Recent reading: Dorothy L. Sayers edition

[troisoiseaux]

Earlier this month, I continued my Dorothy L. Sayers re-read with Gaudy Night, which falls into one of my favorite story niches: weird stuff happens at an all-girls school/women's college. In this case, the weird stuff is a series of poison pen letters and acts of sabotage at Harriet Vane's alma mater, which she is asked to investigate. It's kind of an odd book out among the Peter Wimsey novels— for one, it's not a murder mystery, and two, it's very much Harriet's story; Peter just happens to show up in time to figure out whodunnit and wrap up their three-book courtship arc. It's also just kind of odd, full stop, in ways that are mostly a result of the fact it was published in 1935, the past is a different country, etc.

Re-read Murder Must Advertise— one of my favorites of Sayers', featuring Wimsey juggling two simultaneous undercover investigations and the delightfully specific setting of a 1930s advertising agency. I continue to suspect that cricket is a practical joke played by the British on the rest of the world that just got wildly out of hand.

Something I've mused about before, on here, is how Golden Age murder mysteries (and possibly others, although my experience with ones not written by British women in the early- to mid-20th century is too limited to draw conclusions) tend to avoid the question of what happens after the detective announces to the encircled suspects that the butler did it, frequently by way of the murderer's convenient death. This is a trend that Sayers acknowledges in Gaudy Night - in a discussion on criminal justice, Harriet offers that an "ideal detective" in one of her books would resolve a conflict of interest over whether to turn in a murderer with (to paraphrase; I was unable to double-check the exact quote) "an extorted confession and arsenic in the library" - and uses in Murder Must Advertise, when Wimsey and the murderer discuss whether he should do the "gentlemanly" thing and commit suicide rather than risk his family's reputation by going to prison for both murder and his involvement in a drug ring that just got busted, and Wimsey advises that instead of, as it were, "arsenic in the library," he let himself get killed by the guy that's waiting outside of Wimsey's house to do so. So.... that's a whole lot??

Murder Must Advertise has a bleakly high body count, actually. On top of Victor Dean, the ad copywriter and aspiring blackmailer whose murder Wimsey initially sets out to investigate, no less than four other people are killed through their association with a drug smuggling ring, including the aforementioned murderer. I felt quite sad about Dian de Momerie, a socialite mixed up with the drug ring; she deserved better. :(

Comments

[sovay]

interlocutor: idk the Death Bredon/drug smuggling half of the plot is kind of a lot

I remain intensely fond of the peculiar quasi-supernatural Harlequin subplot of that subplot, which I still want someone to triangulate with Christie's Mr. Quin.

[skygiants]

I still think that the Harlequin plot is singlehandedly responsible for Francis Crawford of Lymond and thus, by line of direct descent, additionally responsible for a good chunk of Megan Whalen Turner, Diarmuid in the Fionavar chronicles, most of Elizabeth Wein's protagonists, and a good chunk of others that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

[sovay]

I still think that the Harlequin plot is singlehandedly responsible for Francis Crawford of Lymond

Why Harlequin as opposed to any other of Wimsey's more default masks?

[skygiants]

Harlequin is the only version of Wimsey who could make that genuinely absurd leap into the fountain without dying! In general MMA & the Harlequin plot is the one that emphasizes Peter's Physical Prowess and Dangerous Glamour the most, which is something that gets cranked up to eleven in Lymond -- he's stronger than he looks but none of the other books have him actually pulling off near-superhuman physical feats -- and the Harlequin's kind of disdainful seduction of Dian de Momerie is also echoed in the way that Lymond interacts with 90% of his antagonists.

[sovay]

In general MMA & the Harlequin plot is the one that emphasizes Peter's Physical Prowess and Dangerous Glamour the most, which is something that gets cranked up to eleven in Lymond -- he's stronger than he looks but none of the other books have him actually pulling off near-superhuman physical feats -- and the Harlequin's kind of disdainful seduction of Dian de Momerie is also echoed in the way that Lymond interacts with 90% of his antagonists.

Check!

[stranger]

Oooh, yes, yes! I hadn't put this together, but you are completely right!

FC of L is also responsible (I think) for the protag in Captive Prince.

[troisoiseaux]

The drug smuggling plotline is A Lot but I did really enjoy the "Wimsey juggling two undercover missions" aspect of it!

The Dian de Mortimer/Harlequin subplot was odd but interesting (and technically means that Wimsey had three undercover identities going on simultaneously?). I was also struck by the Dian de Mortimer subplot in the sense of— "socialite Involved With Drugs found murdered in woods to frame a detective" feels like the plot of a gritty modern thriller in itself, and it's like... a footnote in this novel.

[sovay]

(and technically means that Wimsey had three undercover identities going on simultaneously?)

And feels very strung-out and surrealistic about it! Which is fair, since I'm not sure when he's sleeping and advertising is weird.

"socialite Involved With Drugs found murdered in woods to frame a detective" feels like the plot of a gritty modern thriller in itself, and it's like... a footnote in this novel.

Good point.