Despite my affection for the Inklings and their associates, I had not read any Dorothy L Sayers (often, strangely, associated with them), until last year. This was after reading Keller's The Reason for God, wherein he uses Lord Peter Wimsey's world and Harriet Vane as a great illustration of the Incarnation. So off I tootled only to discover they are rare as goldust in second hand bookshops...until discovering one secluded bookshop with lots!
I'm not saying Whose Body? is the best, but that it's the first and so far I have only read the first two books of the series. For all I know the best is yet to come, and so I'd take that volume to my island. But for the moment, I'll settle for book No.1.
One reason I had not read them was the assumption it was a lot of posh people being posh (the price of seeing some episodes of the 1980s BBC series, as a child). Well, there are lots of posh people but I also found that Sayers (and thus Wimsey) has an incredibly self-aware wit, and some sections are laugh-out loud funny. At the same time it's a classic, labyrinthine mystery with an impossible crime that somehow must be solvable, but how? In this case, a body is found in bath - no one knows who he is, and it's impossible that he is even there. But there he is. Into this steps the younger Wimsey brother, so much more intelligent and alive than his heir-to-the-family-seat elder brother. Far too intelligent for the high-tea mincing nobility, and suffering post-traumatic-stress symptoms from the trenches of WWI, Lord Peter doggedly pursues the logic of the case, with his utterly loyal batman at his side, throwing one-liners all over the place. On top of this, he is a total bibliophile, likes reading book-catalogues, and attends book-sales.
We must have been seperated at birth.
2 comments:
Cor, this one's out of left-field for sure.
I've never been anywhere near a DLS novel, so had not a lcue until now what they might contain.
My interest is piqued.
Also: it's fascinating to consider you the twin brother of a very old woman (born in 1893). Somehow, I always knew something wasn't quite right...
Keep reading, Badger! You'll love them.
Busman's Holiday, and The Nine Tailors are favorites. But I don't think there is a boring one in the bunch. I didn't know they were supposed to go in order. I think I read them haphazard.
Oh, and Cloud Of Witnesses is awesome!
She also has a fascinating little book, The Mind Of The Maker, which is a contemplation of the idea of being God's Image. (I disagree with almost everything in it, of course, but it is still a delightful and thought provoking read.)
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