The question of how to share the limelight is so central to the Harriet Vane novels. I summarized them recently as "whodunnit and how do we prove it and how do we live with what we have done to other people and ourselves and our trauma and our desires for equality and selfhood in the world that exists," none of which have gone out of relevance in the last almost-century. So many mysteries are about reassuring a pattern; Sayers' are more about the breaking. I read them young and I think it was useful to me.
no subject
That's cool! I like the illustration of the foley artists.
Wimsey seems a fairly attractive character to me still; urbane but not condescending, quite willing to look silly. I always did like detectives who underplay themselves. And here the limelight is shared by a few strong women who learn safecracking or the art of a dodgy séance to save someone from the noose.
The question of how to share the limelight is so central to the Harriet Vane novels. I summarized them recently as "whodunnit and how do we prove it and how do we live with what we have done to other people and ourselves and our trauma and our desires for equality and selfhood in the world that exists," none of which have gone out of relevance in the last almost-century. So many mysteries are about reassuring a pattern; Sayers' are more about the breaking. I read them young and I think it was useful to me.