DLS: The Nine Tailors ?????

[truepenny]

This is terrible. Apparently, I have nothing to say about The Nine Tailors. Which would explain why I haven't done a Sayers post since June 18th. It's not that I don't like The Nine Tailors--because I do. I think it's brilliant. And it's not that I don't want to talk about The Nine Tailors. It's just that I'm stumped.

Anyone care to make a suggestion? No questions are too large; no questions are too silly. Go for it!

Comments

[pameladean]

THIS SET OF RANDOM REMARKS IS CHOCK-FULL OF SPOILERS. READ NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU ARE FINE WITH THAT.




I've always thought it was interesting how Hilary Thorpe mirrors Harriet Vane, in personality and in Wimsey's views of her personality. I don't think you can make a whole post out of that, though. The only other thing that strikes me is Emily's washing of the bottle found in the belfrey, which reminds me of Mrs. Ruddle's setting upright and washing all the port bottles in BH. Again, I don't see what one can do with that.

I guess the one other thing is that I found Wimsey's morning swim down the flooded street of Fenchurch St. Paul extremely improbable. That water -- you wish you didn't know where it's been, but you do.

I thought you already said a bunch of interesting things about that book, too -- the ridiculousness of the car and of Wimsey himself in this rural setting, for example.

I've never been happy with Will Thoday's fate, personally. The word "sin" is actually used of his actions. I don't know what Sayers is referring to -- the forcible incarceration of Deacon, or the perfectly innocent marrying of Mary Deacon when her previous husband was still alive. If the second, I feel fairly strongly that this is ridiculous and drowning is a stupid punishment for it.

I really like the bits in France and have always felt very sorry for Suzanne.

Surely this more than enough.

Oooo....

[gaudynight.livejournal.com]

...one thing that occurs to me is that apparently Sayers only got one or two little details wrong in her writing about change-ringing and was made an honorary changeringer after the book came out.... I always thought it was a pretty good example of her amazing mind, the way she gobbled that complicated topic up, learned everything about it, used it to her needs.

I am not as familiar with Nine Tailors as I could be, but I always kind of liked the gothick quality it has. Maybe I will re-read now. I just bought a crappy ex-library copy from eBay because I realized I *DIDN'T HAVE IT*. Every time I came to the part in....? Busman's Honeymoon? where Harriet refers to Peter talking about the experience I'd think - oh I should reread it. And didn't have it. So...newly-equipped to comment, more than the fluffiness here...more soon.

And hi :) Nice to meet ya.

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

Ah, now this I know about, being an ex-bellringer myself. There is allegedly just the one mistake in that book, when she calls Kent Treble Bob Major, Kent Treble Bob Majors (it's never plural). She taught herself out of a book by a man called Troyte. I've no idea what the book is actually called; ringers just always refer to it as Troyte, and it was the classic how-to book on change-ringing. According to Sayers, she never actually set foot in a belfry until long after the bok was published, when she was invited to attend the dedication of a ring of bells in Croydon, UK.

And yet, what always gets me is that she evoked the belfry community so perfectly. I've always found it difficult to believe that she never set foot in a belfry before then, certainly not given her ecclesiastical background. She had the types down perfectly – I was meeting exactly the same kind of people in country church belfries in the mid-seventies, with exactly the same frisson of deference when the young university ringers turned up.

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

I've always thought it was interesting how Hilary Thorpe mirrors Harriet Vane, in personality and in Wimsey's views of her personality.

And I've always wondered what happened to her afterwards. I have visions of Wimsey quietly in the background, fixing things in unobtrusive ways, to give her the opportunity to live her life the way she wants to.

I've never been happy with Will Thoday's fate, personally. The word "sin" is actually used of his actions.

I agree; I've never felt comfortable about this, though I suppose she might argue that drowning is a 'natural' punishment, sparing him a trial, etc. But it strikes an odd note.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Why are the big infodumps on change ringing so boring?

[heh]

Weather and War

[oracne.livejournal.com]

We discussed a while back that this is one of the books where the weather is an important element.

It's also another one where WWI is an important element, like BELLONA CLUB.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You mean, so fascinating?

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

I confess, despite all the acclaim for TNT, it's one of my least favorites of the Wimsey novels. Maybe it's because I feel the lack of Harriet acutely.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think it's a book that's difficult to talk about because it's very good but not in a way that opens up many avenues.

You already said look, Peter as a human being and Peter in the country. It might be interesting to contrast it with 5RH, where everyone is a caricature, because in NT nobody is, they're all real. I think it was ajhalluk who said that in HHC Peter and Harriet are three dimensional against a two dimensional background, and in NT, the background has also become 3D.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I thought his "sin" was that he actually is guilty of at least manslaughter. He didn't kill him, but it wouldn't be difficult to make a jury believe he did, it was very much to his advantage that he die.

Something else interesting in NT is how much covering-up there is being done, the Thoday brothers, Cranton, the washing of the bottle which may be a conspiracy, completely unnecessarily.

Oh, and there's also the hint of the numinous, the revenge of the bells, the personality of the bells, the bells hanging over all of it, and their names, the Le Fanu ramblings of the code, and Potty's oracular statements, all of them doing something very clever with atmosphere.

(Unlike the erudite Bunter and Wimsey, I've never read Le Fanu, is there a significance to the fact that it is Le Fanu that Harriet is working on in GN?)

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Someone else already mentioned "a hint of the numinous" in T9T; I will come right out and say that I think this is the most religious of the LPW novels (its only serious competition is Gaudy Night and perhaps some bits at the end of Busman's Honeymoon). So, do you agree or disagree with my description, and what's up with the novel's, uh, mysterium tremendum et fascinans in the first place? (Reference to Sayers's own biography optional.)

Also, on a not-unrelated issue, to what extent is Will Thoday's fate just or unjust, and to what extent is it or is it not merciful, especially given Wimsey's other past and future confrontations with murderers, ranging from Sir Julian Freke to Frank Crutchley?

And, by the way, to what extent can we talk about the bells -- individually or collectively -- as characters in the novel? What does it mean that we can do so to any extent?

(Sorry these are so disjointed.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Wylder's Hand and Uncle Silas are both in the towering stacks of Books I Ought To Be Reading; so far, I haven't made much headway, and thus cannot explain the Le Fanu thing.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

No questions from me, as I keep wandering off into reveries about bells and fannish connections, and wondering how many of the bells of various places are from the Whitechapel Foundry, which has fannish connections.

Must reread NT. Haven't for a long time. Recall it with vaguely dissatisfied air, but cannot recall why. Hmm.

[vass]

I'm not sure if this is the right word, but its, um, medievalism. The small town with the church at the centre, and how the church looks after the town. The flood, the ties with Noah's Ark, and how the end makes me think of a miracle play. Those are some of the bits that struck me as particularly cool.

And I'm probably exposing my ignorance of medievalism, but I'm going to risk it.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Huh. Deacon definitely makes sense as a Vice figure, in a way he doesn't quite as a human being. I'll have to think about that.

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about Le Fanu except that he wrote some really rather good ghost stories (and some that are frankly clunkers), andM.R. James thought he was absolutely the best writer of ghost stories, ever. I feel much the same about M.R. James, myself.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm rereading M. R. James, as it happens (in the middle of "Two Doctors" at the moment). He's comfort reading--although comfort reading I have to be very careful about not indulging in just before bed, because some of those stories scare the living daylights out of me.

Novels are not the place to make any of these writers' acquaintances, I think, but when one trawls used book stores, one takes what one finds.

And I am reminded that I have Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre by Algernon Blackwood that I have thus far failed to get through. I haven't found him as engaging as James.