Dorothy L Sayers

[Footle]

@missclimpson and anyone else. These preposterous stories seem to be my main lockdown reading. What is it about Dorothy L? Which books do you like best? I started with Gaudy Night as it sent me to sleep nicely , but didn't really enjoy it till quite a long way in. Odd book.

And some class issues that look progressive at first sight like Lord Peter marrying a bohemian writer he rescued from the gallows turn out to be far less so, when it becomes very clear in Busman's Honeymoon that Harriet is established rural upper-middle class as the local doctor's daughter. Yy Frangible - often when class threads crop up on MN I think about examples like this one ! The class system is so entrenched that in the 1920s this was WILDLY progressive.

I agree about Maisie Dobbs Frangible. There is something off about it all the way through. It annoys the hell out of me that she can never get the Compton family titles right either. He can't be Lord Julian, have a wife who is Lady Rowan and a son who is Lord James. 😡

@DancelikeEmmaGoldman Yes you’ve sussed me out re DWJ. A whole other thread there!

And just one more recommendation: for a podcast I’ve just discovered, Carolyn Crampton’s Shedunnit, which is a well-researched and mellifluous look at the golden age of female crime writers.

Thanks @DancelikeEmmaGoldman!

I’ve just remembered Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady which when I read it aged about 14 or so I thought was brilliant. Many years later I wondered if Steven Spielberg had read it as there is a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which is very reminiscent of the book.

Yes I thought that too borntobequiet. I actually quite like the TV Campions with Peter Davison.

Oh thank you for that podcast tip, it seems excellent and just what I’ve been missing! 🥰

I like Cyril Hare too, for legal nerdery. And I noticed that fadedpage had a bit on the front today about R Austin Freeman - I don’t love his writing, but it’s an interesting line in idolisation of a certain sort of masculinity- the man who is of independent means, knowledgeable, a bit of an engineer etc etc. He does a line in eugenic theory too, a rather unpleasant master and servant sort of thing. Still I think it’s interesting as a portrait of the times.

"I find this such a difficult attitude to understand. Surely any creative work denuded of the language and mores of its time would be worthless? And we can't expect every single previous culture to ascribe to our own best values."

Totally agree Perdita ! I'm sure we in 2020 think we can create the epitome of civilised literature and culture but what will future generations say of us?

I love DLS and Margery Allingham and will check out all those authors I haven't read - thank you very much all!

As an aside I was very pleased to see Harriet Walter in Killing Eve...

Of course we don’t expect past generations to subscribe to our values. But We are also the product of our times and mores and I think you can still have an instinctive recoil when a plot turns on the unspeakable shameful secret that there might be black blood in someone’s family, or at the idea that a woman needs to be raped to set her straight (two of the last campion stories I read). It’s because I am enjoying the books and loving the characters generally that it’s suddenly discordant, however true to its time. And doesn’t it just slowly wear you down the characterisation of greedy Jews and volatile wops?

I agree with you MadameNoo about responses to reading certain kinds of books. But I also find it odd that the blanket assumption often seems to be that all writers working before a certain date had the same beliefs, prejudices and values as all the others in their particular era. And that this means that we should cut them all the same level of slack.! Just as now, when there are still writers producing work containing implicit or explicit racist, sexist or anti-Semitic viewpoints that I personally find unacceptable – although some only produce for right-wing audiences or cover their prejudices by failing to represent or engage with certain issues - there are variations in the views represented in the output of the writers of the past. Some were deeply prejudiced, some were liberal, others even communist, yet more were probably simply unthinking.

I remember reading an article that discussed some of these issues referencing Edith Wharton’s anti-Semitism but pointing out that she was writing during a period in which the Dreyfus Affair had influenced many writers, causing them to question this type of discrimination; so that even at the time her views were not considered acceptable in many literary circles. Similarly, in the 1930s, as Orwell discusses, there were writers who, after hearing about the treatment of Jewish communities in Germany, took care not to include material that denigrated Jewish people in their work. Just as there would have been writers in the same timeframe who tacitly or openly supported fascism or Mosley’s squads. In addition, there are writers who had conflicting or contradictory stances, Dickens spoke out against anti-Semitism, yet Fagin is clearly a very dubious portrayal of a Jewish person, and apparently this was the subject of heated debate when Dickens first published Oliver Twist. Talking about a book as a product of its time and so glossing over dubious content assumes that all writers from the 20s or the 30s or whenever were automatically all producing the same levels of racist or sexist or otherwise deeply problematic work. It ignores the fact many of these issues were discussed at the time of publication, and it renders invisible those writers who were actively engaging with these issues, such as those grouped together as part of the Harlem Renaissance. In terms of my own reading of pieces from the past, I can excuse the infrequent use of terms now generally considered offensive, if these were terms in common use and considered relatively neutral at the time, but if a narrative clearly hinges on deep-seated prejudice of one kind or another, like you I don’t see why I shouldn’t comment on that or respond to it. Sometimes I can get past certain material and still find enjoyment in a book, sometimes there are things I just can’t stomach.

Indeed, YounghillKang.

I've never read Oliver Twist, but have read Our Mutual Friend, which was written about 25 years later. The Jewish characters are sympathetic and actively virtuous, in stark contrast to many of the supposedly Christian ones. Very much Dickens in preachy mode.

I didn't realise there was heated debate about Fagin at the time, but that would certainly help explain why Dickens went from (lazily?) using a stereotyped caricature, to consciously portraying generous, virtuous Jewish characters.

Have just finished rereading Murder Must Advertise as I'd forgotten most of it over intervening decades. I'd also forgotten what a stone cold bastard Peter-the-Beautiful was.

MadamNoo and Younghill you both make valid points which I admittedly skimmed over in my previous post. There is of course a distinction to be made between those writers (musicians / artists / etc) who might be considered to have been on the side of the angels in there own time, and those whose views were repugnant within their own society. And the more one knows about the political background of an artist, the more discriminating one might wish to be. (Or not.)

Perhaps after more than half a century of reading I'm hardened to distasteful material in fiction (as in life). Or perhaps it's that I care more about elucidation than entertainment from my reading matter, so don't feel the writer need be someone who would have liked me. Or perhaps I'm skimming over the fact that I do actively avoid a lot of nineteenth and twentieth century American fiction because the relentless objectification of certain groups of human beings does 'wear me down'. Compared to that, the relatively minuscule amount of racism and sexism (both of which attack me) in DLS' fiction is easy to brush off.

Then there's the question of very young people reading this stuff. The ones I know are quick to point out racism and sexism, in life as in reading, and I think the awareness makes them stronger.

(Egregious typo in my previous post. Phone is on a last warning ...)

Indeed, Footle - I was a very young person myself, once. And a reader above all else. So it was impossible not to grow up horribly aware of the constant flow of racism and misogyny coming at me from pretty much the entire body of western literature.

The racism is difficult to read. If you read Ngaio Marsh and Arthur Upfield books written during the same time period you can see the difference in attitudes from white settlers towards the indigenous populations in New Zealand and Australia.

It’s impossible to set aside the racism in Arthur Upfield books - the lead character is a detective who is the product of a white father and Aboriginal mother who was raised (‘saved’) by missionaries and constantly has to fight his ‘savage’ nature . At the same time you have Ngaio Marsh, whose name was taken from a Maori word, who still drops in racism but whose first Maori character (in the order I read them) is a doctor who arranges the sale of an artefact to Alleyn.

Then there's the question of very young people reading this stuff. The ones I know are quick to point out racism and sexism, in life as in reading, and I think the awareness makes them stronger.

Absolutely. And as for the very young ones, DS (8) and I have chats over bedtime stories about Enid Blyton's sexism, racism and classism as they raise their ugly heads. It doesn't spoil the stories for him, and I think he finds it interesting to think about prejudice and stereotypes.

So it was impossible not to grow up horribly aware of the constant flow of racism and misogyny coming at me from pretty much the entire body of western literature.

Indeed. My equivalent would have been classism, misogyny and anti-Irishness. The last one really hasn't gone away, either. I recently watched the Harry Potter films with DS. In the novels, Seamus, the Irish Gryffindor in Harry's year, is a fairly bland background character who gets into normal trouble from time to time. In the films, he's become a comic stage-Irish buffoon who blows up everything he touches every time he does a spell cue big close-u[p of his baffled, blackened face each time and, hilariously, on his first attempt at Transfiguration, tries to turn whatever it is into rum. Because that would be an obvious thing to do for an Irish schoolkid, because Irish people are still comedy drunks who blow stuff up.

Anyone listening to Eric The Skull, BBC R4 afternoon drama, on now? Dramatisation of the formation of the Detection Club. Their DLS sounds nothing like my impression of her.

Thank you!

Just tuned in!

I love all those classic crime stories - but I read them from outside as a foreigner, which in a way make them all the more interesting.

Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom, and London Between the Wars, by Francesca Wade is a new book I picked up on Kindle recently. I have Mutual Admiration Society as well. Both fascinating as a look as women lives in the 20th century. Loving this thread, Sayers is one of my favourites, particular Gaudy Night, and Murder Must Advertise. I quite like the Jill Paton Walsh continuation stories as well.

Have you read any of Sayers’ non-fiction? There’s one called Are Women Human, which is essentially a long essay. It picks up some of the themes in Gaudy Night.

I don’t think we can apply 21st century thought to older fiction. If we did that we’d never read anything. Sometimes I shudder at it, but it doesn’t stop me reading it.

I’m reading Middlemarch at the moment, which has been called the greatest English novel. Not sure I agree with that, and also plenty of classism, and racism. Some of which Eliot pokes at.

What an interesting thread.
Someone mentioned the Franchise Affair back in the thread. Apparently Sarah Walters reread it, after loving it when she was younger, and was so repelled by the book that she wrote The Little Stranger as a rebuttal.
I read it (the FA) fairly recently, and the casual antisemitism spoilt what was an otherwise excellent detective story.
Has anyone read A Town called Alice? An excellent, and interesting, read, but the author is shocking (in my, modern) eyes in their description of Aborigines.
When Dickens depicted a noble Jewish character - Riah, in Our Mutual Friend, it was a deliberate counterbalance to Fagin. It's just unfortunate that Fagin is a far more interesting, and memorable, character. Most people have heard of Fagin, very few of Riah.

I don’t think we can apply 21st century thought to older fiction. If we did that we’d never read anything. Sometimes I shudder at it, but it doesn’t stop me reading it.
I think that says it all, really.

sorry - a long series of random thoughts here
Has anyone else read Huckleberry Fin? It's a remarkable book, for its period (or any period). The protagonist slowly begins to realise that Jim, the escaped slave he is travelling with, is his equal, and is oppressed. The only problematic bit is the end, where Tom Sawyer plays a trick on Jim. THAT's something I'd excise.