Gaudy Night, Chapters 5-6

[spikewriter]

My apologies for the lateness of this, but both of my copies went missing for a while. By the way, Gaudy Night is currently not available pretty much any place I looked. Possibly this means the publisher is preparing a new edition (and, hopefully, an electronic one as well).

Brief synopsis:

Comments

[azdak]

Padget's assertion that "what this country wants...is a 'Itler" is very much WTF to our ears, but far less so when the book was written in 1935

I think this was supposed to be WTF to the contemporary reader, as well - or at least "What else can you expect from the working classes? Salt of the earth but not very bright." After all (unless the contemporary reader is a Moseley supporter who labours under the misapprehension that Peter's foreign office work is all about trying to forge an alliance with Mussolini) it's clear that Peter thinks fascism is appalling and dangerous and very likely to lead to another world war, and it's against this background that Padgett's "Wot this country needs is a 'Itler" stands out - not as a reasonable political view, but as a dangerously naive one.

[ibmiller]

Really? Despite all the quasi-fascist statements many of the dons themselves make? I agree that the sexism inherent in the camel-females-'itler conversation serves as satire, probably implicating the working classes in the kind of sexism that Shrewsbury battles against on all sides, but I'm not necessarily convinced that Padgett is wholly on board with it - I always read it as him somewhat just going along with his buddy, but preserving his own judgment on the inside, based on his other interactions with the dons and Harriet in the book.

[penguineggs]

I always suspected (given how Padgett's expressed views shift from "Young ladies will have their larks" to "What this country wants is an 'itler") that he was prepared to express any viewpoint needed to make the foreman think of him as a fellow traveller and hence get a good job done against the clock.

[ibmiller]

Exactly! You say it much better than I!

[littlered2]

It's a different age and the idea that the students rid themselves of dirty dishes by simply leaving them outside for the scouts to pick up seems very far away.

While I would never expect my house's scout to do my washing up for me, it's not that far away - I think scouts do less, but at my college we still have our bins emptied every day, our rooms cleaned once a week, and so on. WTF Oxford, indeed - it is ridiculous.

[read2day]

And just twenty years ago, my scout did do my washing up - in my room, not by my leaving the stuff outside the door. Definitely WTF Oxford.

[penguineggs]

My scout had a tendency to put my plates back, unwashed, in the cupboard which is very definitely the worst of all possible worlds.

[littlered2]

Ah yes, mine does that - I know that she needs to have the sink and draining board free so she can clean it, and I violently loathe people who leave their dirty plates out for days, so I sympathise, but it's still incredibly irritating to get a cheesegrater or something out of the cupboard and find that it's still dirty.

[ibmiller]

I think a further question would be - what about Miss Chilperic?

And sex dreams are ABSOLUTELY NOT A SIGN OF HARRIET'S REAL FEELINGS!

I would like to go on record by admiring how Sayers manages to maintain a sense of Peter's presence and impact for over half a book without him actually being there. She has the most impeccable timing, brining in a sex dream or a flashback or a peek at Peter in Rome or a letter - and, of course, St. George - just when Harriet alone teeters on the edge of self-indulgence (not that she ever falls over, but the book is advertised as a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery).

[nineveh_uk]

The strong presence of Peter without his actually being there is pretty impressive. I read GN first - was a bit baffled about Harriet's backstory, but when Peter turned up in person I had a strong sense of who he was due to all the previous stuff.

(Harriet strongly disclaims it was a sex dream. There were beech trees! It was outside! No sex! Just, er, passionate embracing. Honest.)

[ibmiller]

Pretty sure Harriet's subconscious is smirking in the corner: "Harriet protests waaaaay too much. And mmm, look at those calves and shoulders..."

[nineveh_uk]

I note that as Harriet's conscious moves from Peter's nice shoulders to his nice calves, her subconscious must observe his bum ;-)

[read2day]

"Possibly this means the publisher is preparing a new edition (and, hopefully, an electronic one as well)"

- it's available as an ebook from the Kindle Amazon store (at least, it's in the UK store) and also on the iBook store for those of an Apple persuasion. That said, the paperback is also readily available through UK stores.

[shinyopals]

Lol we did have cleaners at my university accommodation, but they mostly existed to confiscate cutlery we'd forgotten to wash up and demand money for the return of. XD

I am oddly fond of Miss Hillyard, but I sort of waver backwards and forwards on whether she is happy at all. I can't see her anywhere else, but I never get any feeling that Oxford is absolutely where she wants to be. I suppose it must be, though, and it's just her way.

[nineveh_uk]

I think "absolutely where she wants to be" is the key here. Miss Hillyard's - odd. She _is_ bitter (though not necessarily twisted). Oxford offers her something, but not everything. Perhaps more than the other dons she feels the lack of a private life that it has cost her? Also, I think she's ambitious, and rightly so (Peter's admiration of her seriously good work seems entirely sincere), but she knows that she won't make it to the top because of her sex. She has a line later in the book about how Oxford doesn't give the big University posts to women, and she's quite right. She'll never be Regius Professor of History, however good she is. She's given up all chance of a family of her own (and I think the fact that she goes to her sister to help the family when the sister has a baby shows that actually she does have abilities in that area), but she's still shut out of some of what Oxford offers.