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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: HEAVEN: Jan 2016 Book Discussion: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
[wandering down a side alley]
Poirot suffers from what we may term Superman syndrome. As you know, they reboot Superman quite frequently. Since his core market is boys, there is a perpetual need to rake in new fans as the old ones age out. So Superman is always and forever in his late 20s or early 30s, and in recent years has been skewing even younger than that. But Superman also has his minions and mythos. What about girlfriend Lois Lane, editor Perry White and best friend Jimmy Olsen? To fit in with him they cannot age either; it would be ridiculous for the 24-year-old Superman to be squiring around a 49-year-old Lois Lane. And so what you get is a bubble that moves forward through time. This bubble contains all the important bits of Superman's social circle and family, so that they can always be current in unison. When Superman first appeared in the 1930s his father, Jonathan Kent, had been a doughboy in the trenches of France before returning to the farm in Smallville. In my lifetime Kent has moved forward in history, landing on the beaches in Normandy, fighting in Korea and Vietnam. I don't know if he is a Gulf War vet yet, but any day now.
Poirot is clearly affected by the same phenomenon -- other examples would include James Bond and Batman. Wimsey (loud squeal of tires as thread makes the hairpin turn and is dragged back on topic) is more cleverly constructed. He stays in his history, aging as the books go forward. Harriet Vane worries about how old he is getting. This would account for why Sayers tired of him. It is difficult to keep the character interesting and fresh and yet the same, as he ages.
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Also, I think by Busman's Honeymoon, Sayers had really finished Wimsey's story. He had got the girl, matured, settled down, and I think there's a clear suggestion at the end of BH that his happy marriage to Harriet will provide, not the end of the PTSD he suffered from the War, which is clearly triggered every time he has to condemn someone to death, but a safe place for him to deal with it. There are the couple of post-BH short stories and the wartime pieces Sayers wrote (which were used by JPW to create A Presumption of Death), but I think to have kept on writing Wimsey detective stories that portrayed Peter throughout his later years still solving crimes in much the same way, would have stagnated the character development that had been building throughout the novels. I can see how there may have been an element of the author growing "tired" of her character, but also, and perhaps more, a sense of being "done with" that story, having brought it to its conclusion.
Picking up again on the issue of class -- which always confuses and intrigues me, as a colonial reader of English novels -- would the vicar and his wife be on quite the same level socially as Lord Peter? He is the brother of a Duke, after all. I'm always really interested in how class is depicted in these novels, and how Lord Peter is often critical of the class system and yet at the same time moves in it as his natural element and takes its advantages for granted.
To go back again to the question of Lord Peter's future beyond this novel -- in the JPW sequels, St-George is killed in the war, so that when Gerald dies, Peter becomes Duke of Denver. Do you think this was DLS's intent (if she had gone on writing about these characters)? Having set Gerald up with only one son who was of an age to die in WW2 (although of course when she first introduced the character she wouldn't have known the war was coming when it did, but there is a reference in Gaudy Night to Peter being well aware he's next in line if anything happens to Jerry) -- it seems like Peter becoming the Duke of Denver is always lurking in the background as a possibility in the original novels, and something he seems to have quite ambiguous feelings about.
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Books and things.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Sayers actually said somewhere that St.George's fate was to get killed flying an airplane. And that death fits in perfectly with how she's constructed his character. So yes, I'm sure she expected peter to end up with the whole kit and caboodle someday, but I'm also sure she didn't plan to write it.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There's a book, The Wimsey Papers, which collects all the ephemera that Sayers produced about the Wimsey family. These often appeared in Christmas letters or in private publication, and cover the family history from the Norman Conquest to the present day. In it she does mention the upcoming death of St. George. (I particularly enjoyed the account of Sir Gerald Wimsey, who, oppressed by hellfire preaching, went off his rocker and became a hermit wearing fish skins in the marsh.)
The Paton Walsh sequels go into Peter's succession in detail, but they are frankly a slog.
Here is a particularly good analysis of the Harriet/Peter relationship, which has always struck me as exceptionally well managed and very psychologically accurate.
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BroJames
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# 9636
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Posted
A great article, and I agree about Harriet and Peter's relationship. I wonder if it was by a modern author, whether we wouldn't accuse her of importing implausible twenty-first century sensibilities into an early-to-mid twentieth century relationship.
I'm less confident of the writer's judgements on other issues (sexuality and race), and I'm not sure that she has attended to them with the same care that she has to the Vane-Whimsey relationship.
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georgiaboy
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# 11294
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Posted
Back to the Thoday brothers -- the Superintendent says clearly that they both could be charged as accessories 'You're not in the clear, don't think it.' But at the end he seems to think that really nothing else should be/could be done.
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You can't retire from a calling.
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BroJames
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# 9636
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Posted
I think the Thoday brothers could be charged as accessories after the fact to Deacon's crime of theft, and possibly a charge of false imprisonment could lie against Will to which Jim could be charged as an accessory. Given Deacon's felonious character, however, a jury might be very reluctant to convict either brother. A prosecution might simply be regarded as not in the public interest. I think it would be extremely hard to make any homicide charge stick against Will Thoday - not even involuntary manslaughter.
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
The Paton Walsh sequels go into Peter's succession in detail, but they are frankly a slog.
Well, that's an opinion statement, obviously -- I haven't found them a slog, but I do find them clearly an imitation rather than the original. I've enjoyed reading each of them but would not go back and reread them as I have, many times, with the "real" Lord Peter novels.
The article from The Toast is great; thanks for that link!
[ 20. January 2016, 19:13: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]
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Books and things.
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Jane R
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# 331
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Posted
Trudy: quote:
Picking up again on the issue of class -- which always confuses and intrigues me, as a colonial reader of English novels -- would the vicar and his wife be on quite the same level socially as Lord Peter?
It seems likely from internal evidence that their families are landed gentry at least, if not minor aristocracy. Back in the days before the abolition of tithes, being a vicar was one of the few occupations open to third or fourth sons of upper class families who did not wish to forfeit their social status. From that perspective, the Venables are definitely Lord Peter's social equals. They don't have as much money as he does, but money (on its own) is not considered an important factor when determining someone's class.
And Peter is quite willing to overlook someone's class and make friends with them if he likes them. Witness his friendship with Charles Parker and his marriage to Harriet Vane, both of whom are middle-class. And the fact that someone is upper-class does not automatically mean he will like you - he strongly disapproves of Dian de Momerie and loathes his sister-in-law.
BroJames:
quote:
I'm less confident of the writer's judgements on other issues (sexuality and race), and I'm not sure that she has attended to them with the same care that she has to the Vane-Whimsey relationship.
I daresay, but you have to remember these books were written almost a century ago and intended for a general readership. Admittedly it was around the same time that Lady Chatterley's Lover was first published, but the unexpurgated version was not published in Britain until 1960. Sayers was certainly ahead of other popular writers of the time on the issue of race - compare the characters of Hallelujah Dawson and Sir Reuben Levy with non-Aryan characters in Agatha Christie's works, for example (there's one book where a character who is overly fond of money is dismissed with 'oh well, what can you expect from a Jewess'), or Sax Rohmer's books about Fu Manchu. One of Wimsey's friends marries Reuben Levy's daughter and Wimsey attends the wedding at the synagogue - that's radical, at a time when Mosley's blackshirts were marching in the streets and the Nazis were gaining power in Germany.
I don't think she mentions sexuality at all (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) but this is not surprising. It was still illegal for men to have sex with each other in the 1920s, and quite radical to talk openly about sex between men and women (see above re Lady Chatterley's Lover). And transgender/transsexual people were considered to have a mental illness; gender reassignment surgery was life-threatening and hormone treatment hadn't been invented. (yes, I recently saw The Danish Girl)
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
Also, she was writing for her market. She needed Wimsey novels to sell, to make money -- she was supporting herself with them. Controversy and racy material was not going to help with that.
Are people familiar with the full details of Sayers' biography? She well knew about scandal and the dangers of scandal.
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Ricardus
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# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I am not finding most of the locals grating at all, though, except the sluice keeper, who could have been played by one of Shakespeare's clowns.
Although IIRC this is subverted in that he's proved right in the end.
(Apologies, it's a while since I read the book, but as a bellringer I didn't think I could ignore the thread ...)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
Agree about that. Typical case of "experts" discounting local knowledge.
And I'm not entirely convinced about Deacon being able to think up that cipher, and his correspondent to interpret it. Were they ringers?
[ 20. January 2016, 21:12: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Deacon was; but his correspondent was NOT, and Deacon chose the cipher for exactly that reason--to tantalize him with a code he had no way of breaking, so he would be forced to help Deacon come over. I find it a bit odd that Deacon should have so much imagination as is shown in the cover text, but then, he might have been reading something odd and adapted the ideas from there. It was to his advantage to have it look potty, in case it fell into someone else's hands (as it did, in fact).
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Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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BroJames
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# 9636
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Posted
Jane R. I wholly agree with you. It was the writer of the piece on The Toast, which Brenda Clough linked to, whose otherwise excellent analysis of Peter and Harriet's relationship nonetheless misread (IMO) Dorothy Sayers' writing and views on sexuality (as far as there is anything to go on) and race.
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Chamois
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# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
I find it a bit odd that Deacon should have so much imagination as is shown in the cover text
Everyone in the book who knew Deacon agreed he was an extremely clever man, very quick on the uptake. One of the ringers comments on how quickly he learned to ring Stedman. As a ringer myself I know Stedman takes quite a bit of learning!
Deacon must have been bored to death on that miserable little farm in France. His wife says he locked himself away for a couple of days to write what must have been the cipher. I can imagine him enjoying himself thoroughly, making the cover text loonier and loonier.
To me, it's quite consistent with his character as Sayers presents it.
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
We could talk about voice. I love how all the characters sound like themselves. Everybody is furnished with their own cadence, their own slang, even their own sentence length. You would never confuse one with the other. Nobby Cranton's account of his adventures is a gem.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Clever indeed; but in my experience that doesn't necessarily go with florid creativity. Still, you're probably right.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
We could talk about voice. I love how all the characters sound like themselves.
My favourite is the interview with Mrs Gates, the Thorpe’s housekeeper.
She only appears in one chapter and the function of the scene is to establish that the grave was opened. But you get a whole picture of this nasty, sycophantic snob and her speech, compelled to put down others to bolster her own insecurity. She is only concerned to prove her superiority to others, including the nice village woman who she thinks moved her wreath (who is not only “common” but a nonconformist.)
Brilliant. She shows what a real snob can be, whereas Lord Peter mucks in with the bell ringers and there’s no sign of condescension or patronage from the Venables or Hilary.
This is an example why the book is a novel in itself, not just a mystery puzzle.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Sparrow
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# 2458
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Posted
Hilary seems to be a very mature and sensible young woman for barely fifteen! Although I guess her privileged upbringing and boarding school education has a lot to do with that.
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Bibaculus
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# 18528
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Posted
Mrs Gate is, indeed, a fully rounded character. I hadn't thought of how she contrasts with Lord Peter, the real nobleman. There are shades of Disraeli's Sybil - true nobility is shown by concern for one's social inferiors, the essence of feudal paternalism.
Hilary is delightful. 'A few more daffs on the decani side' is a line I am just waiting for an opportunity to use.
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Helen-Eva
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# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sparrow:
Hilary seems to be a very mature and sensible young woman for barely fifteen! Although I guess her privileged upbringing and boarding school education has a lot to do with that.
I think she's at that age where someone can behave like an adult one minute and a child the next and we only see her behaving as an adult as she's on her best behaviour with people like the vicar's wife and Wimsey.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:the essence of feudal paternalism.
For me the most powerful scene is when the entire village takes refuge in the church to escape the flood. A cohesive society in which the dignity of all is respected, under the care of the church.
This can be criticised as feudal paternalism, but it is worlds away from post Thatcher conservatism with its laissez faire individualism with its encouragement for some to get rich at the expense of others.
The ideal of a cohesive responsible society is nearer to socialism.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
Hillary reminds me of a younger version of the author, also the daughter of a country clergyman who wanted to go and do things.
I love the great set-piece of the flood. How beautifully it is organized! Notice how perfectly and economically we are told of Will Thoday's death. No exposition, only masterly dialogue. And this bit at least ends in the exact right words, with the Rector's prayer.
If the basic plot of a mystery novel is "peaceable community into which evil intrudes and has to be expelled" (the setup for all Murder She Wrote episodes and all Miss Marple stories) Sayers moves it to a different level. It is not only crime that oversets a community. Nature itself is a disturber. Which points out to us that crime, and floods, and all trouble, is an inescapable feature of this fallen life. And that is why the bells are important. They are the voice of Heaven, reminding the inhabitants (and us) of a larger picture.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
But it isn't entirely Nature who has disturbed, is it, unlike the floods in the Green Knowe books? They happen because of the inadequacies of human intervention in Nature. The sluice keeper knows. The engineers know. But the powers that be cannot be moved to do what is necessary.
It is much like what has happened with the winter floods here. The work that was needed has been deliberately not done by those who should have done it, but the communities have responded well to deal with what has happened and keep people under cover and fed. And that has included those who Sayers couldn't have dreamed of. Not just Anglicans and Non-conformists working together.
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Eigon
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# 4917
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Posted
Going back to "voice", it surprised me, when I was flicking through the book, just how much of it is dialogue. What I'd remembered were the discriptions, of the church rising above the flood, and the cherubim on the beams, and the bells hanging in the bell tower, but when I looked more closely, quite a lot of the descriptions are through the dialogue rather than as passages of prose.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Yes, this is a 'modern' book in the way that say Dickens or Thackeray's works aren't. There is no impulse to hold the reader's hand and carefully conduct her through the sewers of Paris or whatever. She can sketch action and description rapidly through dialogue. Possibly this is the influence of the movies -- 'the talkies', as one of Lord Peter's advertising associates describes them. All of a sudden, we don't need so much description. It sounds like a thesis for a graduate student paper; I wonder if anyone has ever written it.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
communities have responded well to deal with what has happened and keep people under cover and fed. And that has included those who Sayers couldn't have dreamed of. Not just Anglicans and Non-conformists working together.
No doubt Sayers could imagine and knew perfectly well other sort of people.
But in Fenchurch St Paul there aren't any. The only "Roman" is dead - and Hezekiah resented tolling the bell for them.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Bibaculus
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# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:the essence of feudal paternalism.
For me the most powerful scene is when the entire village takes refuge in the church to escape the flood. A cohesive society in which the dignity of all is respected, under the care of the church.
This can be criticised as feudal paternalism, but it is worlds away from post Thatcher conservatism with its laissez faire individualism with its encouragement for some to get rich at the expense of others.
The ideal of a cohesive responsible society is nearer to socialism.
'Feudal paternalism' was not intended as a critical term! Maybe it is the 'feudal socialism' which Marx identified in Disraeli and the 'Young England' Tories and criticised in the Communist Manifesto.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
communities have responded well to deal with what has happened and keep people under cover and fed. And that has included those who Sayers couldn't have dreamed of. Not just Anglicans and Non-conformists working together.
No doubt Sayers could imagine and knew perfectly well other sort of people.
But in Fenchurch St Paul there aren't any. The only "Roman" is dead - and Hezekiah resented tolling the bell for them.
I was thinking of the Sikhs and the Syrian refugees, who obviously wouldn't have been anywhere near the Fens at the time, so I realise it isn't relevant, but I don't see how Sayers could have any indication that there would be, in the future, such communities willing and able to contribute to that sort of community pulling together as they have done.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I find the image of the village rescued from the flood in the church (with Hilary and Mr Bunter – comedian – providing the entertainment0 rather comforting and cosy, but I’m aware it is a variant of the image of the church as Noah’s ark, in which only salvation is to be found. Not a very helpful image theologically, I’ve always thought.
But in the context of this safe space we have Mary’s scream as she learns of Will’s death and then no further information about her. I think that gives depth to the book by admitting tragedy without tragedy dominating the lives of the rest of the community. But it could be read as unsympathetic.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Another great thing about this book is the settings. So vivid and real! Even when filtered through several narrators -- it is Nobby Cranton telling us about Deacon's adventures in the trenches in France. The entire story is driven by where things happen; you could not move this tale to anywhere else.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
It is a very real world - I haven't lived up in the Fens, so I'm almost in the same boat as everyone else as regards the place (though I know Romney Marsh).
By comparison, just before I downloaded it, I read the first Roderick Alleyn story by Ngaio Marsh. Nothing of the house survives in my mind, except the stairs (crucial to the murder), or its estate, and very little of the people.
Admittedly, I hadn't read it before, as I had the Sayers, so didn't have the advantage of knowing what had happened and so noticing the development of the factors leading to it, but I don't think it will reward re-reading.
It has been very good doing that re-read. I was pretty young when I did my first rush through Sayers, reading for plot rather than everything else. I think I may get the set back after all - what will I have to take over to Oxfam to make space?
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
And I assume, oh you who are more familiar with churches in Britain, that Sayers is stone-cold solid on the construction of angel roofs and corbels and pegs.
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
If she isn't, she certainly gives that impression. And that detail about hiding stuff behind a loose peg, that suggests inside knowledge from somewhere. Even if only as far as sitting there wondering if you could pull it out. I could visualise the thing so convincingly. I've definitely seen pegged timbers somewhere. Probably in a barn, though. I only know of angel roofs by reputation and photograph, though.
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Sandemaniac
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# 12829
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Posted
Your man for that is Cecil Hewitt. Whether you can remember any of his arcane terminology will be a different matter...
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
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Sandemaniac
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# 12829
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Posted
PennyS beat me to it!
Iron bolts and nails are a 19th century arrival in wooden buildings - prior to that, they were indeed pegged together with wooden pegs.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
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Celtic Knotweed
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# 13008
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Posted
One thing that's got me wondering is what happened to the Thoday's daughters whilst their parents were in London trying to get (re)married. They were too young to be in service, and Mary and William don't give the impression of the sort of parent who would just leave the kids alone.
I suppose they could have been left with relatives (be surprising if there weren't some about), but what would the relatives have been told about why the children needed to be looked after?
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
It's probably germane to this thread to raise a question that I've given way too much thought to, and which is certainly explored in this novel due to the setting: Lord Peter Wimsey's spiritual life.
One of the things that I don't like (there are, as I said, some I do like) about the JPW sequels to these novels is that in one of the books (I think it's the latest, The Attenbury Emeralds, but I wouldn't swear to it), she has Lord Peter refer to himself as an atheist. I think this is quite out of character for Lord Peter as he's been delineated in the original novels. He would be better described as an agnostic (more than once in the books, and certainly at least once in The Nine Tailors, he finds himself wondering whether it can really all be true), but he's a very Anglican agnostic, one who recognizes and admires the church for its valuable role in society, but one who also has a very strong sense of the numinous and the holy. He seems to think it would be arrogant to call himself a Christian (there's a line to this effect in Busman's Honeymoon) but I think he would consider it even more arrogant to call himself an atheist.
Rereading The Nine Tailors this month has led me into a reread of most of the Lord Peter novels, not in any particular order, and I've been very much struck by how often, in the books, Lord Peter either attends a church service, wanders around a church building, and/or has a fruitful conversation with a clergyman. The churches, and the clergy, are universally presented in a positive light (at least, if there's an exception I can't think of one), and on the whole religion comes up with a frequency, a seriousness, and a respect that would seem unusual if you picked up the books under the impression you were just getting a series of early 20th century stories about an aristocratic English detective. Quite apart from NT where the church is central to the whole novel, you have (off the top of my head), all the scenes in Unnatural Death with the wonderful "Roaming Catholic" Miss Climpson, in which Peter's conversation with Reverend Tredgold is a lovely set piece, and Peter reading the lesson in the church at Duke's Denver, I think, in BH. But the positive view of religion extends beyond the established Church: there's the very sympathetically portrayed Reverend Hallelujah Dawson in UD, and the (I assume, though it's never explictly named) Salvation Army service at Bill Rumm's house in Strong Poison, where Miss Murchison notes how at-home Lord Peter is with the hymn-singing.
Of course, all this makes sense when you know you're not just reading a series of detective novels but a series of novels by a devoutly Christian writer whose faith infuses her work. I think Lord Peter is intended as a character who exemplifies Christian values even while not considering himself a practicing Christian. The fact that both he and the novels themselves have such a positive view of religious institutions and people, and such openness to the possibility of God, makes it seem very unlikely to me that he would ever label himself an atheist.
Of course, that latest JPW book in which that quote appears is set many years after the timeline of the original books, and it's not impossible that a man who was a church-friendly agnostic in his early life might, after more life experience and another devastating war, move in the direction of being an atheist. But I think it would be more in line with creator's intentions that his spiritual tendencies, if they changed at all, would be in the opposite direction. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Helen-Eva
Shipmate
# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
It's probably germane to this thread to raise a question that I've given way too much thought to, and which is certainly explored in this novel due to the setting: Lord Peter Wimsey's spiritual life.
For what it's worth I think your analysis (above and not quoted here to save space) is spot on. Sayers was never going to make her main character anything other than fairly positive about the church.
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I thought the radio 3 announcer said "Weber" but it turned out to be Webern. Story of my life.
Posts: 637 | From: London, hopefully in a theatre or concert hall, more likely at work | Registered: Aug 2009
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
I read DLS's book 'The Mind of the Maker' when at school,many years ago, and from what I remember she imagined God as an author and human beings as characters in the story he was writing. She gave as an example of the free will of earthly creatures the fact that she, as a Christian, refrained from making Wimsey a practising believer because to do so would be to make him act out of character.
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
More notably, in Mind of the Maker Sayers maintained that she =could not- force Wimsey into any particular religious view. He had free will. In my experience this is true -- if your creation is Really Real (as they say in The Velveteen Rabbit then you compel them at your peril. Force the characters, and the entire work rolls over, dead as a doornail. Your raw material
demands respect; you have to work with the grain.
(Or, in another very different kind of example, if you knit or crochet you will know that the yarn has an idea of what it wants to be. Knit it up into a caridgan when it was destined to be a shawl, and the yarn fights you. Unravel it and cast on for the shall, and it's smooth sailing.)
As to Peter, I see in him the reflection of his creator. He is a believer, because she was.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
Legally speaking there isn't a murderer. To commit murder there has to be an intention to kill. Will Thoday didn't intend to kill Deacon when he tied him up in the bell chamber, and none of the ringers intended to kill anyone when they rang their peal. So there was no murder. That's why the Superintendent can let the matter go.
In this country, we would call it reckless endangerment, or perhaps manslaughter. I was hoping for a longer statement of events from the DSI.
I watched it on DVD because that's what they had on offer at our local library branch but it took three or four days to get it transferred their. This was an older recording but I think it was well-done. I especially liked the period cars and the war scenes.
That said, I just screened it for the first time today!
I may have more to say before the end of the month because it's checked out for two more weeks.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Are you seeing the Edward Petherbridge Wimsey, or the Ian Carmichael? I am tell there is a movie, which i have never seen.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
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Posted
I read Thrones, Dominions and didn't like it, because the characters were not themselves, so I haven't bothered with the rest. I agree, Peter and Harriet are church-rooted people, if not practising Christians. They are familiar with the liturgies and patterns of church. I really can't imagine Wimsey declaring athiesism at any point in his life. It just doesn't sit well.
I agree, Miss Climpson is a delight, and is the first person I think of when considering Voice. She is so real, I can hear her speaking. Especially in the letters to Wimsey on spiritualism in Have His Carcass! The same with Hezekiah Lavender. I don't know the accent he would have, but I can easily imagine what he would say in a given situation, and what he wouldn't say. In my mind, that's good writing.
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Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
Posts: 2966 | From: somewhere with a book shop | Registered: Jun 2005
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
If you have read the entire series, it is fascinating to see how Sayers gets better at it. At the beginning of Whose Body Peter is little more than a fribble -- a meddling jackanapes. Inspector Sugg is nothing but a foil and a punching bag. By the end Sayers has gotten her range, and Peter is real.
Oh, and speaking of Christianity, I love it that Inspector Parker's hobby is reading theology.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
Inspector Parker was a Methodist, I think. Lord Peter and Harriet would have been steeped in the liturgy of the C of E at their schools, as I was - and it sticks!
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
In this country, we would call it reckless endangerment, or perhaps manslaughter.
That would be, I think, involuntary manslaughter in English law. In the US, I believe, the accused must have acted in a way that showed a disregard for the foreseeable consequences of the actions, and the English law is comparable. I think given the rarity of death by sound alone, there would be a good argument that not only did the accused not foresee the consequences, but that he could not reasonably be expected to have foreseen the consequences.
quote:
Originally posted by Athrawes:
Miss Climpson is a delight, and is the first person I think of when considering Voice. She is so real, I can hear her speaking. Especially in the letters to Wimsey on spiritualism in Have His Carcass!
[PEDANT NOTE]It's in Strong Poison I think, when she inveigles the nurse/carer of Rosanna Wrayburn into helping her search for the will.[/PEDANT NOTE]
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
On screen, I always preferred Edward Petherbridge, who also starred in Busman's Honeymoon on stage, to Ian Carmichael - I always thought Ian Carmichael was a bit too hearty for someone who was supposed to be very nervy!
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I caught up with one of the Edward Petheridge ones ( Strong Poison) on the TV last week. I think he is good, but the production was showing it's age. It's abouttime the BBC did some of the stories again.
As for the characters in NT, I think they are very distinct, but I do feel there is a whiff of charactature about some of them, Hezikiah for instance.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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