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Harriet Vane's Oxford reunion is shadowed by a rash of bizarre pranks and malicious mischief that include beautifully worded death threats, burnt effigies and vicious poison-pen letters, and Harriet finds herself and Lord Peter Wimsey challenged by an elusive set of clues.
PhoenixFalls: A Civil Campaign is Lois McMaster Bujold's attempt to replicate Gaudy Night -- with an infusion of Georgette Heyer -- in her long-running Vorkosigan Saga.
littlegreycloud: A murder mystery, an academic setting, an unusual heroine, a knight in shining armour (although John McLeish is more believable than Lord Peter;): check, check, check and check. But most importantly: really good writing.
themulhern: "Death at the President's Lodging" is a more fun book about people running about an English college in the 1930s in the middle of the night.
A beautifully crafted story, weaving together Sayers trademark mystery writing with the love story of Peter and Harriet, a deep understanding of Oxford, and insights into the role of women in society. It feels like it was the book Sayers was waiting to write, more personal than her earlier mystery novels. ( )
A very intellectually dense mystery. The author includes many references to Latin, Greek and British literature within the witty banter regarding a "poison pen" at Oxford. While interesting, it made for slow reading. The references did not move the story along, rather the opposite. It did prove that a) The author was an intellectual snob, b) so were her characters. That being said, it did make a case for early feminism, via the "Life of the Mind".....a brilliant mind is worth developing, even if it resides in a female (or other less respected human being). Although it was considered very progressive for the time,it hasn't aged well. ( )
This was my first Dorothy Sayers novel, and I have to say I am a bit in love with Lord Peter Whimsey. What I found very interesting about this novel was its treatment of men and women, and the insightful ways that Sayers explores their thoughts and actions. Peter Whimsey is one of a few token males in this book, and the rest of the characters are mostly women of academic standing at a college in Oxford. They are all developed very well, as is the heroine Harriet Vane. I don't know that I have ever met another character who is as clear headed, emotionally aware, and downright savage as Harriet Vane. If you're going to read it, I recommend starting with Strong Poison and Have His Carcase. ( )
If I had picked the books for the 1001 Books lists, I would have chosen this book first from this series, I think. This is a story about a woman very much like the marginally educated Conservatives who vote for and blindly support political men like Donald Trump, and the lengths she would go to to destroy the modern world that she sees as responsible for her husband's poor choices and unfortunate end. This book takes on the issue of women's education and the role of women in society. The story is set in the 1930's as tensions are building on the Continent, and with the effects of Great Depression and WW1 launching more women into roles seen for generations as suitable only for men. Harriet gets to do most of the sleuthing herself in this book, too, while Peter is away dealing with international relations in France and Poland.
In this book, too, it is mentioned that Peter is 45yrs old. He always seems older to me, but he's not actually all that old after all. ( )
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The University is a Paradise. Rivers of Knowledge are there. Arts and Sciences flow from thence. Counsell Tables are Horti conclusi, (as it is said in the Canticles) Gardens that are walled in, and they are Fontes signati. Wells that are sealed up; bottomless depths of unsearchable Counsels there.
John Donne
Dedica
Incipit
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Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square.
[Introduction] I came to the wonderful detective novels of Dorothy L. Sayers in a way that would probably make that distinguished novelist spin in her grave.
[Author's Note] It would be idle to deny that the City and University of Oxford (in aeternum floreant) do actually exist, and contain a number of colleges and other buildings, some of which are mentioned by name in this book.
Citazioni
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'The social principle seems to be,' suggested Miss Pyke, 'that we should die for our own fun and not other people's.' 'Of course I admit,' said Miss Barton, rather angrily, 'that murder must be prevented and murderers kept from doing further harm. But they ought not to be punished and they certainly ought not to be killed.' 'I suppose they ought to be kept in hospitals at vast expense, along with other unfit specimens,' said Miss Edwards. 'Speaking as a biologist, I must say I think public money might be better employed. What with the number of imbeciles and physical wrecks we allow to go about and propagate their species, we shall end by devitalising whole nations.' 'Miss Schuster-Slatt would advocate sterilisation,' said the Dean. 'They're trying it in Germany, I believe,' said Miss Edwards. 'Together,' said Miss Hillyard, 'with the relegation of woman to her proper place in the home.' 'But they execute people there quite a lot,' said Wimsey, 'so Miss Barton can't take over their organisation lock, stock and barrel.'
`Were you really being as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose?’ ‘That’s rather a difficult sort of comparison. One can’t, surely, deal with emotional excitements in that detached spirit’. ‘Isn’t the writing of good prose an emotional excitement?’ ‘Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it’s dead right, there’s no excitement like it. It’s marvellous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day – for a bit, anyhow.’ ‘Well, that’s what I mean. You expend the trouble and you don’t make any mistake – and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there’s any subject in which you’re content with the second-rate, then it isn’t really your subject.’
All the children seem to be coming out quite intelligent, thank goodness. It would have been such a bore to be the mother of morons, and it's an absolute toss-up, isn't it? If one could only invent them, like characters in books, it would be much more satisfactory to a well-regulated mind.
Detachment is a rare virtue, and very few people find it lovable, either in themselves or in others. If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it--still more, because of it--that liking has very great value, because it is perfectly sincere, and because, with that person, you will never need to be anything but sincere yourself.
...never again would she mistake the will to feel for the feeling itself.
All women are sensitive to male criticism. Men are not sensitive to female criticism. They despise the critics.
"The trouble is," said the Librarian, "that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline."
She resented the way in which he walked in and out of her mind as if it was his own flat.
"Lord, teach us to take our hearts and look them in the face, however difficult it may be."
...there is only one kind of wisdom that has any social value, and that is the knowledge of one's own limitations.
'The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.'
She went to bed thinking more about another person than about herself. This goes to prove that even minor poetry may have its practical uses.
The young were always theoretical; only the middle-aged could realize the deadliness of principles. To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes.
"Placetne, magistra?" "Placet."
"Miss Lydgate's `History of Prosody' was marked PRESS with her own hands this morning. I fled with it and seized on a student to take it down to the printers. I'm almost positive I heard a faint voice crying from the window about a footnote on page 97 -- but I pretended not to hear."
There's something hypnotic about the word tea. I am asking you to enjoy the beauties of the English countryside, to tell me your adventures and hear mine, to plan a campaign involving the comfort and reputation of two hundred people, to honour me with your sole presence and bestow upon me the illusion of Paradise--and I speak as though the pre-eminent object of all desire were a pot of boiled water and a plateful of synthetic pastries in Ye Old Worlde Tudor Tea Shoppe.
Harriet agreed that intellectual women should marry and reproduce their kind; but she pointed out the English husband had something to say in the matter and that, very often, he did not care for an intellectual wife.
Ultime parole
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He primly settled his white bands and went upon his walk unheeded; and no hand plucked his velvet sleeve.
[Introduction] But for the balm that reassures one about surviving the vicissitudes of life, one could do not better than to anchor onto a Lord Peter Wimsey.
[Author's Note] For, however realistic the background, the novelist's only native country is Cloud-Cuckooland, where they do but jest, poison in jest: no offence in the world.
Harriet Vane's Oxford reunion is shadowed by a rash of bizarre pranks and malicious mischief that include beautifully worded death threats, burnt effigies and vicious poison-pen letters, and Harriet finds herself and Lord Peter Wimsey challenged by an elusive set of clues.
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