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Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey
Nov. 15th, 2007 08:25 pmI'd like to introduce you to this guy I know. His name is Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter Bredon Death Wimsey. Yes, you read that right: his middle name is Death. He is the most awesome fictional detective ever. Yes, I do love Arthur Conan Doyle; I own a complete Sherlock Holmes omnibus. And I have read the brilliant, mean Tey, and the clever, prolific Christie, and what-have you, but Lord Peter Bredon Death Wimsey is better then 'em all.
I have met the books of Dorothy Sayers, and we get along very well indeed. Weirdly, they were brought to my attention by my dear friend Sarah when I was complaining about how judgmental Tey and Christie are, and she commented that Sayers was like that too, and described Lord Peter Bredon Death Wimsey in the sort of detail bound to result in a long list of library requests. I say weird, because actually, Sayers really isn't very judgmental at all. She's not even very elitist, which is an amazing thing in someone who had apparently read the entire canon of English and French literature, circa 1920 something. She seems to be that holy thing that is the educated intellectual who embraces a wide experience of human existence; she knows not all people are like her, or could be like her, and she accepts that. And writes a cracking good murder mystery, to boot.
Sayers, like Heyer, seems to have been a major influence on Lois McMaster Bujold, for those of you who have read the Vorkosigan books: each time I cracked open one of the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mysteries, I was reminded of Miles and Ekaterin. It's not a direct lift or anything, but Miles Vorkosigan is hugely a character of Peter Wimsey's imprint: a fantastic, idealistic authorial ideal. Not a self-insert or a self-gratification, neither tragic nor undamaged, but some kind of fiction-writer's imagining of a very good, very entertaining person.
On a slight side note, I was reminded, whilst reading Gaudy Night of Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics, so if you like one, you might like the other.
Lord Peter Bredon Death Wimsey, more commonly known as Lord Peter Wimsey, is an early-to-mid-20th-century English aristocrat who was educated at Oxford, went to fight in the Great War, got blown up and mentally fucked up in the Great War, came home, puttered around in London with his wicked cool photog manservant Bunter, collectin' first-edition books and detectin' for a hobby, and dropping his g's whenever it seemed most appropriate. Eventually, he met Harriet Vane, who was also educated at Oxford, wrote excellent murder mysteries, and was Peter's equal in every way except possibly in the atmospheric droppin' of g's.
The books are many and lovely. The most common recommendation for Peter/Harriet awesomeness is to start with Strong Poison, in which Peter meets Harriet and saves her from hanging from a false murder charge, and continue on with Gaudy Night, in which they hook up, and, with its Oxford setting, prompted author Jill Patton Walsh to attend said university. Personally, I would recommend starting with Whose Body?, the first Wimsey book, which establishes Wimsey and that most excellent manservant, Bunter, continuing on with Strong Poison, then Have His Carcase, which establishes Harriet better than Strong Poison, has many cool textual tricks and jokes, and gives you a really excellent Peter/Harriet rhythm, and finishing up with Gaudy Night, keeping Busman's Honeymoon for dessert. Busman's Honeymoon, which details Peter and Harriet's wedding and honeymoon, started life as a play, and shows it in the setting and structure. It is probably superfluous, but it is lovely, and deeply, profoundly, romantic.
Another side note: Sayers wrote contemporary settings. Her shell-shocked veteran of World War I would have been based on the real veterans of World War I surrounding her; the slowly creeping, pervasive dread of the war to come must have been reflective of the real creeping, pervasive nightmare of another hideous war that haunted England in the 1920's and 30's. She doesn't dwell on it greatly, but I could not get away from that thought while reading her books, and consequently, I'm sort of fixated on that whole period of history. Christie's rather fun, Tey is intelligent and occasionally, really profound, and not just cynically cruel, but on the whole, I prefer Sayer's vision of humanity: knowing, open-eyed, but kind. And her prose is crackin' good.
P.S. The BBC adaptations of Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night are excellent, and absolutely worth watching if you like to see good book-to-screen-adaptations, but do read the books first.
I have met the books of Dorothy Sayers, and we get along very well indeed. Weirdly, they were brought to my attention by my dear friend Sarah when I was complaining about how judgmental Tey and Christie are, and she commented that Sayers was like that too, and described Lord Peter Bredon Death Wimsey in the sort of detail bound to result in a long list of library requests. I say weird, because actually, Sayers really isn't very judgmental at all. She's not even very elitist, which is an amazing thing in someone who had apparently read the entire canon of English and French literature, circa 1920 something. She seems to be that holy thing that is the educated intellectual who embraces a wide experience of human existence; she knows not all people are like her, or could be like her, and she accepts that. And writes a cracking good murder mystery, to boot.
Sayers, like Heyer, seems to have been a major influence on Lois McMaster Bujold, for those of you who have read the Vorkosigan books: each time I cracked open one of the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mysteries, I was reminded of Miles and Ekaterin. It's not a direct lift or anything, but Miles Vorkosigan is hugely a character of Peter Wimsey's imprint: a fantastic, idealistic authorial ideal. Not a self-insert or a self-gratification, neither tragic nor undamaged, but some kind of fiction-writer's imagining of a very good, very entertaining person.
On a slight side note, I was reminded, whilst reading Gaudy Night of Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics, so if you like one, you might like the other.
Lord Peter Bredon Death Wimsey, more commonly known as Lord Peter Wimsey, is an early-to-mid-20th-century English aristocrat who was educated at Oxford, went to fight in the Great War, got blown up and mentally fucked up in the Great War, came home, puttered around in London with his wicked cool photog manservant Bunter, collectin' first-edition books and detectin' for a hobby, and dropping his g's whenever it seemed most appropriate. Eventually, he met Harriet Vane, who was also educated at Oxford, wrote excellent murder mysteries, and was Peter's equal in every way except possibly in the atmospheric droppin' of g's.
The books are many and lovely. The most common recommendation for Peter/Harriet awesomeness is to start with Strong Poison, in which Peter meets Harriet and saves her from hanging from a false murder charge, and continue on with Gaudy Night, in which they hook up, and, with its Oxford setting, prompted author Jill Patton Walsh to attend said university. Personally, I would recommend starting with Whose Body?, the first Wimsey book, which establishes Wimsey and that most excellent manservant, Bunter, continuing on with Strong Poison, then Have His Carcase, which establishes Harriet better than Strong Poison, has many cool textual tricks and jokes, and gives you a really excellent Peter/Harriet rhythm, and finishing up with Gaudy Night, keeping Busman's Honeymoon for dessert. Busman's Honeymoon, which details Peter and Harriet's wedding and honeymoon, started life as a play, and shows it in the setting and structure. It is probably superfluous, but it is lovely, and deeply, profoundly, romantic.
Another side note: Sayers wrote contemporary settings. Her shell-shocked veteran of World War I would have been based on the real veterans of World War I surrounding her; the slowly creeping, pervasive dread of the war to come must have been reflective of the real creeping, pervasive nightmare of another hideous war that haunted England in the 1920's and 30's. She doesn't dwell on it greatly, but I could not get away from that thought while reading her books, and consequently, I'm sort of fixated on that whole period of history. Christie's rather fun, Tey is intelligent and occasionally, really profound, and not just cynically cruel, but on the whole, I prefer Sayer's vision of humanity: knowing, open-eyed, but kind. And her prose is crackin' good.
P.S. The BBC adaptations of Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night are excellent, and absolutely worth watching if you like to see good book-to-screen-adaptations, but do read the books first.
