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Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
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Gaudy Night (1935)

by Dorothy L. Sayers

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Lord Peter Wimsey (12)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3,300801,513 (4.33)214
  1. 30
    A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold (PhoenixFalls)
    PhoenixFalls: A Civil Campaign is Lois McMaster Bujold's attempt to replicate Gaudy Night -- with an infusion of Georgette Heyer -- in her long-running Vorkosigan Saga.
  2. 20
    A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King (zembla)
    zembla: Both feature good banter, a mystery set in a mostly-female environment, and a tentative romance between the sleuth protagonists.
  3. 20
    Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (kraaivrouw)
  4. 10
    The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross (BookGirlVL)
    BookGirlVL: Amanda Cross's Kate Fansler is an English professor and an amateur sleuth like Harriet Vane. The university and private school settings, as well as the witty, literate dialogue may appeal to readers who loved Dorothy L. Sayer's novels.
  5. 13
    A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer (bmlg)
    bmlg: lively and engaging depiction of the community of women scholars
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English (74)  Danish (3)  German (2)  Swedish (1)  All languages (80)
Showing 1-5 of 74 (next | show all)
"Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?"
"So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober."

I am trying really hard to become a critical reader and think rather than feel. And yet, the only response I had to Gaudy Night was a "HMMMPH" while I was engulfing it. ( )
  thecamomile | May 10, 2013 |
Gaudy Night took me an awfully long time to read (in comparison to, say, The Nine Tailors). It had less Peter than I'd like, although Harriet's relationship with him develops most satisfactorily, and her character in general too, and it had no on screen Bunter, or Parker, or anyone like that. Some of the female academics were worth getting a little fond of, but not so much that I was bowled over by them.

The mystery itself, I actually spoilered myself on the criminal by the time I was one hundred pages in. Beware of wikipedia! Anyway, knowing what I knew, I could see the clues that lead there, but if I didn't, I don't know if I would have figured it out.

The whole plot rather seems to serve Harriet's character development and the development of her relationship with Lord Peter. On the other hand, there's some commentary about female academics and so on (that seems awfully outdated to a female academic at the end of her second year of university in this day and age), and the setting -- Oxford -- is lovely and the atmosphere well-rendered. ( )
  shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 |
I love this novel. The mystery is well-done, but other issues take precedence. The relationship between Peter and Harriet, the role of women, the conflict between the intellectual and the emotional life are all explored with skill and passion. I have read Gaudy Night a number of times over the years and I have appreciated it more with each reading. This is the book (along with Jude the Obscure!!) which first made me want to visit Oxford and which never fails to make me wish that I had attended university there! ( )
1 vote KimMR | Apr 2, 2013 |
This was the first book I read in the series (after, I think, watching the BBC "Have His Carcase.") It was nice to read it again in the context of everything else. And after having visited Oxford!

This book contains so much awesome - Oxford in the thirties, romance, complexly drawn characters, feminism, extremely silly slang, humor, and oh yes, a mystery.

Sayers is wonderful because she allows her characters to have their own opinions and even to be wrong. Peter is allowed to be agnostic (even though Sayers wrote Christian theology), kind-hearted Padgett is allowed to be a Fascist, Harriet is allowed to write novels with flat characterization and not get on with old schoolfriends and be wrong about what kind of person Peter is.

Dear authors of the world - let your characters be wrong about all sorts of things. You'll like them better, I promise. ( )
  raschneid | Mar 31, 2013 |
Dorothy Sayers, recommended to me by the town librarian some 40ish years ago, got me back into reading mysteries. I'd stopped because of a real life tragedy involving a murder; for a long while the thought of reading books that hinged on death seemed, well, unhinged. But Sayers got me in again, with wit, and her beguiling characters, and soon I was as corrupt and insensitive as the next person. Well...maybe not all that, but I returned to the genre I had loved as a child. Before the murder. ( )
  jarvenpa | Mar 31, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 74 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (15 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Dorothy L. Sayersprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
George, ElizabethIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Juva, KerstiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
The University is a Paradise. Rivers of Knowledge are there. Arts and Sciences flow from thence. Counsell Tables are Horti conclusi, (as it is said in the Canticles) Gardens that are walled in, and they are Fontes signati. Wells that are sealed up; bottomless depths of unsearchable Counsels there.

John Donne
Dedication
First words
Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square.
Quotations
'The social principle seems to be,' suggested Miss Pyke, 'that we should die for our own fun and not other people's.' 'Of course I admit,' said Miss Barton, rather angrily, 'that murder must be prevented and murderers kept from doing further harm. But they ought not to be punished and they certainly ought not to be killed.' 'I suppose they ought to be kept in hospitals at vast expense, along with other unfit specimens,' said Miss Edwards. 'Speaking as a biologist, I must say I think public money might be better employed. What with the number of imbeciles and physical wrecks we allow to go about and propagate their species, we shall end by devitalising whole nations.' 'Miss Schuster-Slatt would advocate sterilisation,' said the Dean. 'They're trying it in Germany, I believe,' said Miss Edwards. 'Together,' said Miss Hillyard, 'with the relegation of woman to her proper place in the home.' 'But they execute people there quite a lot,' said Wimsey, 'so Miss Barton can't take over their organisation lock, stock and barrel.'
`Were you really being as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose?’
‘That’s rather a difficult sort of comparison. One can’t, surely, deal with emotional excitements in that detached spirit’.
‘Isn’t the writing of good prose an emotional excitement?’
‘Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it’s dead right, there’s no excitement like it. It’s marvellous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day – for a bit, anyhow.’
‘Well, that’s what I mean. You expend the trouble and you don’t make any mistake – and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there’s any subject in which you’re content with the second-rate, then it isn’t really your subject.’
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0061043494, Mass Market Paperback)

When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the "Gaudy," the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled obsentities, burnt effigies and poison-pen letters -- including one that says, "Ask your boyfriend with the title if he likes arsenic in his soup."Some of the notes threaten murder; all are perfectly ghastly; yet in spite of their scurrilous nature, all are perfectly worded. And Harriet finds herself ensnared in a nightmare of romance and terror, with only the tiniest shreds of clues to challenge her powers of detection, and those of her paramour, Lord Peter Wimsey.

(retrieved from Amazon Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:58:57 -0500)

(see all 4 descriptions)

Harriet Vane's Oxford reunion is shadowed by a rash of bizarre pranks and malicious mischief that include beautifully worded death threats, burnt effigies and vicious poison-pen letters, and Harriet finds herself and Lord Peter Wimsey challenged by an elusive set of clues.… (more)

» see all 4 descriptions

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