overtones of any kind …
Harriet isn't in much of a mood to be fair to Peter; after all, she's been waiting for his letter all day and it hasn't arrived. But is this a fair description of how Peter treats her and why? - Speaking of fair, I've always felt that Miss Hillyard gets treated rather shabbily, particularly in later chapters, though her march toward being the red-herringiest of red herrings starts here. Stock character? Necessary man-hating-because-once-jilted lady don? Oddly misunderstood in a book that might portray her better?
Proposals: Only one, in the letter, and that one full of bitterness and self-consciousness with regard to Saint-George.
Insert-your-own category: What on earth is Harriet's process? Does she actually dictate her books to a secretary? It seems so movie-like, and I can't imagine actually being able to think creatively with someone sitting there waiting to take your words down. Handing off hand-written pages to the secretary for typing up, sure, but I'd certainly feel too self-conscious for dictation.
I adore Freddy Arbuthnot and I love how he tries to put in a good word for Peter when he sees Harriet. He reminds me, for reasons I can't entirely explain, of a grown up, upper-class Ron Weasley.