DLS: concerning Lord Peter Wimsey
Apr. 15th, 2003 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyBefore I embark upon my (rather peculiar) reading of Whose Body?, I thought I should sweep the floor and say some things about the series as a whole, because I won't remember to talk about them otherwise, and they kind of need to be said.
First, I have absolutely no idea how many times I've read these books. N is somewhere between 5 and infinity; since I didn't discover them until I was in graduate school, the cap is probably below 20, but it's definitely past the point where there's any use in counting. I mention this because it means that this series of posts will have spoilers indiscriminately for all the books in the series. If you haven't read Sayers ... if you haven't read Sayers, what are you doing reading this? Go! Find! Acquire! Devour!
Ahem. Anyway, spoilers will be endemic for all nine novels and however-many short stories it is, including "Talboys."
Also, this next bit, behind the cut tag, is going to have serious spoilers for Ngaio Marsh's Singing in the Shrouds.
Class and race-based snobbery. Yes. All over the place. People talk about DLS's anti-Semitism, and, yes, it's there. But it's hardly the only thing modern readers can take offense at (the portrayal of Hallelujah Dawson in Unnatural Death, the relentless mockery of Mr. Thipps and his h's ... I won't go on). Also, her anti-Semitism is not of a sort that obscures humanity. Nobody in Whose Body? ever suggests that they should not catch the murderer merely because the victim is Jewish. Everything we learn about Sir Reuben Levy establishes him as a character whom we pity, whose death we regret, who loved and was loved. This is in sharp contradistinction to the homophobia of Singing in the Shrouds (Marsh), where the murder of the inoffensive gay steward is treated as unimportant; the only thing that anyone cares about is that Mrs. Dillington-Blick (whom I personally quite dislike, although I can tell Marsh wants me to like her--or at least be indulgent toward her as one might be toward a spoiled but charming child) escaped. I like Singing in the Shrouds as a mystery and for what she does with the closed world of the ship, but the cavalier dismissal of Dennis's death as Oh-thank-god-it-wasn't-her absolutely infuriates me. Sayers does descend to cheap stereotpying, but she does not erase the humanity behind it. Sir Reuben Levy's death MATTERS.
At least, that's how I read things.
I should also note that one of the principal things I'm interested in is the way in which Sayers engages with the genre of mystery fiction; I'll be talking about series detectives and tropes. This may make my discussion of the early books look a little strange.
My love for DLS is largely uncritical, but I do have to note one perennial problem, which is that she has absolutely no conception of which things are physically possible and which aren't. This is most woefully obvious in Murder Must Advertise, but it also shows up in Clouds of Witness: Peter's adventure in the bog takes place, please note, only a day or two after he's had his collarbone broken by Goyles. And in Whose Body?, I noticed this charming little feat:
I love this image (the corpse as orchid), but this is a heavy corpse IN A BATHTUB. I don't think Peter could lift it quickly, and I certainly don't think he could turn it over as if it WERE an orchid. It's an extremely consistent blindspot (consider also the fact that Peter climbs through the bell chamber at the end of The Nine Tailors and neither dies nor goes deaf), and having admitted its existence, I'm not planning to mention it again.
Right. Those are the general caveats. Whose Body? is up next.
---
WORKS CITED
Sayers, Dorothy L. Whose Body? 1923. New York: Avon Books, 1961.
First, I have absolutely no idea how many times I've read these books. N is somewhere between 5 and infinity; since I didn't discover them until I was in graduate school, the cap is probably below 20, but it's definitely past the point where there's any use in counting. I mention this because it means that this series of posts will have spoilers indiscriminately for all the books in the series. If you haven't read Sayers ... if you haven't read Sayers, what are you doing reading this? Go! Find! Acquire! Devour!
Ahem. Anyway, spoilers will be endemic for all nine novels and however-many short stories it is, including "Talboys."
Also, this next bit, behind the cut tag, is going to have serious spoilers for Ngaio Marsh's Singing in the Shrouds.
Class and race-based snobbery. Yes. All over the place. People talk about DLS's anti-Semitism, and, yes, it's there. But it's hardly the only thing modern readers can take offense at (the portrayal of Hallelujah Dawson in Unnatural Death, the relentless mockery of Mr. Thipps and his h's ... I won't go on). Also, her anti-Semitism is not of a sort that obscures humanity. Nobody in Whose Body? ever suggests that they should not catch the murderer merely because the victim is Jewish. Everything we learn about Sir Reuben Levy establishes him as a character whom we pity, whose death we regret, who loved and was loved. This is in sharp contradistinction to the homophobia of Singing in the Shrouds (Marsh), where the murder of the inoffensive gay steward is treated as unimportant; the only thing that anyone cares about is that Mrs. Dillington-Blick (whom I personally quite dislike, although I can tell Marsh wants me to like her--or at least be indulgent toward her as one might be toward a spoiled but charming child) escaped. I like Singing in the Shrouds as a mystery and for what she does with the closed world of the ship, but the cavalier dismissal of Dennis's death as Oh-thank-god-it-wasn't-her absolutely infuriates me. Sayers does descend to cheap stereotpying, but she does not erase the humanity behind it. Sir Reuben Levy's death MATTERS.
At least, that's how I read things.
I should also note that one of the principal things I'm interested in is the way in which Sayers engages with the genre of mystery fiction; I'll be talking about series detectives and tropes. This may make my discussion of the early books look a little strange.
My love for DLS is largely uncritical, but I do have to note one perennial problem, which is that she has absolutely no conception of which things are physically possible and which aren't. This is most woefully obvious in Murder Must Advertise, but it also shows up in Clouds of Witness: Peter's adventure in the bog takes place, please note, only a day or two after he's had his collarbone broken by Goyles. And in Whose Body?, I noticed this charming little feat:
[Mr. Thipps] slipped outside, and he had no sooner done so than Lord Peter, lifting the body quickly and cautiously, turned it over and inspected it with his head on one side, bringing his monocle into play with the air of the late Joseph Chamberlain approving a rare orchid.
(Sayers 16)
I love this image (the corpse as orchid), but this is a heavy corpse IN A BATHTUB. I don't think Peter could lift it quickly, and I certainly don't think he could turn it over as if it WERE an orchid. It's an extremely consistent blindspot (consider also the fact that Peter climbs through the bell chamber at the end of The Nine Tailors and neither dies nor goes deaf), and having admitted its existence, I'm not planning to mention it again.
Right. Those are the general caveats. Whose Body? is up next.
---
WORKS CITED
Sayers, Dorothy L. Whose Body? 1923. New York: Avon Books, 1961.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 09:45 am (UTC)I read the books for the first time in middle school, which was the early 1980s. I then reread the whole series in high school, and again in college, with occasional single rereads scattered in there. I think GAUDY NIGHT wins for most rereads, or maybe MURDER MUST ADVERTISE.
the portrayal of Hallelujah Dawson in Unnatural Death
Boy, reading that's an eye-opening historical experience--it reminds me every time I read it that 1927 was an alien time. Also reminds me of the one Jeeves & Wooster book with the elaborate subplot involving blackface disguise.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 10:46 am (UTC)Does anyone remember the name of that particular Jeeves & Wooster book? I've read them all, but the titles are completely meaningless.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 11:06 am (UTC)I have a particular, abiding, virulent hatred for "sequels" like that (of which the latest is a horror entitled Mr. Darcy's Daughters--no, really, I'm not making that up). I don't read them. I can't talk about the without frothing at the mouth. It's a personal idiosyncratic twitch, and I certainly don't think anyone else is wrong or wicked for reading and enjoying that sort of thing (well, unless they're really bad). So it's nothing against Ms. Walsh in particular, just that the idea gives me the creeps.
I've found that I reread the series as a series, although I'll occasionally reread individual novels, most often Murder Must Advertise or, for some strange reason, The Five Red Herrings. But generally it's an all or nothing proposition.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 11:53 am (UTC)Because both of those involve Peter outside of his normal milieu?
That's one of my chief reasons for loving MMA. That and the brief appearance of Peterkin.
FRH is fun for "ah, it's just his lordship." Hee.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 12:17 pm (UTC)I still haven't read A Presumption of Death (I will when it comes out in paperback) but I was very pleased to get Thrones, Dominations. (JPW is one of my favourite writers, and I'd been aware that Sayers had left one unfinished Wimsey MS at the time of her death.)
Presumption is loosely based on the Wimsey Papers, which are frankly not Sayers best contribution to the Wimsey saga, and while I enjoyed JPW's writing in Thrones, the first chapter of Presumptions (which she made available on the Harriet Vane list) was good enough to enjoy, but distinctly not Sayers.
In short, I really don't think that JPW's contributions - or at least, not Thrones - quite deserve to be dismissed with the same contumely as those endless sequels to Pride and Prejudice, or the dreadful Scarlett. However, I recognise this is a matter of personal choice ;-) and you won't find me nagging you just to try it.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 02:49 pm (UTC)Male homosexuality seems to be largely invisible in the Wimsey books, as far as I can tell. (And maybe I'm missing things because I'm not sensitive enough to the way the subtext was coded in the 20s and 30s.) And considering the nastiness with which Ngaio Marsh and Georgette Heyer treat their gay characters, I'm actually kind of glad for that.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 09:02 pm (UTC)The fishpond act in Murder Must Advertise jarred me, which is more than it should have done to Lord Peter when he tried it.
The other big objection I have to Sayers (which doesn't mean I don't like her, or negate the fact that Gaudy Night is one of my two favourite novels in the whole world) is Peter and Harriet's cruelty sometimes - the particular way they laugh at the people around them. I noticed it very much in Busman's Honeymoon. It came into relief for me when I read Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, in which (I'm trying to avoid spoilers) the dinner bit. With the ship. Jason and the Argonauts. They're laughing too, but they retain their sympathy.
I haven't read all the Wimsey novels, by the way - I'm afraid I skipped most of the early ones - so I'm reading Whose Body right now.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 09:38 am (UTC)I don't read Dunnett, so I can't comment on the comparison.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-26 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 01:25 pm (UTC)Are they to be found anywhere online do know? I would be grateful for any pointers you can provide.
Can I ask you something totally off-topic re
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 01:36 pm (UTC)But, about your question: I don't know of anything myself, but the place to start would be the Dorothy L. Sayers Society (http://www.sayers.org.uk/).
There's also Harriet's lesbian friends
Date: 2004-04-27 08:40 am (UTC)Impossible feats are in the tradition
Date: 2004-04-27 08:44 am (UTC)Lesbians etc In DLS
Date: 2004-08-14 09:39 am (UTC)