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Original poster

Dorothy Sayers' Whimsey novels - do you know the (1980s) TV adaptations?

366 replies

JeanneDeMontbaston · 10/01/2015 11:33

I wasn't sure where to put this thread, but it feels as if it'd be more at home here that the TV threads. I love Dorothy Sayers. MN introduced me to her. I wish they'd do another adaptation, but the 1980s ones are surprisingly good.

The wonderful sconerhymeswithgone showed me the existence of these on youtube. (The link is to Gaudy Night, because that's what I'm watching, but there are lots of earlier ones).

What do you think? I liked the casting, but I have quibbles. And the ending to Gaudy Night is a travesty, right?

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YonicSleighdriver · 12/01/2015 00:03

I don't see that, Jeanne. I mean, he's fallen in love with her at first sight - Ok, fine - but he hasn't made any effort to ascertain if she's fallen in love back or to even give the impression that might matter.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 11/01/2015 23:59

Yes, but it was the 1930s!

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Becles · 11/01/2015 23:56

I'm so glad to have found this thread. Would never have known that this was being shown but have set the recorder dooda.

Drama channel is currently in my very good books: Miss Marple with Joan Hickson (so I can mock the latest ITV versions); the Agatha Christie hour and now this.

Bliss.

RustyBear · 11/01/2015 23:52

Yes, I have to say I did enjoy reading it, it was just afterwards that I felt a sense of disappointment - I think because JPW has got quite a long way away from DLS by this time. Thrones, Dominations was a completion of Sayers' unfinished work, and A Presumption of Death took a lot from the Wimsey Papers, but the Attenbury Emeralds and the Late Scholar are more JPW than DLS. I probably need to read them all again; I always find it difficult to judge a book on first reading, because I am too keen to find out what happens to pay proper attention to the style.

YonicSleighdriver · 11/01/2015 23:48

And yes, he says he'd investigate it either way, but it's not exactly fair, is it?!

YonicSleighdriver · 11/01/2015 23:48

mmm, but it takes him six years to realise!

I think, regardless of her feelings for Boyes, waltzing up to someone to whom you are in a position of power (her life may depend on his exertions) and proposing to them is entitlement.

Plus, although he has been watching her in court, she has been unaware of him.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 11/01/2015 23:45

Mmm. I'm not sure that's entitled, though, yonic.

It's problematic, but I think the problem isn't precisely entitlement, but rather that he doesn't realize how much she's having to get over what happened previously, and he naively thinks that if he's a decent bloke, it will be fine.

I agree that attitude can (and goodness knows, we notice on MN, often does!) shade over into male entitlement, but the point is that when he realizes it's wrong for her, he acknowledges he got it wrong.

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YonicSleighdriver · 11/01/2015 23:41

I like TLS more than TAE - I think by TLS she's given up trying to 'mimic' Sayers (which she misses) and has somewhat similar characters speaking with the voices she has given them.

PetulaGordino · 11/01/2015 23:40

This thread is where all the totally reasonable posters are

RustyBear · 11/01/2015 23:40

I've been wondering the same thing stealthsquiggle - I started buying new paperback editions last year to replace my originals, which I bought between 1971 and 1974 and which are starting to fall apart. Now I've got a Kindle, I want them on that! So far the only Kindle one I have is Unnatural Death, though I also have The Late Scholar, which is the latest (slightly disappointing) Jill Paton Walsh one.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 11/01/2015 23:39

stealth When I first got my kindle, I bought only books that I had already read and had copies of so that I would always have my favorites with me. So I say do it.

IrenetheQuaint · 11/01/2015 23:39

I do find his proposal a bit entitled, and his frequent repetitions of it even more so. But he does take her seriously as a human being, even so.

YonicSleighdriver · 11/01/2015 23:37

Yes, absolutely, and he admits it himself in GN!

"at the moment when I should have been thinking only of you and your circumstances, I blundered in, trying to grab at what I wanted for myself"

(or...words to that general effect)

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 11/01/2015 23:36

Is his proposal entitled?

I am really struck, actually, by how much people did get married based on not very much. Also, how much do we think he's serious?

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Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 11/01/2015 23:34

Oh, but haven't we all gone out with wankers at that age?

It's what gives me hope, Gaudy Night. Yes, when I was 22 I was with a total wanker, but if I hang around enough Oxford colleges before I'm 32 ...

Anyway, I've just found that some of them are free on Gutenberg! www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/sayers-busman/sayers-busman-00-h.html

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YonicSleighdriver · 11/01/2015 23:32

Yeeesss, I think Sayers rather overdid that actually (to make Peter look good despite the fact he was acting like an entitled knob with his proposal)

stealthsquiggle · 11/01/2015 23:32

[Happy sigh]

Would it he bad to buy Gaudy Night on my kindle even though I own two copies, so that I can reread it on a plane tomorrow? and busman's honeymoon for the prologue?

IrenetheQuaint · 11/01/2015 23:29

Hmm yes Rusty, that makes sense too.

It's hard quite to believe in Philip and Harriet's relationship, isn't it? He is clearly such a knob and she is so clever and perceptive.

There is a funny bit in Busman's Honeymoon where Peter reflects smugly that Philip was clearly utterly crap in bed Grin

SconeRhymesWithGone · 11/01/2015 23:29

Gaudy Night, I mean. But need to re-read Strong Poison, too.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 11/01/2015 23:27

I re-read it two years ago (it was the first book I bought for my kindle) but I think it's due for a re-read so will be next on my list. Right now I am re-reading some of PD James's novels as a kind of memorial.

It was Sayers who introduced me to mystery fiction, which has remained a life-long love. When I was young, my literary tastes were pretty narrow and I had a notion that I didn't like mystery fiction. My grandmother loved detective novels, though, and one day at her house, when I had run out of something to read, I picked up her copy of Nine Tailors. I was hooked and then read all the other books in order. I have been an ardent mystery reader ever since.

YonicSleighdriver · 11/01/2015 23:25

Or that it was suicide after Harriet turned him down again?

RustyBear · 11/01/2015 23:23

Having got Strong Poison off the shelf to look all this up, I'm now taking it up to bed with me...

RustyBear · 11/01/2015 23:22

I think the killer (do we need to avoid spoilers?) chose arsenic because Boyes was subject to gastric attacks, but maybe decided to give the fatal dose on that particular day because Boyes had arranged to see Harriet that evening. So if the death wasn't accepted as due to illness, Harriet would then be the most likely suspect.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 11/01/2015 23:16

irene - ooh, yes! Lovely description. I do like all the competing descriptions, actually. The snobby Duchess of Denver's one is brilliant - that just is how snotty relations crop up at weddings, times 1000.

At some point, I must start and AIBU as Harriet about that wedding and her SIL, and see who bites.

'DH (who is rather older and richer than I am) and I are getting married, and SIL disapproves. I think it would be nice to get married in a gold lame dress, with the academic staff of my old Oxford college as bridesmaids. SIL thinks I'm bonkers and wants to throw me a huge wedding in London. AIBU to have it my way, then do a disappearing act midway through the reception so she doesn't get to see me leave?

PS: DH's hanger-on is coming with us on honeymoon. That's not weird, is it?'

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Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 11/01/2015 23:12

Grin We are your people.

I think the gastric attacks are just good, old-fashioned red herrings? I don't like plots that are too neat, and I like that there are all sorts of things that might or might not lead somewhere. Like when Mrs Goodwin in Gaudy Night is vaguely suspected, and in a way, she's a foil for the real killer, because she is in some ways quite similar.

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