Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

[meganbmoore]

Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey books is a series I've been meaning to read for some time.  I've seen a BBC production of one of the books (involving, IIRC, Wimsey's sister's fiance being murdered and both her and their brother being suspects) but never read one.

Peter Wimsey is an upperclass gent in 1920s England, and a war veteran. At first glance, he comes across as (as I believe smillaraaqworded it to me a few days ago) "a superscilious upper-class fool."  I think my personal description would be "overly-absorbed, facetious twit."  This does, however, seem to largely be a surface personality, and the "real" Peter Wimsey is a determined, observant investigator who often aids Scotland Yard, dragging his valet, Bunter, along with him.  Most fans of the series I know seem to be fans primarily for later books in the series (which is also one of the draws for me, but I mustmustmust start series at the beginning) but this book stands up well on it's own.

Mostly a straightforward "whodunnit?" murder mystery, Wimsey is made aware of a body found in a bathtub wearing nothing but an expensive pince-nez, at the same time a prominent financier goes missing.  While there is an obvious conclusion to be drawn, and one Scotland Yard's investigator eagerly jumps at, Wimsey has his suspicions, though, and lauches his own investigations into the matter.

Mixed in, though, are hints and references to Wimsey's past, indicating that the war caused a mental breakdown of some sort, including a scene where he hallucinates that he's back in the war.  Perhaps I've simply encountered it too much in fiction and am jumping to conclusions, but I am assuming that Bunter is a war buddy of some sort, who entered Wimsey's service after the war.  (If so, it's a setup I typically find interesting.)

I have a confession to make, though:  I often got distracted from the plot by the excellent, witty dialogue, and had to reread some parts because of that.  And I probably still missed something...

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I've seen a BBC production of one of the books (involving, IIRC, Wimsey's sister's fiance being murdered and both her and their brother being suspects) but never read one.

That would have been Clouds of Witness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clouds_of_Witness) (spoilery Wiki page, but if you've seen the TV version I assume you're quite spoiled already); it's one of the books that were filmed with Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter back in the 1970s. I must confess rather shamefacedly that I have never seen any of the Carmichael versions -- they have their own fierce fan contingent, but since I came to the books by way of the Edward Petherbridge TV versions, he is THE perfect Lord Peter in my head and I'm not quite sure I could deal with someone else in the role.

And this honestly was one of the weakest of the lot for my tastes, not to say that it's a bad book but they just get better and better; so if you enjoyed this one, I have fairly high hopes that you'll like the rest of the series, too.

Most fans of the series I know seem to be fans primarily for later books in the series

I love both the pure mysteries and the Harriet-and-Peter books, but in different ways. The mysteries are light and witty, delightful period pieces chock-full of sparkling dialog and charmingly eccentric characters, the ones with Harriet add much more depth and heart to the formula.

Mixed in, though, are hints and references to Wimsey's past, indicating that the war caused a mental breakdown of some sort, including a scene where he hallucinates that he's back in the war. Perhaps I've simply encountered it too much in fiction and am jumping to conclusions, but I am assuming that Bunter is a war buddy of some sort, who entered Wimsey's service after the war.

Yep, Sergeant Bunter was Major Wimsey's batman during the Great War, and as I was mentioning in Cho's journal the other day, Peter suffered from a severe case of shell-shock. (Nothing terribly spoilery about this, this background is mostly just referred to in bits and pieces throughout the series without ever being a real plot point.) Bunter saved Peter's life during the war, and they made an agreement that if both survived, he'd take up service with Lord Peter when they resumed civilian life.

I often got distracted from the plot by the excellent, witty dialogue, and had to reread some parts because of that

Nothing wrong with that: I fell in love with these, and have reread them many times over the years, for the dialog and characters and literary and philosophical ramblings, not the plots. Without looking up references, I'd stand a better chance telling you which stories have passages going on about Bach fugues, or wine, or artistic temperaments, or the timelessness of ducks, rather than who got killed and whodunit.

BTW, if you want to be really, really strict about reading in pure story-chronological order, you should hurry up and get the short-story compilations: after Clouds of Witness, there are a bunch of stories that fall in the gap between the second and third novels (and you might even want to skip back to the one story that takes place before Whose Body?, which shows Peter first taking up his detective hobby.) There's a fairly thorough non-spoilery timeline here (http://www.leftfield.org/~rawdon/books/mystery/sayers.html) -- the only thing it's missing is Jill Paton Walsh's latest, A Presumption of Death, which is set in 1939, between the last two short stories "The Haunted Policeman" and "Talboys".

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

"Yep, Sergeant Bunter was Major Wimsey's batman during the Great War...Bunter saved Peter's life during the war, and they made an agreement that if both survived, he'd take up service with Lord Peter when they resumed civilian life. "

And in the 80~ years since, it became one of the biggest romance novel cliches ever, especially for Regency era romances.

"and as I was mentioning in Cho's journal the other day, Peter suffered from a severe case of shell-shock. (Nothing terribly spoilery about this, this background is mostly just referred to in bits and pieces throughout the series without ever being a real plot point.)"

Yeah, the shell shock isn't really a spoiler, just clarifying something fairly obvious. I only vaguely skimmed your comments to Cho(well, the parts that looked spoilery) since I knew I'd be reading within the week.

"I fell in love with these, and have reread them many times over the years, for the dialog and characters and literary and philosophical ramblings, not the plots. Without looking up references, I'd stand a better chance telling you which stories have passages going on about Bach fugues, or wine, or artistic temperaments, or the timelessness of ducks, rather than who got killed and whodunit."

Well, honestly, that's the truth with most whodunnits. The murder mystery is there to give the interesting character something to do and a chance to show off his stuff, not the main focus.

I understand the Carmichael-Petheridge thing. I was introduced to Poirot via the Peter Unistov versions, but that was in junior high or so, and now that I've read a few of the books and seen all the David Suchet stuff, I can't imagine anyone but Suchet as Poirot.

As far as reading order goes...I'll likely go and get as many as I can find at the bookstore, find out what order they go in, order whatever I didn't find, then read them all once I have them all. Unless the short stories are mentioned in the books, I'll likely save them until after I've read all the books.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've read so few romances, and I think zero regencies so far, so I've mostly avoided that. My list of great literary valets pretty much starts with Jeeves and ends with Bunter...and since Bunter was somewhat inspired by Jeeves, that's not a terribly wide spectrum. ;)

And I think the Sayers rec in Cho's journal was fairly spoiler-free, aside from the "Harriet finally says yes" bit which I know I've already mentioned in your journal anyway...

Unless the short stories are mentioned in the books, I'll likely save them until after I've read all the books.

Not off the top of my head, they aren't -- at the very least even if they're referred to, it's just the random-comment-in-passing sort of thing that should neither ruin the stories for later reading or make the books incomprehensible without reading the stories first. Really, except for the Harriet Vane books, I don't think these would really suffer if you had to read a few of these out of order. The Harriet subseries do build strongly on the events of previous books, but the more straightforward mysteries are much more free-standing sorts of tales.