Some time ago, I needed a novel to read at lunch, and found Whose Body?, the first Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy Sayers, in the work paperback exchange. “Ah-ha!” I said, “I will start re-reading Sayers over lunches when I need a break, and this will give me an excuse to fill the inexplicable holes in my collection: as I get to a book I don’t own, I can buy it.” And that is just what I did.
I’d read this before, of course, and so whodunnit was blindingly obvious from the very beginning. I suspect it would be a fairly obvious mystery to new readers, too, even if their edition didn’t have a spoilery blurb. I was more interested in how different this book is from later ones, such as Gaudy Night, which I re-read not so long ago. The main thing, of course, is Peter, who is much less rounded than he becomes. I don’t say that he’s flat, because I liked him from the start and he does have the shell-shock; and I utterly deny that he’s a Mary Sue (per some at a Boskone panel), because to include him in the category renders the term nearly meaningless. But the strong prominence of his verbal tics makes him appear rather more a caricature than in later books. (I’d noted this with reference to Strong Poison as well, but I think it’s even more pronounced here.)
The other major difference I noticed—even different from Strong Poison, I think—is the narration. Or, rather, the narrator, who is a palpable presence: footnotes, for goodness’ sake, as well as that odd dip into second-person towards the end (which chapter I really like). I’ll be interested to see how this evolves over my re-reads.
(The only problem with my lunchtime-reading plan is that I was given a copy of The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion as a birthday present last year. On one hand, it rather defeats the purpose to not have it at hand when reading the books, but on the other, I really don’t want to bring it into work. I suppose I shall just have to make notes or use sticky-flags when necessary; I didn’t really see anything in Whose Body? that I wanted to look up.)
[ For excellent, very spoilery commentary on Whose Body?, I recommend Truepenny’s LiveJournal post; all of her thoughts on re-reading Sayers are linked to from this “memories” page. ]
Surely if anybody’s a Mary Sue in the Wimsey stories, it’s Harriet Vane?
(I’m not saying she is one, just that if any of the characters is an idealized auctorial stand-in, it’s Vane.)
No kidding–she’s a _mystery_ _novelist_, for goodness’ sake. That’s a side reason that the accusations of Mary Sue-dom against Peter annoy me: attempting to shoehorn Peter into the category, when there’s a much more obvious candidate available, seems more like a vendetta than reasoned critique (and now I’m exaggerating for effect, but you know what I mean).
I don’t think Harriet is a Mary Sue either, but I could make a heck of a lot better case for her than for Peter.