I remember reading a number of columns in the Spectator published in the first part of the war, in which Sayers does not advance any story line but is writing more as a propagandist for the government. She may in one of those columns have mentioned what happened to St. George.
@Trudy wrote:
8. What about the other characters, other than Peter and Harriet? This novel has a large cast – do you have a favourite?
I've read all the Wimsey books at least twice and some several more times than that. Gaudy Night isn't really a favourite. I find the cast of characters a bit too large, some of the incidents there to illustrate points about women, education and marriage, and the love story doesn't quite work. Which is odd as I've now gone on to start re-reading Busman's Honeymoon, which I always enjoy. Maybe because Sayer's wasn't trying so hard the whole thing works much better for me.
I think I'm about to discover how the ship deals with heresy.
Busman's Honeymoon is rubbish. Or rather, it's a very mixed bag. The (reaches across room for copy of BH) Prothalamion and Epithalamion are good - even very good - but the main story is what it admits to being - an adaptation of a stage play. And it's not a good one either in that at the climax we have all the characters standing around in one room for the detective (Peter) to announce that the murderer is <not stated to avoid being a spoiler, and not really relevant to my point>. Cries of astonishment, curtain. But as a novel it really isn't any great shakes. Because it's basically a play, a small number of characters (actors cost money) enter a limited number of locations (so do sets) and deliver the information that's needed and nothing else (you need to keep the audience's attention when they're mainly wondering what sorts of ice cream will be available in the interval).
My favourite is probably Murder Must Advertise. Again a lot of characters, but somehow they seem more defined.
Now this I agree with. I gather from wikipedia that it was thrown together in something of a hurry because The Nine Tailors was running late and (I assume) Sayers was contracted to have 1933's book out on time:
The new book is nearly done. I hate it because it isn't the one I wanted to write, but I had to shove it in because I couldn't get the technical dope on The Nine Tailors in time. Still, you never know what people will fancy, do you? It...deals with the dope-traffic, which is fashionable at the moment, but I don't feel that this part is very convincing, as I can't say "I know dope". Not one of my best efforts.
But it doesn't feel any the worse for it: the writing is fresh and the world feels realistic (being set in an industry that Sayers had worked in). The mystery isn't brilliant - on first reading I think I spotted the murderer by halfway through - but the cynicism of the writing, particularly the closing paragraphs, is entirely appropriate for the world portrayed.
I concur with Fawkes Cat in disliking Busman's Honeymoon. There is to my mind an unpleasantly voyeuristic feel about it, and the literary lovemaking gets a bit tedious. Sayers was fantasising about Wimsey the lover by this stage, and it becomes obvious.
I will disagree with everyone and say that I love both Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon equally, although differently, and as a climax to the love story I think they absolutely need to be read as a pair. I take @Fawkes Cat's that BH does read like the adaptation of a stage play that it is, but I don't find this to be much of a flaw, and I love the "literary lovemaking" scenes.
As for minor characters, the comparison between Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night is an interesting one because both are Sayers writing about settings she knows very well, where she obviously has a wide range of types of people to draw upon for her characters. In general, I find the large casts of both to be a bit of an indistinguishable blur (there are employees of the ad agency in MMA and Shrewsbury dons in GN that I still cannot tell apart despite many rereadings), but with exceptions that really rise above the rest in their individuality.
In Gaudy Night, I love the variety Sayers brings to even the most minor of characters -- even if some are not very well developed as individuals, none feel like stereotypes to me. Among the dons, Miss Lydgate (who apparently was inspired by an actual person) is the standout for me -- the combination of her kindness, her determination to see the best in everyone, and her absolute inability to organize or ever stop editing her own manuscript makes her feel so real and believable to me. I also like the acerbic and somewhat twisted Miss Hillyard quite a lot, and Miss Martin the Dean. The brief, one-scene appearances of many of Harriet's former classmates at the Gaudy are also, I think, very well and vividly drawn.
I’m with @Fawkes Cat on Busman’s Honeymoon. If I’m reading through Wimsey, I read it, but it’s even worse than “5 Red Herrings” which takes a bit of forgiving and which I can only read for the landscape: countryside I know and like.
Clearly tastes divide in Busman’s Honeymoon, as Dorothy Sayers was aware
It has been said, by myself and others, that a love-interest is only an intrusion upon a detective story. But to the characters involved, the detective-interest might well seem an irritating intrusion upon their love-story. This book deals with such a situation. It also provides some sort of answer to many kindly inquiries as to how Lord Peter and his Harriet solved their matrimonial problem. If there is but a ha'porth of detection to an intolerable deal of saccharine, let the occasion be the excuse.
I finished Busman's Honeymoon a day or two ago. I still prefer it to Gaudy Night, a book that I think was trying to be too many things at once.
I remembered seeing a film of Busman's Honeymoon, and managed to find it on YouTube under its American title of Haunted Honeymoon. The main plot is basically the same, but I found it hard to take an American as an English lord. Good to see a young Robert Newton with his natural accent rather than his pirate voice though. My husband who hasn't read the book rather enjoyed it.
Thank you for suggesting this book - I found that it felt longer than it needed to be, but then went on to happily re-read Busman's Honeymoon, and have now gone on to re-read the whole series, and fill in a few gaps. Likely will also go on to Jill Peyton Walsh - I feel the details are a bit "off" (and was rather surprised to find she was English and not American) but enjoy the stories! A final one is apparently to be published early in 2022.
PS And the background information provided by the shipmates was very useful - I had wondered about a number of the details!
I finished Busman's Honeymoon a day or two ago. I still prefer it to Gaudy Night, a book that I think was trying to be too many things at once.
I remembered seeing a film of Busman's Honeymoon, and managed to find it on YouTube under its American title of Haunted Honeymoon. The main plot is basically the same, but I found it hard to take an American as an English lord. Good to see a young Robert Newton with his natural accent rather than his pirate voice though. My husband who hasn't read the book rather enjoyed it.
Robert Newton used his natural voice (gorgeous) in the original B&w version of Tom Brown's Schooldays where he played Dr Arnold. The film pops up on Talking Pictures or one of the other obscure Freeview channels in the UK.
I remembered seeing a film of Busman's Honeymoon, and managed to find it on YouTube under its American title of Haunted Honeymoon. The main plot is basically the same, but I found it hard to take an American as an English lord. Good to see a young Robert Newton with his natural accent rather than his pirate voice though. My husband who hasn't read the book rather enjoyed it.
If IMDB is to be believed, originally Robert Donat was going to play Wimsey, but then he pulled out at a late stage and Robert Montgomery (who happened to be in England at the time) was dragged in to fill the hole.
Personally, I find it far easier to suspend my disbelief with an American actor using an American accent playing the part of an English lord than I would an American actor doing a bad imitation of an English accent playing the part of an English lord. It is less distracting. But then, for me, when I watch a mystery, I want to get to the puzzle, so I tend to forgive a lot of incidentals that don't affect the solution of the puzzle.
Can anyone throw any light on the reference to a book called 'Frolic Wind' referred to in one of the dialogues in 'Gaudy Night'? Obviously it has some relevance to the issue of mental/emotional derangement and I remember that it was dramatised on radio in the post-war years, but but Google was no help. Can any shipmate enlighten me?
I should have looked a little further. Here is a little review:
The plot, such as it is, concerns the mystery of the uppermost chamber in a tower in the garden of a country house, closely guarded by its eccentric chatelaine, Lady Athalia. A cavalcade of aesthetes, dandies, furtive personages and delicate recluses inconsequently drift through the gardens and the house. Dorothy L. Sayers alludes to the tower in her Gaudy Night (1936), evoking it as "the home of frustration and perversion and madness".
She was probably recalling a theatre adaptation of the story. Under the pen-name ‘Richard Pryce’, Oke wrote a play in three acts based on Frolic Wind, which seems to have won passing fame. It was published in 1935.
Comments
I think I'm about to discover how the ship deals with heresy.
Busman's Honeymoon is rubbish. Or rather, it's a very mixed bag. The (reaches across room for copy of BH) Prothalamion and Epithalamion are good - even very good - but the main story is what it admits to being - an adaptation of a stage play. And it's not a good one either in that at the climax we have all the characters standing around in one room for the detective (Peter) to announce that the murderer is <not stated to avoid being a spoiler, and not really relevant to my point>. Cries of astonishment, curtain. But as a novel it really isn't any great shakes. Because it's basically a play, a small number of characters (actors cost money) enter a limited number of locations (so do sets) and deliver the information that's needed and nothing else (you need to keep the audience's attention when they're mainly wondering what sorts of ice cream will be available in the interval).
Now this I agree with. I gather from wikipedia that it was thrown together in something of a hurry because The Nine Tailors was running late and (I assume) Sayers was contracted to have 1933's book out on time:
But it doesn't feel any the worse for it: the writing is fresh and the world feels realistic (being set in an industry that Sayers had worked in). The mystery isn't brilliant - on first reading I think I spotted the murderer by halfway through - but the cynicism of the writing, particularly the closing paragraphs, is entirely appropriate for the world portrayed.
As for minor characters, the comparison between Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night is an interesting one because both are Sayers writing about settings she knows very well, where she obviously has a wide range of types of people to draw upon for her characters. In general, I find the large casts of both to be a bit of an indistinguishable blur (there are employees of the ad agency in MMA and Shrewsbury dons in GN that I still cannot tell apart despite many rereadings), but with exceptions that really rise above the rest in their individuality.
In Gaudy Night, I love the variety Sayers brings to even the most minor of characters -- even if some are not very well developed as individuals, none feel like stereotypes to me. Among the dons, Miss Lydgate (who apparently was inspired by an actual person) is the standout for me -- the combination of her kindness, her determination to see the best in everyone, and her absolute inability to organize or ever stop editing her own manuscript makes her feel so real and believable to me. I also like the acerbic and somewhat twisted Miss Hillyard quite a lot, and Miss Martin the Dean. The brief, one-scene appearances of many of Harriet's former classmates at the Gaudy are also, I think, very well and vividly drawn.
I remembered seeing a film of Busman's Honeymoon, and managed to find it on YouTube under its American title of Haunted Honeymoon. The main plot is basically the same, but I found it hard to take an American as an English lord. Good to see a young Robert Newton with his natural accent rather than his pirate voice though. My husband who hasn't read the book rather enjoyed it.
PS And the background information provided by the shipmates was very useful - I had wondered about a number of the details!
Robert Newton used his natural voice (gorgeous) in the original B&w version of Tom Brown's Schooldays where he played Dr Arnold. The film pops up on Talking Pictures or one of the other obscure Freeview channels in the UK.
Personally, I find it far easier to suspend my disbelief with an American actor using an American accent playing the part of an English lord than I would an American actor doing a bad imitation of an English accent playing the part of an English lord. It is less distracting. But then, for me, when I watch a mystery, I want to get to the puzzle, so I tend to forgive a lot of incidentals that don't affect the solution of the puzzle.
This might help.