As an antidote to my previous rant review of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I've been re-reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. I love this book sooooooo much: it's snobbish and classist and pretentious, and utterly, utterly delightful.
It's probably not the most exciting of crime novels, taken on its own, but that's not really the appeal anyway. The picture of women in academia in the 1930s, and of attitudes towards them, is fascinating - and felt very real, even though obviously it's rather dated in the specifics now. I love the fact that Lord Peter doesn't even turn up until quite a way through, so the story very much belongs to Harriet. I also love Sayers for not dumbing down to her audience even a little bit - I can't claim to get anywhere near all the references, but you've got to respect a genre novelist who includes untranslated French and Latin.
And speaking of Latin... "Placetne, magistra?" Oh, be still, my beating heart, and other such clichés! Frankly, no other proposal can ever quite live up to this one. In short: Placet.
It's probably not the most exciting of crime novels, taken on its own, but that's not really the appeal anyway. The picture of women in academia in the 1930s, and of attitudes towards them, is fascinating - and felt very real, even though obviously it's rather dated in the specifics now. I love the fact that Lord Peter doesn't even turn up until quite a way through, so the story very much belongs to Harriet. I also love Sayers for not dumbing down to her audience even a little bit - I can't claim to get anywhere near all the references, but you've got to respect a genre novelist who includes untranslated French and Latin.
And speaking of Latin... "Placetne, magistra?" Oh, be still, my beating heart, and other such clichés! Frankly, no other proposal can ever quite live up to this one. In short: Placet.
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