Wonderful! But also now I feel I need to offer disclaimers, like if you can't get grounded in the characters, go back and read Strong Poison first, where Harriet and Peter first meet and he falls in love with her. You must let me know what you think!
Love this, thank you. Gaudy Night is my favorite in the series too, and also a general favorite — among the best of all academic novels. I never thought to focus on Peter's attention to her writing; always thought that the turning-point was seeing him in his own sphere, the university, and also realizing that he does real work out in the world as a diplomatic. The taking-the-writing-seriously take is great. Did you see the recent piece by @Ann Kennedy Smith that discusses Sayers's class at Oxford, among other things? It's here: https://open.substack.com/pub/akennedysmith/p/connecting-threads-part-1?r=2u2cxe&utm_medium=ios
I find that with Gaudy Night I always have to have a little asterisk in my head about the otherwise sympathetic minor character who sees some value in what is going on in Germany at the time the novel is written, which is the early 30s (so very different from if it had been written later on) but even so.
So glad to find a fellow lover of Gaudy Night! Some different focus turns up for me every time I read it, but that central river scene has become the thing I look most forward to, where it seems the author pulls aside a curtain and shows her hand in a really inspiring way. And yes, the comments about Germany stood out to me this time. It's interesting historically--and also disturbing. I like how you phrase "have a little asterisk in my head" about that.
Thanks for sharing the article! I'm looking forward to reading it. And thanks for being here. :)
I love this post, A reminder to write with integrity. Thank you!
Thank you, Carri!
Gaudy Night is now on my TBR list, and right at the top.
Wonderful! But also now I feel I need to offer disclaimers, like if you can't get grounded in the characters, go back and read Strong Poison first, where Harriet and Peter first meet and he falls in love with her. You must let me know what you think!
I just read that scene. So good ❣️
Squee! Happy you feel that way, too. There's so much packed in it!
Love this, thank you. Gaudy Night is my favorite in the series too, and also a general favorite — among the best of all academic novels. I never thought to focus on Peter's attention to her writing; always thought that the turning-point was seeing him in his own sphere, the university, and also realizing that he does real work out in the world as a diplomatic. The taking-the-writing-seriously take is great. Did you see the recent piece by @Ann Kennedy Smith that discusses Sayers's class at Oxford, among other things? It's here: https://open.substack.com/pub/akennedysmith/p/connecting-threads-part-1?r=2u2cxe&utm_medium=ios
I find that with Gaudy Night I always have to have a little asterisk in my head about the otherwise sympathetic minor character who sees some value in what is going on in Germany at the time the novel is written, which is the early 30s (so very different from if it had been written later on) but even so.
So glad to find a fellow lover of Gaudy Night! Some different focus turns up for me every time I read it, but that central river scene has become the thing I look most forward to, where it seems the author pulls aside a curtain and shows her hand in a really inspiring way. And yes, the comments about Germany stood out to me this time. It's interesting historically--and also disturbing. I like how you phrase "have a little asterisk in my head" about that.
Thanks for sharing the article! I'm looking forward to reading it. And thanks for being here. :)