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Original poster

"The first feminist mystery novel" - do you agree?

54 replies

meditrina · 30/05/2011 17:40

I found that quotation in wiki (sourced from a master's thesis) about Gaudy Night (1935) by Dorothy L Sayers.

Has anyone here read it? And if so, to what extent would you agree with that description?

OP posts:
edam · 30/05/2011 18:07

I like Goblin's analysis. Murder Must Advertise (think that's the title but the one set in an ad agency) also has an interesting take on working women. (Well, middle class women, working class women always had to earn their own living).

Original poster
meditrina · 30/05/2011 18:02

I don't know - that's why I'm soliciting views on the book.

The book also contains discussion of "womanly" women v academic women, and Harriet's internal struggle about whether to accept Peter's proposal seems to arise from the same dichotomy.

It must also have been coloured by Sayers' own academic experience (having herself graduated at a time when women could not be awarded degrees, though she was one of the first to receive one when the position changed. There is a good deal of advocacy of women's education (still controversial then) and an independent role in life within the book, and also allusions to polemic (Miss Barton's attack on the Nazi restriction of women to Kinder, Kirche, Küche).

OP posts:
Goblinchild · 30/05/2011 17:53

What an extrodinary and boring thesis, I'm rather shocked that it's a master's. She mainly seems to have given precis of the plots rather than any in-depth analysis of any of the themes. It reads more like an A level essay that could do better.

Goblinchild · 30/05/2011 17:48

Harriet Vane has always been a strong female character, and Gaudy Night shows her struggling with her need to be fiercely independent with the logic of asking Wimsey for help in working out a mystery. The relationship is surprisingly modern considering its social and historical setting, he doesn't want her to put herself in danger whilst investigating, but accepts that he has no right to stop her or indeed that he should even try.
At heart though, it is a traditional love story with murders attached.
What criteria would you want a book to fulfil if it was to be 'a feminist mystery novel' let alone the first?