Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957)

Lord Peter Wimsey, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last

I’ve read one novel by Dorothy L. Sayers before. I cannot remember which one it was. At the time I found it slow-paced and boring. Isn’t it lucky that we are rarely the same readers we were years ago? I jumped into a group read and was delighted.

As we begin, Wimsey’s car has an unfortunate encounter with a ditch, so he ends up spending a few days in a nearby village. There is a lovely church (the descriptions made my show more heart beat faster). ”Impressive!” said Wimsey. ”Why, it’s like a young cathedral.”

There is a lot of geekery about church bells and bell ringing. We are talking about English change-ringing, to be exact. (There is a YouTube rabbit hole here for you, if you are willing.) What is Kent Treble Bob? I have no idea, but it sounds grand. I don’t think I’ve ever read a mystery so focused on church bells – as a theme, as a symbol, as a plot device – it was fascinating.

The murder mystery is dark, gory, gothic. It is intricate, you need to pay attention. All the major reveals are impressive and heartbreaking. Yet to me, the book was more about the time, the place, the landscape, the people of the village, how people talked, the beautiful way the community came together when disaster struck. I savoured it all slowly, and the book let me do that. I’m grateful and I want more.

Favourite quotes:

”Mouth up, mouth down, they brawled with their tongues of bronze, and through it all that shrill, high, sweet, relentless note went stabbing and shivering.”

”Wimsey saw that the only way to quiet the Rector was to desert him without compunction.”

”I’m a terrific success at pottering around asking sloppy questions. And I can put away quite a lot of beer in a good cause.”

”…they’re all idiots – mostly, that is.”
”Most people are,” said Wimsey, gravely, ”but it isn’t kind to tell them so.”

”Mr. Edward Thorpe, forty-four, very correct and formal, presented a bland Civil-Service front to the impact of Wimsey’s personality.” show less

I do enjoy these books, but the misogyny of even a feminist writer, writing almost a century ago, is hard to read.

The casual racism and anti-Semitism that shows up is also difficult and often jarring. Sayers denied the anti-Semitism, and I imagine she would say she was merely depicting the widespread racism / anti-Semitism, in her dialog and characterizations. Plausible, from my 2026-re-readings: To date, the jarring racism/anti-Semitism shows up most obviously in the casual use of show more racist/anti-Semitic language, and biased attitudes displayed by characters other than the protagonist(s).

But the misogyny in this book, depicting an older woman dating a young fortune-hunter, is hard to avoid, when it's placed so plainly in the views not just of side characters but also of our secondary protagonist, Harriet Vane.

Also, an incredibly detailed scene of Harriet & Peter working through an encryption. How on earth did Sayers write this? Did she work it through on her own and just transcribe the process, and then put in character voices? I can't imagine. show less

Holds up well in rereading. The plot has interesting twists and turns and the characters are well drawn. This early Lord Peter is still a fairly frivolous seeming gentleman, but he displays incisive intelligence in questioning witnesses and suspects. Several years ago I cited this novel in a conference paper rebutting the idea that Golden Age mysteries ignored the condition of society. A mystery set in a men's club for military gentlemen is very clear on the physical and mental damage done show more to the veterans of WWI and their disappointment in the society to which they had returned. From the fathers giving commemorative dinners for the comrades of sons lost in the war, to the shell shocked George Fentiman, to Tin-Tummy Challoner, to the numerous women who will never find husbands, the England of Dorothy Sayers has been heavily marked by the war. show less

On second reading (this time via audio book), I still find Wimsey an utter delight -- I had forgotten or not noticed his interest in early printed works, so that just added to the story for me -- and I found myself chuckling at his witty conversation more than once. Also, I have missed Bunter.

That said -- wow, what a product of its time. While there was nothing fully anti-semitic expressed, the constant need to comment on one of the victim's Jewishness and offer sweeping stereotypical views show more caused me quite a bit of dismay. I'm taking the opportunity to explore how things I didn't consciously examine in my previous reading may have tainted my worldview, and we'll see how far I get in the re-read of the series.

Also, hilariously, the audio version that I listened to was a legitimately published copy, but had clearly been copied off the CD, including both the change-CD now prompts and a portion obscured by disk damage. It surprises me that a publisher would release digital content in such a poorly edited state. The reader also took some getting used to -- very British, very lugubrious and languid in his speech, with a great many mouth noises as the the tale progressed. Very... authentic. show less