Whose Body?

What a difference a narrator makes. I first tried to read ‘Whose Body?’ back in 2017, but the audiobook was so chaotic that I abandoned it. This time, I was listening to the newest audiobook (recorded 100 years after the book was published) narrated by Robert Bathurst, who did a splendid job. He seems to be working his way through Sayers’ novels. I look forward to hearing more from him.

At the start, ‘Whose Body’ felt like Bertie Wooster and Jeeves Do Crime. Sayers was obviously having fun, and so was Wimsey, despite being confronted with a naked body of a stranger in a bath. The book and Wimsey became more serious as what at first seemed like a jolly interesting puzzle was overtaken by the realities of investigating a gruesome show more murder. I liked that Wimsey’s seriousness wasn’t triggered by gathering more pieces of the puzzle but by understanding that there were consequences for solving the puzzle on all of those touched by the deaths, including the killer.

The plot was a little elaborate, partly because of a last-minute improvisation by the murderer, although iz just about held together. What kept me engaged with the novel was getting to know Lord Peter Wimsey and the people whom he values.

I admired how Dorothy Sayers gradually made it clear that Wimsey wears his dizzy Wooster-like persona partly as a form of camouflage so that people underestimate him and partly to keep a self-protective emotional distance from the case. I think it said much about who Wimsey is that, having understood the reality of the evil he’s investigating and the consequences of solving the puzzle, he felt he could not walk away, even though continuing put his sometimes fragile mental health at risk.

I enjoyed the relationship between Wimsey and his valet, Bunter, who was also his batman during World War I. In some ways, Bunter is more competent and more worldly than Wimsey. He’s protective of Wimsey, but he also admires him. I thought the letter that Bunter sent to Wimsey, detailing the interview Bunter had with the valet of a suspect, was a splendid piece of writing. It managed what could have been a clunky piece of exposition with charm and humour. It displayed Bunter’s intellect, his ever-present awareness of class distinctions and appropriate behaviour, his ability subtly to make fun of Wimesy and his certainty that his humour will be noticed and well-recieved.

Wimsey’s friendship with Inspector Charles Parker also enhanced the novel. It was good to see an intelligent, thoughtful policeman in a book about an amateur sleuth. Parker is a cautious, serious-minded, well-educated man. He’s not Watson to Wimsey’s Holmes; he’s a partner whose opinion and expertise Wimsey values. I rather liked that Parker was a man who relaxes by reading discourses on Christian theology.

Wimsey’s mother made me smile. She’s a force of nature: indomitable but benign. She clearly has a soft spot for Wimsey and his enthusiasms. Having met Wimsey’s sober, serious, entitled older brother, a man untroubled by imagination and obsessed with reputation, I can see why.

The thing that most surprised me in the novel was that the murderer was such a chilling creation. The confession letter the murderer left for Wimsey was another piece of clever exposition that was also a character sketch. It gave an insight into the mind of a man who felt neither remorse nor shame and whose confession seems to have been written in the expectation of admiration of his cleverness rather than condemnation of his crimes. This must be one of the earliest depictions of a sociopath in crime fiction.

All in all, this was an impressive start to the series and a remarkable debut novel. show less

Sayers, Dorothy L. Whose Body? 1923. Lord Peter Wimsey No. 1. Harper, 1995.
No one better represents the golden age of British detective fiction than Dorothy Sayers. Rereading this first Lord Peter novel, I was struck by two things: its parody of Edwardian comedy (a la P. G. Wodehouse) and its response to changes in British culture wrought by the Great War. From his first words (“Oh Damn”—already non-Edwardian), Wimsey almost never shuts up. He chatters continuously, creating his flippant character, who, if you don’t look too closely, resembles Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster. Both are moneyed gentry—Lord Peter has given up his title—with refined tastes and an almost magical butler. Although crimes appear often in Wodehouse, show more none of the crimes in Bertie’s life have any serious consequences. But Lord Peter describes dead bodies in detail and takes us into the dissection lab. Bertie almost never rubs up against history. For him, neither World War ever makes an impression. Detective stories, by contrast, seem to thrive in a postwar milieu. American hard-boiled detectives are almost always vets, of World War II, Vietnam, of, more recently, Afghanistan and the Gulf wars. Lord Peter suffers from post-traumatic stress—then called battle fatigue—and his relationship with his butler Bunter is built on their shared wartime experiences. Jeeves can bring Bertie a foolproof remedy for hangover, but Bunter holds Lord Peter’s head and soothes him through his nightmares. Lord Peter’s chattering fatuousness is all pretense, covering a little noir at the core. show less

Having read several later Wimseys over the past few months, I thought it time to return to the beginning. This is the first Wimsey mystery, but Lord Peter hits the ground running – or at least at an athletic but gentlemanly sprint – as a fully-formed character, replete with all his quirks and mannerisms (some may say too many, but I am not one of their number), and his supporting cast of characters: Bunter, Chief Inspector Parker, the Dowager Duchess, Freddy Arbuthnot are all present and correct.

We first meet Peter en route to a sale of antiquarian books, from which he is derailed by news of a body being found in the bath of a respectable tradesman known to the Dowager Duchess. (Bunter represents Peter at the sale and manages to show more save him money by acquiring one of the books at less than Peter’s reserve price, money which Peter delightedly regards as a bonus and buys Bunter a piece of camera equipment on the strength of it.) Whilst visiting the body, which is singularly lacking in identifying features, Wimsey runs into Parker, who has come to check whether, by any chance, it might be Sir Reuben Levy, a middle-aged financier who has disappeared from his home. It isn’t, but the two men are similar in many ways – and thereby hangs a diabolical and convoluted plot, which Wimsey unravels with the panache which we shall come to expect of him.

It is important to read Sayers, or any writer of the past, with a mind to the period in which they were writing. The odd thing about this book, for its time, is not its anti-Semitism – Sir Reuben and the other victim being both Jewish – but its relative lack thereof; both characters are treated with sympathy. One does find the occasional rather wince-making word or turn of phrase in the books, though, and one must either accept them as a product of the times or not read the books at all.

We glimpse Peter’s darker side in this book, as the case affects his shell-shocked nerves to the point where he suffers from battlefield flashbacks. Luckily a pyjama-clad Bunter is at hand to provide reassurance, a bromide, and a mutter of “Bloody little fool!” that he would surely never allow himself in anything less than the uttermost privacy. show less

This is the first Lord Peter Wimsey novel. I liked it very much, even though I'd already spoiled myself for part of the mystery (I think by reading Barbara Reynold's biography of Dorothy Sayers).

I really enjoyed the relationship between Wimsey and Bunter. There's a moment when Wimsey is having a PTSD flareup from WWI and Bunter takes care of him that made me say "Awww!" out loud.

The only thing that really annoyed me in this book was [possible spoiler ahead] that one of the characters is a Sinister Atheist. I'd only seen that trope in G.K. Chesterton's writing before (and Sayers really liked Chesterton, so it's not surprising some of his ideas get into her stories) -- it's the atheist who, because of his atheism (always *his* atheism, I show more think), has a very bleak, nihilistic outlook and does bad things on purpose, not because he's not restrained by religion (which is a more popular way of making atheists bad guys) but because he takes a sort of perverted joy in horrible things. show less

It feels a little unpolished, with serrated edges here and there without the Agatha Christie flair, but I suppose that's to be expected with a debut. It is still a shrewdly conceived plot nevertheless, though the conclusion might easily be surmised early (*potential spoiler) on if you pay close attention to what Sayer's has to leave out about the body's appearance (due to censorship), which indefinitely connects the two cases. I had a rough time getting used to Sayer's attempts at Wodehousian dialogue and her brusque descriptions, and I could not help wincing every time the Peter/Bunter duo fell short of the inimitable Jeeves and Wooster. All in all, an average feat by Miss Sayers.

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 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 show more 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

I usually feel compelled to finish a work if I'm going to review it. But a few minutes into the audio version, I already found the protagonist intolerable and the fluttery old- lady voice of the narrator unbearable. It stars Lord Peter Wimsey, of course, a ridiculous twit who wears a top hat, a monocle, a dark green tie and matching socks, and carries a Malacca walking stick. "His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola." He is called to investigate a body in the rooming house bathtub, a man totally nude except for a gold pince-nez. "Bit of a dandy, what?" (observes the foppish Wimsey).

This book just isn't my cup of tea. However, it probably holds the show more world's record for the most uses of the archaic term "pince-nez". The original title was The Singular Adventure of the Man with the Golden Pince-Nez, a title changed to Who's Body for the sake of readers born after 1920, who are unlikely to know that "pince-nez" refers to thin- rimmed 19th century eyeglasses affected by upper class gents who weren't equipped with a monocle.

Anyone who wants to try "Who's Body" for themselves can find it online here. http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sayers/body/whose-body.html Readers who wonder how "pince-nez" is pronounced may want to seek out the audio version. Don't say I didn't warn you. show less