Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers

[idiosyncreant]

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

Comments

[samhenderson]

There's much, if I read critically, that's problematic with GAUDY NIGHT. Yet every time I read it, it seems I find a different world.

[idiosyncreant]

Yes, and for me that covers a multitude of sins. Which in this case I think I largely didn't notice, except for the fact that I never had a clear image of any of the many profs but two, and that eventually.

which was a sad waste of women who were no doubt fascinating as Sayers was imagining them!

[gjules]

Sayers is a major influence on Laurie R. King -- so much so that Lord Peter makes a cameo (unnamed) in A Letter of Mary. :-)

Also, if you enjoyed both Gaudy Night and A Monstrous Regiment of Women/Beekeeper's Apprentice, you'd probably love Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is SF/time travel set in Oxford and heavily inspired by many of the same influences.

[idiosyncreant]

Haha, I KNEW IT
my powers of deduction are startling. Or that was obvious. Anyway!

I really, really do need to get around to reading the book you recommend. I have been meaning to for years now. Maybe now is that appointed time!

Hey, how are ya, anyhow!?

[timeripple]

AW YEAH, GAUDY NIGHT!

I read it for the first time a few weeks ago, and sometimes you read a book at exactly the right time and you will forgive it EVERYTHING (at least temporarily) because other things are so perfect--for themselves, for you.

It's the first Harriet Vane I managed, too--I'd read Whose Body with vague but entertained interest, and The Nine Tailors with a sense of being slightly mired but fascinated nonetheless. And then I got Harriet's perspective on Lord Peter and felt that was deeply needed.

I need to read it at least once more before I have anything coherent to add, so for now... commence keysmash!

A;SDKJFAL;DSJFALKDFJSLA;JDFSL;JFASDDJSZ

[idiosyncreant]

Oh yes!

By the way, I wrote some long, intellectual (albeit belated) comment on your recent entry of the WWII or related reading vein, and so on, and then moved away from the page without entering it and and and

It was a lovely post, though, I quite enjoyed the book-nerdery of it!

I'm on my way to read "Strong Poison", her first appearance, but I do really recommend Have His Carcase (am I reading it right, you're still starting with Harriet's books?) because there's a lovely tone to it, though it's more a balance, since Peter (dear Peter) is still being fended off, and it's all very casual at that point already.

It was a fun one.

[charismitaine]

I divide the Lord Peter mysteries into three categories--'the minor mysteries', which are Whose Body through Five Red Herrings, 'the major mysteries', which are Murder Must Advertise and The Nine Tailors, and 'the romances', which are Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon

[idiosyncreant]

Interesting thoughts! I can see what you mean, and it's not surprising that having a POV character with reason to be a little different in perception of the hero than most would be a great recipe for better character development in the books, even aside from the lovely romance parts.

[rhinemouse]

Except for Murder Must Advertise, I have never gotten around to reading any of the Whimsey novels without Harriet. But I love the Harriet novels, and I love love loooooooove Gaudy Night. One of the best romances ever, IMHO, and probably one of the reasons I have such an obsession for romantic leads who don't love each other more than their principles.

[idiosyncreant]

Yes, I really need to read Strong Poison, because I want to get the whole picture--the way they work through these issues in Gaudy Night, the way they have to work through differences that MATTER is always great in a romance.

(Another reason it reminds me of A Monstrous Regiment of Women. Have you tried The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice? Because. Sherlock Holmes. A girl who is his match, but more in being the kind of cool intellectual, as opposed to the urchin energy of Irene Adler, and their largely philosophical-with-some-action adventures!)