An Invitation to a Country House
December 2, 2021 9:09 AM Subscribe
Feeling the need to escape to the country and relax with some friends? May I suggest the Golden Age Mystery: a genre that grew in the wake of the trauma of World War I, providing readers with puzzles, excitement, and wise and/or witty detectives (and the occasional oaf) to watch at work.
Need an intro to the world? You can start with the first mini-episode of the Shedunnit podcast, which will give you a quick summary of why people love the genre. Then plunge into the other episodes which cover individual authors, bigger themes of the era, literary analysis, and true crime of the time period that inspired authors. Or perhaps Lucy Worsley's A Very British Murder: The Story of A National Obsession could serve as a starting point.
Maybe you want to read reviews and see what new book you'd like to pick up?
These bloggers have you covered (although many cover crime fiction of all eras):
Cross-Examining Crime
The Invisible Event
The Passing Tramp
At The Villa Rose
Classic Mystery Blog
Agatha Christie is the most widely read of all the Queens of Crime. The All About Agatha podcast tragically just lost one of their cohosts, but they have a long list of episodes that are worth the listen for the enthusiasm of the two hosts. Also, the above-mentioned Lucy Worsley announced that her biography of Agatha will be out in about nine months.
Maybe Dorothy L. Sayers is your jam? (She's mine, so I commend you for your excellent taste.) The As My Wimsey Takes Me podcast has gone into a long hiatus due to personal life stuff from the hosts, but their back catalogue is great fun. To add to your knowledge about DLS's milieu, try the books The Mutual Admiration Society, about Sayers and her fellow pioneering female students at Oxford. Or explore Bloomsbury Square with Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between The Wars.
Maybe you love Ngaio Marsh, possibly because of her experience in the theatrical world which resulted in some of her strongest mysteries set backstage at a theater. Or Elizabeth MacKintosh, aka Josephine Tey, aka Gordon Daviot, who broke all the rules of the Detection Club and wrote a handful of idiosyncratic mysteries before she died tragically young. Or perhaps Margery Allingham and her sleuth Albert Campion are more in your line?
Honestly, why choose one? Besides the Queens, there are heaps of writers, some of them very popular in their time but who then disappeared, only to reappear as Golden Age mysteries become popular again. The British Library has been publishing out of print and hard to find books and themed short story collections in their British Library Crime Classics series, so you can rediscover ECR Lorac (aka Carol Carnac), a new favorite of mine. Some smaller presses have done the same, like Ramble House. (They also reprint old science fiction, if you're interested.)
You can explore all the Golden Age subgenres, too: Locked Room Mysteries, trains and railroad timetables, honkaku mysteries from Japan. You can argue about Fair Play and whether an author sticks to the Detection Club Rules or finds them stifling.
True crime of the era influenced mystery writers as well as novelists. The Thompson-Bywaters case inspired the incredible A Pin To See The Peepshow. The murder of a boy at Road Hill House brought us "the dog that didn't bark in the nighttime," and the story was reinterpreted into Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, which also laid down some of the traditions of how a detective on a case should act. (For an engrossing study of the crime, try The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher).
Perhaps something a little gentler is in order? How about the contemporary Murder Most Unladylike series, where young detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong unravel crimes?
So grab a book, pour yourself a cup of tea and butter the crumpets, and get your little grey cells working. Someone is lurking in the summerhouse, and there may be arsenic in the soup.
Need an intro to the world? You can start with the first mini-episode of the Shedunnit podcast, which will give you a quick summary of why people love the genre. Then plunge into the other episodes which cover individual authors, bigger themes of the era, literary analysis, and true crime of the time period that inspired authors. Or perhaps Lucy Worsley's A Very British Murder: The Story of A National Obsession could serve as a starting point.
Maybe you want to read reviews and see what new book you'd like to pick up?
These bloggers have you covered (although many cover crime fiction of all eras):
Cross-Examining Crime
The Invisible Event
The Passing Tramp
At The Villa Rose
Classic Mystery Blog
Agatha Christie is the most widely read of all the Queens of Crime. The All About Agatha podcast tragically just lost one of their cohosts, but they have a long list of episodes that are worth the listen for the enthusiasm of the two hosts. Also, the above-mentioned Lucy Worsley announced that her biography of Agatha will be out in about nine months.
Maybe Dorothy L. Sayers is your jam? (She's mine, so I commend you for your excellent taste.) The As My Wimsey Takes Me podcast has gone into a long hiatus due to personal life stuff from the hosts, but their back catalogue is great fun. To add to your knowledge about DLS's milieu, try the books The Mutual Admiration Society, about Sayers and her fellow pioneering female students at Oxford. Or explore Bloomsbury Square with Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between The Wars.
Maybe you love Ngaio Marsh, possibly because of her experience in the theatrical world which resulted in some of her strongest mysteries set backstage at a theater. Or Elizabeth MacKintosh, aka Josephine Tey, aka Gordon Daviot, who broke all the rules of the Detection Club and wrote a handful of idiosyncratic mysteries before she died tragically young. Or perhaps Margery Allingham and her sleuth Albert Campion are more in your line?
Honestly, why choose one? Besides the Queens, there are heaps of writers, some of them very popular in their time but who then disappeared, only to reappear as Golden Age mysteries become popular again. The British Library has been publishing out of print and hard to find books and themed short story collections in their British Library Crime Classics series, so you can rediscover ECR Lorac (aka Carol Carnac), a new favorite of mine. Some smaller presses have done the same, like Ramble House. (They also reprint old science fiction, if you're interested.)
You can explore all the Golden Age subgenres, too: Locked Room Mysteries, trains and railroad timetables, honkaku mysteries from Japan. You can argue about Fair Play and whether an author sticks to the Detection Club Rules or finds them stifling.
True crime of the era influenced mystery writers as well as novelists. The Thompson-Bywaters case inspired the incredible A Pin To See The Peepshow. The murder of a boy at Road Hill House brought us "the dog that didn't bark in the nighttime," and the story was reinterpreted into Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, which also laid down some of the traditions of how a detective on a case should act. (For an engrossing study of the crime, try The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher).
Perhaps something a little gentler is in order? How about the contemporary Murder Most Unladylike series, where young detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong unravel crimes?
So grab a book, pour yourself a cup of tea and butter the crumpets, and get your little grey cells working. Someone is lurking in the summerhouse, and there may be arsenic in the soup.
Or Dick Francis, if you want your mystery mixed with horse racing.
posted by jpeacock at 10:18 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jpeacock at 10:18 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
Wonderful post, just the thing on a gloomy December day. Thanks!
posted by JanetLand at 10:27 AM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 10:27 AM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've really been enjoying the Shedunnit podcast. The sub-topics are well-chosen and interestingly-handled, and also her voice is pleasant to listen to and the podcast is well-produced in general.
She just finished a mini-series of episodes specifically about how certain golden-age writers handled the onset of WWII, each episode focusing on one: Agatha Christie, E.C.R. Lorac, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers. Recommended!
posted by theatro at 10:34 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
She just finished a mini-series of episodes specifically about how certain golden-age writers handled the onset of WWII, each episode focusing on one: Agatha Christie, E.C.R. Lorac, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers. Recommended!
posted by theatro at 10:34 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have been binge-listening to Agatha Christie audiobooks for a few months. There's some cringing involved, but for the most part I have been loving it. And now there's so much more for me to listen to...splendid!!! I'll put on some tea!!
posted by Gray Duck at 10:35 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Gray Duck at 10:35 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
*gasps and falls face forward into the soup*
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:08 AM on December 2, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:08 AM on December 2, 2021 [22 favorites]
Ah, what a fantastic post. I just started reading Marsh in 2020 when I loaded up a couple of her books on an ereader for travel(!) and it became my comfort read through the whole of that horrible year - she's an author that challenges my vocabulary, I had to look up quite a few words in each novel. Having run out of her works, already read all of Christie and as many ECR Loracs as I can get hold of I'm actually reading Gladys Mitchell at the moment - not often in the list of Queens, but she really should be. Her older cranky psychoanalyst detective is a bizarre addition to the gang.
posted by AFII at 12:47 PM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by AFII at 12:47 PM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I really like GoldenAge mysteries, and I love the fact that so many of the now not-so-famous ones are being reprinted. (I’m currently making my way through Brian Flynn’s Anthony Bathurst series). I think a lot of the appeal for me is the fact that their setting is that far away to almost be another world, while still being familiar enough to able to understand without annotations. (Mostly. A friend of mine encountered one where the denouement depended on hat wearing etiquette…)
I think my favourite of the reprints was Carol Carnac’s Crossed Skis, not so much for the mystery, but for the almost travelogue side. It was really interesting seeing how a trip to Austria might have worked in the 1950s.
posted by scorbet at 2:41 PM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think my favourite of the reprints was Carol Carnac’s Crossed Skis, not so much for the mystery, but for the almost travelogue side. It was really interesting seeing how a trip to Austria might have worked in the 1950s.
posted by scorbet at 2:41 PM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
I just finished two Anthony Horowitz murder mysteries that are very genre-aware pastiche-y variations on golden age mysteries. Folks might enjoy, though they are not without their problematics.
posted by prefpara at 2:51 PM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by prefpara at 2:51 PM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thanks for this post, can't wait to dig through some of these links.
I love Golden Age mysteries, but I'm mostly familiar with the more famous authors - Christie, Sayers, Marsh.
If you're in the mood for a winter solstice read, one of my favorites from this genre is Death of a Fool aka Off with His Head by Ngaio Marsh. Link is to goodreads, where the reviews are mixed, but I really enjoy the winter village setting and how the characters deal with a traditional (fictionalized) annual performance of a sort of Mummers play/Morris dance in a modernizing world. And, ya know, a murder.
posted by the primroses were over at 2:59 PM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
I love Golden Age mysteries, but I'm mostly familiar with the more famous authors - Christie, Sayers, Marsh.
If you're in the mood for a winter solstice read, one of my favorites from this genre is Death of a Fool aka Off with His Head by Ngaio Marsh. Link is to goodreads, where the reviews are mixed, but I really enjoy the winter village setting and how the characters deal with a traditional (fictionalized) annual performance of a sort of Mummers play/Morris dance in a modernizing world. And, ya know, a murder.
posted by the primroses were over at 2:59 PM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
I really like this kind of novel, although I understand its limitations. I just finished reading a biography of Dorothy L. Sayers, although I did not finish the book. She sounded insufferable, but a very familiar kind of insufferable, the kind I went to school with. Although she was not the kind of feminist we recognize today, she went through a struggle with the concept of "having it all," which she wanted deeply and appeared from a distance to get.
Daniel Lavery wrote recently in his newsletter (paywalled) about the conservatism of so many of the Golden Age women writers. Josephine Tey's was the worst that I've encountered while innocently reading along. (It also boils over as internalized misogyny, but that's another story.)
Lavery quotes the author Fredric Jameson: [T]he murder in the placid English village or in the fog-bound London club is read as the sign of a scandalous interruption in a peaceful continuity; whereas the gangland violence of the American big city is felt as a secret destiny, a kind of nemesis lurking beneath the surface of hastily acquired fortunes, anarchic city growth and impermanent private lives.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:00 PM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
Daniel Lavery wrote recently in his newsletter (paywalled) about the conservatism of so many of the Golden Age women writers. Josephine Tey's was the worst that I've encountered while innocently reading along. (It also boils over as internalized misogyny, but that's another story.)
Lavery quotes the author Fredric Jameson: [T]he murder in the placid English village or in the fog-bound London club is read as the sign of a scandalous interruption in a peaceful continuity; whereas the gangland violence of the American big city is felt as a secret destiny, a kind of nemesis lurking beneath the surface of hastily acquired fortunes, anarchic city growth and impermanent private lives.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:00 PM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
On that note, let me recommend an oddity I greatly enjoy, the two mysteries by Torrey Chanslor. Two unmarried small-town sisters inherit a private detective agency in Manhattan in 1940.
They solve the mysteries with both small-town cosy savvy and enthusiastic curiosity about the big various city. Plus practical details of hall bedroom boarding!
posted by clew at 3:29 PM on December 2, 2021
They solve the mysteries with both small-town cosy savvy and enthusiastic curiosity about the big various city. Plus practical details of hall bedroom boarding!
posted by clew at 3:29 PM on December 2, 2021
See, this was a cunning plan I concocted to get more book recommendations.
posted by PussKillian at 4:06 PM on December 2, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 4:06 PM on December 2, 2021 [7 favorites]
John Heath-Stubbs's poem Send For Lord Timothy is an affectionate send-up of the classic Golden Age mystery:
Philip Larkin was a fan, and wrote an appreciative essay on her work, 'The Great Gladys', where he argues that she doesn't really belong with the other Queens of Crime because her novels are too bizarre:
>Josephine Tey's was the worst that I've encountered while innocently reading along
I wrote about Tey on here ten years ago, and suggested that the issue with her books isn't so much internalized misogyny as repressed sado-masochism.
posted by verstegan at 7:53 PM on December 2, 2021 [6 favorites]
The Squire is in his library. He is rather worried.>I'm actually reading Gladys Mitchell at the moment - not often in the list of Queens, but she really should be
Lady Constance has been found stabbed in the locked Blue Room, clutching in her hand
A fragment of an Egyptian papyrus. His degenerate half-brother
Is on his way back from New South Wales.
And what was the butler, Glubb,
Doing in the neolithic stone-circle
Up there on the hill, known to the local rustics
From time immemorial as the Nine Lillywhite Boys?
The Vicar is curiously learned
In Renaissance toxicology. A greenish Hottentot,
Armed with a knobkerry, is concealed in the laurel bushes.
Philip Larkin was a fan, and wrote an appreciative essay on her work, 'The Great Gladys', where he argues that she doesn't really belong with the other Queens of Crime because her novels are too bizarre:
One accepts that a Gladys Mitchell novel can begin with a cross-country runner being asked to help lift an ominously immobile wrapped-up invalid into a car, or with a young lady who dresses either in armour or eighteenth-century male costume on the grounds that her guardian has taken her clothes away. One of her novels even ends with three people buried up to their necks as part of a surrealist exhibition, their heads shaved and painted purple: the murderer is the one on the right. In consequence it is not impossible for the reader to finish a book without grasping not only who the murderer is, but sometimes even who has been murdered [this is Larkin's tactful way of saying that plot wasn't her strong point].In Larkin's correspondence with Kingsley Amis there's a running joke about the lesbian subtext in Gladys Mitchell's books, which often feature Laura Menzies (Mrs Bradley's Girl Friday) stripping naked and diving into a river in pursuit of some vital piece of evidence.
>Josephine Tey's was the worst that I've encountered while innocently reading along
I wrote about Tey on here ten years ago, and suggested that the issue with her books isn't so much internalized misogyny as repressed sado-masochism.
posted by verstegan at 7:53 PM on December 2, 2021 [6 favorites]
I adore Golden Age mysteries, especially those with a dash of comic wit. Dorothy L Sayers is the epitome for me. I wish there were a way around the casual anti-Semitism and racism in those books, because it's so jarring every time.
Luckily, there's a whole bunch of contemporary writers (Kerry Greenwood, Rhys Bowen, Sujata Massey) doing historical mysteries that are Golden Age esque, where only the bad guys hold gross stereotypes. I'm currently making my way through the Royal Spyness mysteries, about a near-penniless minor royal, daughter of a Duke and his actress second wife, who funds her aristocratic lifestyle by doing odd jobs for Queen Mary. Highly recommend!
posted by basalganglia at 11:47 PM on December 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
Luckily, there's a whole bunch of contemporary writers (Kerry Greenwood, Rhys Bowen, Sujata Massey) doing historical mysteries that are Golden Age esque, where only the bad guys hold gross stereotypes. I'm currently making my way through the Royal Spyness mysteries, about a near-penniless minor royal, daughter of a Duke and his actress second wife, who funds her aristocratic lifestyle by doing odd jobs for Queen Mary. Highly recommend!
posted by basalganglia at 11:47 PM on December 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
Fun fact: A.A. Milne, of Winnie-the-Pooh fame, made a contribution to the genre, The Red House Mystery (Librivox ebook). I think there's a reason he's known for Pooh, but as always, YMMV.
posted by fogovonslack at 8:35 AM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by fogovonslack at 8:35 AM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
There should be a MeFi Golden Age mystery book club.
Can we just make this thread the book club and keep it open indefinitely? I'm going through a bunch of Christmas Golden Agers right now and I have Thoughts.
posted by roger ackroyd at 8:49 AM on December 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Can we just make this thread the book club and keep it open indefinitely? I'm going through a bunch of Christmas Golden Agers right now and I have Thoughts.
posted by roger ackroyd at 8:49 AM on December 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
For new stuff, I highly recommend Lucy Foley. Her books The Guest List and The Hunting Party are both contemporary mysteries with clear Agatha Christie influence - a closed, remote environment with a limited number of potential suspects, delightful red herrings, etc. In a nice twist, each book is set up as alternating between now and flashbacks, so that you don't find out which of the characters has been murdered until most of the way through the book. (Also, there are excellent full-cast audiobooks of each of them, with different actors reading for the various narrators.)
Another recommendation is Peter Swanson's Eight Perfect Murders. This is a book for mystery fans, as the conceit is that a federal agent suspects that someone is committing murders based on classic mystery novels (Strangers on a Train, Double Indemnity, etc.). Very fun if a little dark at times.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 11:08 AM on December 3, 2021
Another recommendation is Peter Swanson's Eight Perfect Murders. This is a book for mystery fans, as the conceit is that a federal agent suspects that someone is committing murders based on classic mystery novels (Strangers on a Train, Double Indemnity, etc.). Very fun if a little dark at times.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 11:08 AM on December 3, 2021
Can we just make this thread the book club and keep it open indefinitely?
I just added a Fanfare Club for Golden Age Mysteries, because you’re right there should be one.
posted by scorbet at 12:14 PM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
I just added a Fanfare Club for Golden Age Mysteries, because you’re right there should be one.
posted by scorbet at 12:14 PM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
> *gasps and falls face forward into the soup*
posted by roger ackroyd
*eyes PussKillian, our ever-so-helpful poster, suspiciously*
*avoids making a joke that would spoil a century-old book*
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:30 PM on December 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by roger ackroyd
*eyes PussKillian, our ever-so-helpful poster, suspiciously*
*avoids making a joke that would spoil a century-old book*
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:30 PM on December 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
Once the puzzle has been solved, there is no point in looking at the book again: if you accidentally pick up a Christie you've read before, you put it down again as soon as you realise it's the one where the murderer turns out to be the butler's identical twin brother.
That's not true for me; is it for anyone? I read all the Agatha Christies when I were a lass -- first my mom read them to me as bedtime stories, then I read them to her when I was a bit older. I believe I've read all of the novels, and most of the short stories. I will happily re-read them, because they're comfort reading and go down so smoothly (until you run into one of the racist ones, whoops).
I'm not reading them to solve the puzzle, so it doesn't make a difference to me if I know who did it or not. Sometimes I like them more the second time, when I know who the murderer is, if I've remembered, and can see how the crime is put together.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:42 PM on December 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
That's not true for me; is it for anyone? I read all the Agatha Christies when I were a lass -- first my mom read them to me as bedtime stories, then I read them to her when I was a bit older. I believe I've read all of the novels, and most of the short stories. I will happily re-read them, because they're comfort reading and go down so smoothly (until you run into one of the racist ones, whoops).
I'm not reading them to solve the puzzle, so it doesn't make a difference to me if I know who did it or not. Sometimes I like them more the second time, when I know who the murderer is, if I've remembered, and can see how the crime is put together.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:42 PM on December 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I recently was prompted to try reading a couple of the classic Agatha Christie books - but found I couldn't stand them. Each character was assigned a single personality trait, the precise one required for their performance of the plot, and the murder-mystery aspect of the book wasn't enough to make up for the terrible characterisations.
By comparison, I like reading the hard-boiled classics of Hammett, Chandler, etc.
Any pointers to who, of the golden age writers, it's worth me giving a try to? Or on the other hand, if you think my taste and these writers are simply a straightforward mismatch, then let me know so.
PS I've been prompted to try reading the Lord Peter Wimsey books, but he sounds insufferable.
posted by vincebowdren at 2:09 PM on December 5, 2021
By comparison, I like reading the hard-boiled classics of Hammett, Chandler, etc.
Any pointers to who, of the golden age writers, it's worth me giving a try to? Or on the other hand, if you think my taste and these writers are simply a straightforward mismatch, then let me know so.
PS I've been prompted to try reading the Lord Peter Wimsey books, but he sounds insufferable.
posted by vincebowdren at 2:09 PM on December 5, 2021
Wimsey is insufferable to many of his fictional peers, you might well find the character intolerable entirely. Campion too, though less flamboyantly. Maybe one of Ngaio Marsh’s theatrical-set mysteries, one of the early ones.
posted by clew at 4:16 PM on December 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 4:16 PM on December 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m a re-reader too, corpse in the library. (Btw, I’m Mr. Parker from the Sayers list if I never mentioned it.) Also some people really seem to read for the puzzle and I have never been that person- I read for the characters making their way through the puzzle.
Uh also I have a terrible memory and frequently forget anyway.
posted by PussKillian at 5:12 PM on December 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Uh also I have a terrible memory and frequently forget anyway.
posted by PussKillian at 5:12 PM on December 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Vincebowdren, maybe John Dickson Carr might work for you? He was an American who moved to London and wrote in the "British style" of murder mystery - lots of locked room types. ECR Lorac's Scotland Yard detective McDonald is quiet and thoughtful and doesn't piffle, and her books are full of a really well-observed sense of place. And a specific book to try: Death in Captivity, which takes place in an Italian prisoner of war camp and is based on the author's tine spent in one. It's pretty incredible.
posted by PussKillian at 6:40 AM on December 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 6:40 AM on December 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Uh also I have a terrible memory and frequently forget anyway
I usually have a fairly good memory, but managed to read a book several times, and *each time* identified what I thought was the evidence, then decided that they wouldn't have been aware of *science* when that book was written, to discover that, yes, they were aware of *science*. By the third time in this cycle, I felt pretty silly...
posted by scorbet at 6:53 AM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I usually have a fairly good memory, but managed to read a book several times, and *each time* identified what I thought was the evidence, then decided that they wouldn't have been aware of *science* when that book was written, to discover that, yes, they were aware of *science*. By the third time in this cycle, I felt pretty silly...
posted by scorbet at 6:53 AM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm someone who re-reads Christie books and short stories sometimes, and it's not usually for the characters...in fact, I think my recent two big re-reads of 1) all of the Marple novels in order, 2) all of the Poirot novels in order, was because I actually wanted to rest my soul from having to worry about or attach to any people/characters.
Instead, part of the time I had in fact forgotten whodunnit; the rest of the time, I just wanted to watch the clocksprings elegantly tick down. It's a very satisfying experience, for me.
As for Peter Wimsey, I can never judge him fairly anymore, because of how he changes and develops such layers. Even when I'm reading the earliest book or two where he might arguably be the flattest*, I'm reading them through the long familiarity with how he is much later, so I'm seeing the shadow of later characterization buried inside the facade, and also through the knowledge of just how much of it IS a facade and how/why that facade is constructed. (And I mean, his shell-shock breakdown in book 1 I think shows that the later depth and more clearly melancholy characterization is a fair and natural development, it doesn't come out of nowhere.)
*(I may actually believe he's at his flattest in 'Five Red Herrings', which is surprisingly five novels down the line--but maybe that's because I sadly find that book such a yawn. :( )
posted by theatro at 4:10 PM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Instead, part of the time I had in fact forgotten whodunnit; the rest of the time, I just wanted to watch the clocksprings elegantly tick down. It's a very satisfying experience, for me.
As for Peter Wimsey, I can never judge him fairly anymore, because of how he changes and develops such layers. Even when I'm reading the earliest book or two where he might arguably be the flattest*, I'm reading them through the long familiarity with how he is much later, so I'm seeing the shadow of later characterization buried inside the facade, and also through the knowledge of just how much of it IS a facade and how/why that facade is constructed. (And I mean, his shell-shock breakdown in book 1 I think shows that the later depth and more clearly melancholy characterization is a fair and natural development, it doesn't come out of nowhere.)
*(I may actually believe he's at his flattest in 'Five Red Herrings', which is surprisingly five novels down the line--but maybe that's because I sadly find that book such a yawn. :( )
posted by theatro at 4:10 PM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
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