watervole | Dorothy Sayers

I notice that a number of people on my flist, including myself, are reading/rereading/listening to a Dorothy Sayers book at present.

They are certainly books that I have come back to over the years, though the early ones don't stack up nearly as well as the later ones. I think it took a few books for her to really settle into her writing style.

My next re-read will probably be 'Murder Must Advertise' which has always been one of my favourites - and certainly benefits from Sayers having worked in advertising herself.

So, what is the enduring appeal of Lord Peter Whimsy? Why the appeal to Vorkosigan fans? (because there is a definite overlap among my friends at least - and Bujold herself is a Sayers fan)

I think for me, it is largely the cast of characters. Peter, Bunter, Charles and the Dowager Duchess - and Harriet, of course, once she comes into her own. That's why the first couple of books are fine as detective novels, but fail on the readability score - the characters don't have that depth that develops as the author gets to know them better.

The Dowager Duchess can be recognised instantly, in any story or fan story by her dialogue.

It may also be the period. Sayers was writing about a period she was living in, but to us, the period between the First and Second World Wars is as far away as fantasy.

So, are you reading/rereading/intending to read a Sayers novel?
If you were recommending the books, where would you advise someone to start?

They're very cheap second-hand, and if you happen to be Canadian, then several of them are out of copyright in Canada and are available on Project Gutenberg Canada.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I've just finished MMA and, in the interests of making more cards and using up a smidgen of my sho-sized stack of Craft Stuff have now started listening to 'Strong Poison'. I also prefer the later novels, and I think you're absolutely right about the reason - the author knows her characters so well by then that they really seem to live.

The classism and utter dismissal of any woman who isn't an intellectual is a bit saddening (much the same with the Heyer detective novels, which otherwise have their charms), but it is interesting to inhabit a world we don't know. I think that's why MMA is my favourite—I used to work close to the advertising world, although not in an agency, and reading about a 'period' agency fascinates me.

I see a fair amount of Sayers homage in Dorothy Dunnett, what do you think?

Haven't read any Dorothy Dunnett, so can't really comment.

Count me as the opposite - someone who likes Bujold but doesn't like Sayers very much, and who much prefers the better plotting of the early Wimsey novels. I truly want to slap Peter in the face. Mind you, I also want to slap Miles in the face...

I love Sayers' books, and am about to start re-reading Gaudy Night, which changed a lot of my thinking on certain topics when I was an adolescent.

Normally, I tell people to start with Whose Body? and just read them all in chronological order, but my favorites are Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors, and Strong Poison.

I would have done that in the past, but now I'd recommend starting with Murder Must Advertise as Whose Body isnt' as good as her later work and a reader starting there might not continue.

I finally read my first Sayers, Nine Tailors, after years of hearing people rave about her. I did not take to it at all. I have Gaudy Night sitting on my to read pile, just to be sure that I didn't just pick a wrong 'un, but I suspect I am not going to enjoy Sayers in anthying like the way I've enjoyed Christie.

Nine Tailors is an oddity. It's very different in atmosphere from the rest.
I'd try 'Murder Must Advertise'.

Gaudy Night is really only to read after 'Strong Poison' as the relationship between Wimsey and Harriet won't make sense otherwise.

However, Nine Tailor's is set in the ficticious village based on Bluntisham, less than 5 miles from where I sit and involves bell ringing. I had rather hoped that if any might appeal it would be this one.

I shall take your advice and try "Strong Poison" next to see if works better.

I wouldn't recommend Gaudy Night. I've just re-read it and reminded myself why I hated it - Sayers is 'Mary Sue-ing with Harriet Vane like mad, there's very little of Lord Peter, and what there is is an insufferable literary snob (Sayers assumes,like most writers of her era, that all her readers took the Classics at school,and the thing is full of untranslated Latin, Greek and French - which is not entirely relevant to the plot - but how is illiterate non-University graduate reader to know that?)

I'd recommend going back to 'Whose Body' and reading in order. There's a gentle transition from Christie-like murder puzzles to the soap opera of the Denver family and that way the self-indulgence of the later books comes as less of a shock. My own favourite is 'The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club'.

Though I admit that I took up bellringing as a hobby purely on the strength of having read 'The Nine Tailors' - but then, I took up writing a diary after reading Dracula.

She was a highly erudite lady and her plots and characterisations reflect that, as does her way with words. Did you know about her translation of Dante's Inferno? She died while working on the Purgatorio and the difference between her work and her successors' is like quicksilver compared to lead.

I find I can't read Christie - too contrived and trivial - but I can happily re-read Sayers time and again.

If I ever see a cheap copy of her translation I will grab it, as I've often felt like reading it.

It's lovely; I own a copy and have read it more than once.

Dorothy Sayers

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