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jaceyDorthy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night
A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery
I'd never read any Sayers and various friends kept telling me that this was the best, though possibly untypical. To be honest, since I'm not really a mystery reader I'm not quite sure what to say about this. It's a product of its time (first published 1935) and its prose is of a bygone era while the descriptive passages and departures into reflective musing serve as speedbumps to the story, though not always unwelcome ones.
We're in the head of Harriet Vane for much of this book as she works out whether she wants to marry Peter Wimsey (as he's been asking her to do for the last five years) or walk away from him completely. The actual mystery - who's been sending poison pen letters to faculty and students of Harriet's old Oxford college - is subordinate to this, but it gives us an authentic background of dreaming spires and common-room petty-jealousies.
The tension is expertly drawn out until the final resolution and it remains a fascinating in-depth study of Harriet while distancing us from Wimsey for much of the novel.
A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery
I'd never read any Sayers and various friends kept telling me that this was the best, though possibly untypical. To be honest, since I'm not really a mystery reader I'm not quite sure what to say about this. It's a product of its time (first published 1935) and its prose is of a bygone era while the descriptive passages and departures into reflective musing serve as speedbumps to the story, though not always unwelcome ones.
We're in the head of Harriet Vane for much of this book as she works out whether she wants to marry Peter Wimsey (as he's been asking her to do for the last five years) or walk away from him completely. The actual mystery - who's been sending poison pen letters to faculty and students of Harriet's old Oxford college - is subordinate to this, but it gives us an authentic background of dreaming spires and common-room petty-jealousies.
The tension is expertly drawn out until the final resolution and it remains a fascinating in-depth study of Harriet while distancing us from Wimsey for much of the novel.
