Customer Reviews

Gaudy Night (Windsor Selections)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

'Gaudy Night,' Dorothy Sayers' penultimate novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, was originally intended to be the last. Unlike the rest of the series, it is Harriet Vane's tale, first and last. Lord Peter does not appear in person until the last third of the story, when he takes his place as romantic lead and solver of all things mysterious. Sayer's takes this opportunity to both reveal unexpected depths to Miss Vane's character and create a remarkable elegy of her own memories of Oxford, where she took highest honors in a world made by and meant for the male sex.

Harriet returns to Shrewsbury College to take part in the annual Gaudy night, something a bit like our own college reunions, not quite sure what to expect. While renewing her friendship with both her old classmates and instructors, she brushes against the start of a mystery when she finds some very unpleasant notes expressed a vitriolic hatred for the denizens of the college. Brushing it aside as an isolated occurrence, she returns to the festivities without realizing that she has seen is only the tip of the iceberg.

Several months later, Harriet finds herself called back to Shrewsbury by the Dean. The few isolated occurrences had become an onslaught and the school desperately needed help in resolving the problem without any adverse publicity. Miss Vane, a successful mystery writer, a survivor of a murder charge, and a friend of the esteemed Lord Peter Wimsey, seemed the ideal person to come to the aid of the Senior Common Room. The idea of a woman's college was still newfangled to Oxford and a scandal could become a major setback. What Harriet found was a steadily escalating attack on the sanity and safety of the college on apparent waged by a devious and hate filled mind.

The tale is a psychological thriller, told against the backdrop of Oxford and the University. Sayers fills the book with loving (and sometimes not so loving) details of academic life and its foibles. Her style often mimics Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and the novels of a century past, providing a comedy of manners as counterpoint to the grim tale of a mind gone awry. Distraught students and instructors alternate with appearances by Wimsey's madcap nephew and countless caricatures, one right after another.

'Gaudy Night' is a tour de force, coupling some of Sayer's finest writing with ideas that were novel and controversial when the book made it's first appearance. It is a unique story from the first disturbing note to the last surprising twist and turn in the relationship between Lord Peter and Harriet Vane. And one that is very, very well told. Whether this novel or 'The Nine Tailors' is the better novel will be argued forever, but there is no question that 'Gaudy Night' is one of the best from a mystery writer who stands at the head of her class.

Dorothy Sayers has frequently used autobiographical experiences as a starting point for her writing - as an example, "Murder Must Advertise" was set in an advertising agency and based on Sayers' own experiences in the field. Here again, Sayers goes back to her past days as an Oxford student at Somerville College and this makes "Gaudy Night" a unique entry in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Harriet Vane, an Oxford alum, attends the Gaudy, which is a reunion of past students and is asked by her old professors to turn her talents as a detective writer to practical use. Someone is terrorizing the faculty and students of the college by sending vicious anonymous letters. The college is terrified of this leaking out to the press and giving education for women a bad name, therefore discretion is vital. Rather relectantly, Harriet accepts and comes down to Oxford to stay for a term. She discovers that the perpetrator is not now satisfied by just sending letters and is moving on to more serious offences like trying to burn the books in the college library, destroy the works of the faculty and eventually attacking certain faculty members. Harriet struggles with the realization that the perpetrator may be a professor as well as with the realization of her growing feelings for Lord Peter Wimsey. The actual unraveling of the mystery is fascinating by itself, but I was particularly intriuged by Sayers taking the opportunity to discuss issues such as society's view towards University education for women, and the need to maintain one's own identity, even in a serious relationship. "Gaudy Night" is therefore a truly feminist work and Harriet's internal struggle between her love for Wimsey and her desire to maintain her independence is something all women can identify with, even today. Although she is hard to like at times, being prickly and sensitive to a fault, we can all sympathize with her predicament. In a nutshell - absolutely fabulous and required reading for all Sayers fans!

Dorothy L. Sayers wrote some of the best mystery novels that ever appeared in print. In fact she wrote most of them.

Gaudy Night is mainly a novel of Oxford, despite its being ostensibly a mystery. Harriet Vane is the main character of this novel, though of course Sayers' best creation, Lord Peter Wimsey, plays an important part in this book. The dialogue is as clever and wonderfully piffling as ever, the story thought-provoking, and best of all it is here that Peter is finally successful in wooing his Harriet. (The punt scene! And the finale...)

There never was a better mystery writer. I would suggest, before reading this, that you read Strong Poison and Have His Carcase for the full effect. Oh, and follow Gaudy Night up with Busman's Honeymoon.

I've never said this before and I don't think I'll say it about any other book: This book is perfection. The telling is beautiful, seamless and touches every emotion, the way a good book should. Lord Peter Wimsey is such a well-developed character: he has Holmes's wit, combined with charisma, charm, sensitivity, tenderness and intelligence. Earlier in the series, he hadn't figured out who he was or what he wanted to be, but now he knows: to marry Harriet.

Miss Harriet Vane is an even better character than his lordship. She's believable, independent, a writer, tender inside, witty, polite and has intelligence to match Lord Peter's. The moments of affection - I hesitate to call them 'love scenes' - were breathtaking, without either party removing any clothes. Some writers today could learn from that.

The suspense is high, the love is brewing and the plot is seamless and unlabored, as if it really did happen. I recommend this to EVERYONE. I may only be a kid, but I know perfection when I see it.

On another note: I don't like the DVDs of the Dorothy Sayers books. They are perfect in all their literary glory; why try to improve perfection? Another thing, Lord Peter Wimsey is his best on paper, not impersonated by some silly person trying to act like an English lord, who will never come close to Sayers's Peter's immortal charm, intellect and tenderness.

If one were allowed 10 books on a desert island, this would be one. I still re-read it several times a year, whenever I'm depressed.

Apparently people were educated differently 70 years ago when the book was written--Sayers included portions of untranslated French, apparently confident her readers could decipher it. A friend has complained the sentences are too long but the work is an engrossing, majestic masterpiece which never fails to convey one to a grander time, one without TV or Internet but perhaps not suffering from those lacks.

Some day I'm having a portrait of Harriet Vane done to hang in a place of honor.

Gaudy Night is, in my opinion, the very best of Sayers's fine mystery novels starring Lord Peter Wimsey, younger (and smarter) son of a duke and jack of all trades. For two previous volumes, Strong Poison and Have His Carcase, Peter has pursued Harriet Vane, a mystery novelist whom he saved from being unjustly tried for the murder of her lover, Philip Boyce. Now Harriet takes center stage as she attempts to investigate a mysterious phenomenon which has taken over her old college at Oxford--a combination poison-pen writer and midnight poltergeist that sends abusive anonymous letters and wreaks havoc on buildings and possessions. Uncovering the culprit, however, leads to devastating revelations for her and Peter. Sayers uses the mystery genre here to explore questions of the relationship between career and relationship in men's lives and women's, the nature of love and marriage, and the value of doing one's proper work. Her language is at its richest here, and its portrait of Oxford life c. 1930 is as irresistible as any science-fictional worldbuilding.

...and solve a mystery, too? Gaudy Night was the first Sayers book I ever read, & what a find! GN is first & foremost the resolution of the Harriet Vane/Lord Peter relationship begun in Strong Poison. The 'mystery' serves primarily as a pretext to contrast traditional ideas of marriage & woman's 'place' with Sayers' very different & 'modern' ideas on the topic. At times, it's practically an intellectual treatise on the subject, argued by woman dons at the high table. Drenched in the atmosphere of 1930s Oxford, drunk with the poetry of Donne, GN is a tour de force of intellectual seduction. Harriet is not an easy woman to love--she's been deeply hurt, she's much too independent, & she's far too intellectual for her own good. There are readers who will never appreciate Harriet, or think her 'worthy' of the witty, sensitive & intellectual Lord Peter; their loss. In the 1930s, women believed that they had a forced choice between matrimony & a career. A large part of Harriet's reluctance to say 'yes' is the very real fear of losing her hard-won selfhood: "If I once gave in to Peter, I should go up like straw." In this, she mistakes her man; Lord Peter doesn't want a 'mere' wife, he wants an equal partner! He may actually be the first male feminist in detective fiction; no wonder poor Harriet can't believe it. Such men are hard to find even today, much less in Harriet's day. This is the ultimate thinking woman's romantic mystery!

Dorothy L. Sayers, a contemporary of Agatha Christie's, was an something of an enigma, and not unlike Harriet Vane, the heroine of this novel. A graduate of Sommerville, devout Christian theologian, and unwed mother, her few contributions to British Golden Age detective fiction are rightly deemed classics for the depth of her characterizations and for the scholarly intelligence so evident in her writing.

In this novel, Sayers takes an unusually personal perspective, concentrating principally on the internal struggles of Harriet Vane, a detective fiction writer who was tried and acquitted of the murder of her live-in lover in the earlier novel Strong Poison. Sayers's detective Lord Peter Wimsey was responsible for Harriet's acquittal, and has doggedly pursued her in the intervening years. Harriet has refused his proposals of marriage but has never ended the relationship. Here, she at lasts slays her internal demons by returning to her "inalienable place," Oxford. She returns for a reunion, finds acceptance and peace....and then evidence of a particularly vicious madness directed against educated women. As Harriet struggles to identify the mad poltergeist vandal haunting her old college before anyone is harmed, she also comes to grips with her desire to escape from the world, and the realization that each person must do her "proper job" in life, whatever that job is. Lord Peter appears rather late in the story, to assist Harriet with the investigation. Here, too, Sayers displays a new depth of character development, showing her detective as a complete and vulnerable human being. Yes, Harriet and Peter do come together at the end in a most satisfactory way.

Do read the Harriet Vane novels in order to gain maximum satisfaction: first, Strong Poison; then Have His Carcase; followed by Gaudy Night; and finishing with Busman's Honeymoon.

Dorothy L. Sayers' book _Gaudy_Night_ is one of the best mystery books ever written, if you enjoy beautiful, educated writing and brilliant, sympathetic characters, not to mention a great plot. Harriet Vane, one of the first female Oxford graduates, like the author, struggles with poison-pen letters, personal focus, and the attentions of Lord Peter Wimsey as she returns to Oxford after attending the annual Gaudy (a reunion of old students). Without a corpse in sight, the book may not appeal to many readers of grity detective novels, but this mystery is solved with wit, wisdom, and Vergil. For what more could one ask?

_Gaudy_Night_ is eriudite as well as entertaining, standing up well to the passing of over six decades. The themes of academia versus business, career versus marriage, and town versus university are still alive today. The writing of Dorothy L. Sayers is not to be missed, and this is arguably her best book (along with _The_Nine_Tailors_).

Lord Peter is the primary character in this series of detective novels by Dorothy Sayers. In Gaudy Night Harriet Vane is the main character--Lord Peter is in Rome on a diplomatic mission for most of the tale. Harriet is the object of Lord Peter's affections but she has not accepted his frequent offers of matrimony despite the fact that she appears to be developing feelings for him.

In this story, Harriet returns to her roots at Oxford for a reunion and ends up staying to solve a mystery. While at Oxford she is able to heal her wounds from her last difficult relationship and its unfortunate aftermath, as well as discover within herself a new love of life and creativity.

In this new healthier phase she also discovers that she misses Lord Peter, and on one of his visits, that she has deeply passionate feelings for him. As in the quote above, she discovers in him a potential for passion in her life.

Dorothy Sayers' writing is at its peak in this interesting psychological mystery. The beauty of her prose, as well as her knack for describing characters in particular setting is at its finest. Here is one of her beautiful sentences: "Great golden phrases, rising from nothing and leading to nothing, swam up out of her mind like the huge, sluggish carp in the cool waters of Mercury." While this novel stands alone as a good read, it would probably work better for the reader if they have read the series of Lord Peter novels that feature Harriet Vane--particularly Strong Poison and Have His Carcase.