strange and random happenstance: Whose Body

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
Published by: HarperTorch
Publication Date: 1935
Format: Paperback, 501 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Harriet Vane's name might be notorious because of a certain murder trial but she has decided that that is in her past and she will no longer allow it to control her future. She has longed to return to her beloved alma mater, Shrewsbury College in Oxford, to catch up with old friends, and therefore accepts the invitation to attend their Gaudy. She is surprised to be so warmly welcomed and falls quickly in love with academia once again. Perhaps she will return and write a book? A serious book, not the mysteries she is known for. On her return home though she finds a nasty and vulgar drawing in her robes. The poison pen message refers to her as a "dirty murderess" and taints her entire return to Oxford. She tries to put it behind her but then the Dean of Shrewsbury reaches out to Harriet. The poison pen letter Harriet received wasn't a one time occurrence. They have been plaguing the staff and students at the school and have escalated into wanton vandalism. As a woman's college they are viewed under a microscope so if word gets out about these attacks they could be ruined. Harriet, no stranger to the poison pen even before the Gaudy, agrees to come back to Shrewsbury and lend a hand. In order to not make it look suspicious she puts it about that she is there to research Sheridan Le Fanu for a biography she means to write, as well as assisting one of the dons on the endless revisions of her book. Alibi firmly in place she heads back into the bosom of Oxford and finds a writhing snake pit. The letters are getting more vicious, the vandalism more destructive. Harriet wonders, what would Lord Peter do? Well, as he's off doing something on the continent, she can guess, but can't get his help. It's up to her to solve this mystery and decide where she's going to go from here. Could she become a serious academic? Or is that only a way to run away from her feelings and the complication of love? And does she love Lord Peter? Will she succumb to his advances and agree to marry him? First she has to make sure she survives before she plans a future.

One might like to point out to those who view this as a paragon, a classic of mystery fiction, that perhaps three hundred pages of exposition was unnecessary. But then again, as one member of my book club put it,"I had the thought today of going back to count every single proper noun that was dropped... at a guess: 82? If she expected me to remember anything about any of these people, well, she misunderestimated my attention span." More than an editor this book also needed a dramatis personae. But I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself here. Gaudy Night was to be the bellwether as to my final decision on Dorothy L. Sayers. This was her proving ground. I had earlier read the first three adventures of Lord Peter Wimsey, Whose Body?, Clouds of Witness, and Unnatural Death (which had a nice callback here) and basically hated them. There's no beating around the bush with my dislike of the books and her obvious hatred of Jews. I was shocked to see that she was actually against Hitler. But EVERYONE said Gaudy Night was a must read. So read it I must. But I kept putting it off. And off again. I even left it out and yet I couldn't bring myself to pick it up. So my solution was to make my book club read it. I feel slightly bad... maybe? But not really when I think of some of the things they've made me read. In fairness we don't mean to choose bad books, it just seems to turn out that way. Most people cite this book as their favorite Dorothy L. Sayers because it cements the relationship of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter. I wanted to read it because I love Oxford. I was let down on both accounts. The overt specificity with regard to Oxford down to specific turns at specific cobbles in the streets made it too hard for the Oxford enthusiast but not the aficionado to enjoy. As for Harriet and Peter, the aforementioned three hundred pages of exposition means that until Peter actually showed up there wasn't much of a book. I SO wanted Harriet Vane to solve the crime on her own, but sadly, it's Lord Peter who not only solves the crime, but makes the book bearable. Which is really Dorothy L. Sayers letting the sisterhood down. A college full of smart women and they can't catch the culprit in their midst? Yeah, that really supports women's rights. Grumble grumble. So the question becomes, did this book make me actually want to read the rest of the series? No, yes, I don't know. Give me a few years and maybe I'll pick up another one? Maybe. Just tell me she translates the Latin this time?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Academia, Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy, Gaudy Night, Harriet Vane, Lord Peter Wimsey, Murder Most Foul, Oxford, Poison Pen Letters, Sheridan Le Fanu, Shrewsbury College, Unnatural Death, Whose Body

Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey Book 1) by Dorothy L. Sayers
Published by: Harper Torch
Publication Date: 1923
Format: Paperback, 212 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lord Peter Wimsey and his manservant Bunter are very lucky in their lifestyle, in that they get to indulge their passions. For Lord Peter, this is rare Folios and amateur sleuthing, for Bunter, this is photography, which can be very helpful in amateur sleuthing. When Lord Peter hears about a body mysteriously appearing in the bathroom of the architect Thipps, his curiosity is peeked. He is even willing to miss a rare book auction to get there before the police cordon makes it impossible. Lord Peter sees many things amiss, but can't quite put his finger on anything in particular, aside from the fact that the police have got it all wrong.

While at the same time, Inspector Parker, a friend of Lord Peter's, is investigating the disappearance of Sir Reuben Levy. At first the cops jump to the conclusion that the body in the tub must be a shorn Levy... but aside from their both being Jewish and of a similar appearance, this is obviously not the case. Yet... could the two be somehow connected. Inspector Parker with Lord Peter and Bunter are determined to get to the bottom of this, even if it puts them in personal peril. At least if they have to hole up at Lord Peter's there is plenty to read and drink.

Please don't attack me for not liking this book. Send me no death threats or piercing glances. No flamethrowers in the darkness to wake me from a deep sleep. I know it verges on sacrilege to say I didn't like this book, but... I just didn't like this book. I will use as my "get out of jail free" card the fact that many people have told me to just skip to Strong Poison and the arrival of Harriet Vane or to just skip ahead to Gaudy Night, which is the best by far. So, my thought is, that what they're really saying, instead of emphasising the awesomeness of Harriet Vane, they're pointing out the flaws in the earlier books and are trying to get me to skip ahead so I won't abandon Lord Peter before he meets his match. That's how I'm justifying it, ok?

The overwhelming problem with Whose Body is that Dorothy L. Sayers can't write. I mean, literally, this book verged on the incomprehensible. Shall I sweep this under the rug as the foibles of a first time writer? Or shall I ripe her to shreds? Shreds it is. Whose Body almost reads like some bizarre exercise to get as many styles of writing into one book. First, there's the standard third-person narration, which isn't well executed, but, at least it's expected. Then she throws in some straight up back and forth dialogue, which, I'm cool with, Lisa Lutz does it all the time, so, that's fine, and also, for the 1920s, pretty novel. Sayers occasionally verges into epistolary form, which again, I'm down with that. Her haphazard and incomprehensible annotations are more then a little odd. I really don't know why she does them, they don't further the plot or even make sense.

Where the book really started to fall apart is when she randomly, I mean seriously, why did she just do this for a few random pages, went into second-person narration. Second-person narration never really works for me, and here it just comes out of left field. Was I supposed to feel like I was there at the graveside exhumation? Because the narrative shift just made me think I was reading some bizarre experiment by a bad writer and instantly pulled me out of the book. Finally, the meta. While meta is a concept that has taken on in recent years with it's self referential attitude, it's not really a new thing. Agatha Christie would sometimes have Poirot joke about how "real life" isn't like a "detective story" and the reader would laugh thinking, little did Poirot know, he's fictional. Sayers takes this further and is having Lord Peter always joke about detective stories and Sherlock Holmes and Raffles. Ok, cute a few times, but you've beat it to death. Stop. Just stop. Nothing you can do, even making me laugh (which I didn't), redeems the slipshod writing and amateurish style.

So how about the characters? They are so flat and similar that I couldn't tell who was speaking till a "what" tagged onto the end of a sentence made me go, oh, Lord Peter must have been talking. Peter and Parker, their mode of speaking and the habit of Sayers to not qualify the speaker makes Whose Body a muddled mess. Then there's the fact that Lord Peter and Bunter are really just bad shades of Jeeves and Wooster with crime solving inclinations. Which wasn't helped by my recently watching the new show Blandings (horrid first episode, gets radically better), because I kept picturing Jack Farthing as The Hon. Frederick Threepwood with his bland acting, over the top facial expressions and fly away hair as Lord Peter. Why you might say? Because Freddie has the "what" disease, that seems to plague the upper crust in order to get a laugh. While Wodehouse did this humorously, as I've said, I think Sayers just did it, not as a character trait, but as an afterthought... some way to make Peter not Parker. The one aspect of Lord Peter that did interest me was his PTSD. I've railed against this before in literature, but it's interesting to see it in literature of the time, before it was diagnosed to death and had "stereotypical symptoms." This shell shock could prove to be interesting.

Now, I will say, one thing that I did find interesting. Yes, there really was only one, because I figured out the killer damn early and was offended by the antisemitism. There are many groan worthy lines, but one was so obviously, "Look Here! KILLER!" that it made me audibly groan. Ok, enough of the being mean, here's what I liked. I liked that Lord Peter is so obviously not Poirot. That needs some explanation. So, with The Murder on the Links, Poirot is always railing against the modern methods, the fingerprints and footprints and what have you, while Lord Peter and Bunter are openly embracing them. In fact, Bunter is often updating to the latest gadgets just because he can. While endlessly reading about forensics might get boring after awhile, I find it interesting that Sayers, writing at the same time as Christie, decided to take such a radically different approach. Good on you Sayers, but I'm still hugely grateful this wasn't chosen as my bookclub's selection, I don't think they would have ever forgiven me for how bad it is.