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.
I love this post, A reminder to write with integrity. Thank you!
Gaudy Night is now on my TBR list, and right at the top.
I just read that scene. So good ❣️
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.