Thursday, March 21, 2013

gaudy night


Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12)Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The thing about reading a Dorothy Sayers' mystery is that you can enjoy it on different levels: the charm of Lord Peter, the moments of well crafted description, the overwrought but equally entertaining literary quotations, and then there's the Latin.  The Latin that lies at the crux of crucial moments in this novel that can serve only to remind those of us who, while overeducated (is there such a thing?), still, did not go to Oxford and do not use Latin in our every day speech. I for one, enjoy it when my "light" reading has a bit of heft to it.  And while I'm not the biggest Harriet Vane fan (the whole resistance/submission thing is annoying), still this book makes for a good afternoon read.  It certainly has its misogynist elements and certainly there's both an anti and pro-academic theme running throughout, still, Lord Peter shows up before it all gets too annoying and the brief moments of madness counterpointed against the calm of punting in the river make it a worthwhile read.


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