For the next Dorothy Sayers collection in my re-read, Hangman’s Holiday, I actually read the original collection rather than the stories reprinted in Lord Peter (the library had a copy). I am not impressed by any of the four Wimsey stories in this collection, namely “The Image in the Mirror,” “The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey,” “The Queen’s Square,” and “The Necklace of Pearls.” I found the first predictable, the second condescending, the third uninteresting, and the fourth—well, my reaction to the fourth isn’t actually the story’s fault, I just lacked a particular piece of knowledge that would have made the story an “ah-hah!” rather than a “huh.” (ROT-13 spoiler: V unq gur inthr vqrn gung zvfgyrgbr oreevrf jrer erq, abg juvgr.)
This collection also has several stories featuring Montague Egg, travelling salesman of wine and spirits. I find, on a re-read, that I don’t like Montague Egg. This may not be his fault. His name conjures up a bald smarmy man in my mind’s eye, and though he is actually young and fair-haired, some of that smarmy image carries over to my reading of his dialogue, fairly or unfairly.
There are two other stories in the collection, “The Man Who Knew How” and “The Fountain Plays,” both of which are kind of unpleasant.
What it comes down to is, I don’t principally read Sayers for the puzzles, so I’m just not going to like her short stories very much.
Me too.
The only Wimsey short story I care for at all is the one involving wine-tasting expertise. I’m an amateur wine snob, and it amuses me out of proportion to its merits.
The most annoying Wimsey short, to me, is the clever dining-room mystery that hinges on needing to know a crucial obsolete fact about British telephone exchanges.
I’m afraid my reaction to Montague Egg is to immediately forget the details of any story I read. I suppose that says something. I wonder if Egg was Sayers’s attempt at writing like Chesterton? I can see old Gilbert Keith having a grand time with a character like Egg…
Like the cricket game in _MMA_, the telephone bit indicates to me that Sayers wasn’t writing for a future audience. (I’m not sure I’m remembering which telephone bit–I might be mixing it up with another story altogether. But it hardly matters.)