Strong Poison -and- Gaudy Night (Dorothy L. Sayers)

[chomiji]

Harriet Vane is a woman of the world. She has a degree from Oxford, writes mysteries for pay, and lives with her lover. Today her lifestyle would scarcely raise an eyebrow, but in the Britain of 1930 depicted in Strong Poison, she's a scandal. When her lover is found dead of poison, few hesitate to assume that she is his killer - especially given that she had been purchasing and researching poisons, ostensibly in preparation for writing a new book. Her initial trial, however, ends with a hung jury. While she is still languishing in prison, the wealthy dilettante investigator Lord Peter Wimsey hears of the case and becomes intrigued - much more so once he meets Harriet in person. With the deadline of a new trial pressing him, Lord Peter must race to complete his case vindicating Harriet, with whom he has become so infatuated that he wishes to marry her.

The book is essentially cool and logical in tone, with an emphasis on uncovering the pieces of the puzzle-box plot: the answer to the question of who actually killed Philip Boyes, why, and how is intricately complex. I was certainly interested enough to finish the book, but if I had read it first - which would have been the proper order - I might never have continued on with Gaudy Night. I was not really engaged by any of the characters, and I don't know that I will ever re-read it.

Gaudy Night takes place a few years after Strong Poison (it was written 5 years later). Harriet, now well-established as a popular mystery author and still resisting Lord Peter's marriage proposals, is attending the annual Gaudy Night celebration - part of a weekend-long reunion - at her Oxford college, Shrewsbury, when she becomes involved in an unsavory mystery. A series of unpleasant and increasingly vicious pranks is being played on women of the college, from professors ("dons," of course, in the Oxonian tradition) to the youngest undergraduates. Harriet herself becomes a victim, and when the Dean of the college asks her to investigate, Harriet of course agrees. The case takes months to crack, and eventually Harriet requests assistance and advice from Lord Peter.

In tone, in approach, and in characterization, Gaudy Night is a contrast to the earlier novel. The focus is entirely on Harriet (with one tiny exception, and that will have to be covered below the cut), and although I can't say that I think that she is completely Sayers' proxy here, it seems that she is much more comfortable in inhabiting this protagonist's skin. I liked Harriet, and was interested in her thoughts about what was going on. The details of the life in an Oxbridge women's college of the time were presented vividly and entertainingly, and Lord Peter was not as nearly obnoxious as he was in the earlier story. In fact, I enjoyed re-reading the novel a month or two after I'd first read it and expect to do so many times in the future, as I do with Peter Dickinson's mysteries.

Strong Poison -and- Gaudy Night (review)

Peter's machinations in Strong Poison are amusing, but I kept thinking about how many of them would cause him to be arrested nowadays. Certainly he was guilty of multiple instances of entrapment. And in the end, he does poison the murderer - even though it doesn't result in man's death, and even though he knows it won't.

Gaudy Night presented a large cast of interesting and/or amusing characters. I had to smile at the brash, intrusive American - and will confess that I felt a mild patriotic annoyance at her depiction, a feeling that somewhat surprised me. On second reading, I was also a little disturbed at her obsession with eugenics - and the fact that she was, despite this, being portrayed as basically good-hearted. I guess, though, that Sayers was in fact doing this very much on purpose: in this period, a number of people were facilely agreeing with some of Hitler's ideas about the master race, without thinking the theories through or letting themselves perceive his more sinister notions. There are also some more direct discussions of this topic in the book: understandably, a number of the college's dons and alumnae are annoyed with Hitlerian ideal of womanhood.

On the whole, I think Sayers was playing fair with laying out the suspects. Some of the characters are unpleasant in their own right, some merely dislike Harriet, and yet others seem pleasant but have quirks that might be signs of unbalanced minds: any of them could be suspects for much of the story. I will say that there were so many of them that I'm having a tough time remembering their names, which shames me: I'm usually moderately good with names, and it's not that they don't have distinct personalities. I remember very strongly, for example, that one woman makes rude remarks to Harriet at the first event of the Gaudy weekend about another former student, first saying she wished the other woman would wash her neck and, on being countered with the statement that it was just the poor thing's natural complexion, asserts staunchly that "[t]hen she should eat her carrots and clear her system." But I had to look at the book to remember that this was, in fact, the Dean herself - which surprised me because she is later a very sympathetic character. I have a feeling that as I am a rather messy, unathletic person myself, the Dean might not think much of me, either!

I had very mixed feelings about the revealed identity of the vicious prankster. On the one hand, I certainly didn't want it to be one of the collegians. On the other hand, there seemed something vaguely unfair about the fact that it was Annie: certainly the poor woman had enough trouble in her life already, no matter how cross she made me when she was trying to discourage her young daughter from the ambition of becoming a mechanic.

These books were originally recommended to me as examples of a fictional romance between equal partners, and I think that, particularly in Gaudy Night, it's a good one. Lord Peter is pleasantly restrained in his urge to meddle in affairs to protect Harriet: he provides her with advice at her request and practical suggestions of the sort that he might equally offer a male colleague (the self-defense tips, for example), and does not make any serious attempts to prevent her from continuing her investigations. Harriet's reluctance to give up (as she sees it) her independence by following her heart is presented very sensitively. And I was delighted at Peter's ingenious solution to allowing Harriet to accept his proposal without seeming to give in - although I will confess that I had to resort to Google for a translation of the Latin.

One final comment - and this is the issue I mentioned above the cut: the novel is written almost entirely from a tight third-person singular viewpoint, that of Harriet. But at the climax, just after Annie's appallingly vindictive confession, the voice suddenly and very briefly shifts to third-person omniscient so that we can hear what Peter says to Miss De Vine after Harriet leaves the room. It's rather odd, and I found it disorienting.

Note: as smillaraaq as explained to me, another book actually comes between these two in the joint saga of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane: Have His Carcase. I haven't yet read it.