Author: Sharon

Episode 24: Murder Must Advertise, part 3

~ Sharon

In which Charis and Sharon recap the-mystery-thus-far as it appears at approximately the halfway point of the book. We also get (pretty much immediately) sidetracked by a discussion of blackmail in Victorian and Golden Age detective fiction, discuss the character of Dian de Momerie, spend time teasing out the importance of sincerity and honesty in Lord Peter’s romantic life and in Sayers’ own writing, and more.

This episode touches on the howdunnit of the Victor Dean murder but does not give away the whodunnit or the rest of the mystery plot.

Shownotes:

  • In our conversation about the attitude of Victorian and Golden Age detectives toward blackmailers, we discuss Holmes’ characterization of the titular blackmailer in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”: “Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow.” We also bring up “The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker,” a Lord Peter short story found in the LORD PETER VIEWS THE BODY collection, wherein Sir Impey Biggs states he’d refuse to represent a blackmailer in the court of law.
  • We refer back to Charis’ framing of “the mystery of the mystery” and “the mystery of the plot,” which we discuss at more length in episode 22.
  • Sharon briefly namechecks “paranoid reading” and directs anyone seeking further information to D.A. Miller’s THE NOVEL AND THE POLICE and Eve Sedgwick’s “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid You Probably Think This Chapter Is About You”.
  • In Sharon’s sidebar about writers unafraid of showing their protagonists in a real/human light, she brings up Evie Dunmore’s LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN historical romances.
  • Charis brings up THE QUEEN’S THIEF series by Megan Whalen Turner in our discussion of authors who masterfully shift narrative points of view mid-scene.

Episode 20: HAVE HIS CARCASE, part 3

~ Sharon

Surprise! Charis and Sharon return at long last to the shores of Wilvercombe to continue our discussion on HAVE HIS CARCASE. We share life updates for both of us, discuss why this book’s plot is so impossible to talk about, bring up Raymond Chandler’s thoughts on Golden Age detectives, and cover an important emotional watershed for Harriet and Peter. Also: we run through changes in our posting schedule going forward and introduce our Patreon!

This episode tips its hat at the whodunnit of the murder but does not give detailed spoilers about the howdunnit.

Shownotes:

  • Here is the fuller citation of Sayers’ letters to her publisher Victor Gollancz about turning from Five Red Herrings to writing Have His Carcase, as excerpted in The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899 to 1936: “[Readers] have also grumbled that Lord Peter a) falls in love b) talks too discursively–here is a book [Five Red Herrings] in which nobody falls in love (unless you count Campbell) and in which practically every sentence is necessary to the plot (except a remark or two on Scottish scenery and language). Much good may it do ’em! Anyway, I will return to a less rigidly intellectual formula in HAVE-HIS-CARCASE which will turn on an alibi and a point of medicine, but will, I trust, contain a certain amount of human interest and a more or less obvious murderer. But I haven’t made up the plot yet…”
  • We discuss the central idea found in Brigitta Hudácskó’s “Ruritania by the Sea-Detection by the Seaside in Dorothy L. Sayers’s Have His Carcase,” which ran in HJEAS: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies Vol. 27, Issue 1 in 2021. Our thanks to Hudácskó for sending us the article and for our podcast’s first scholarly citation!
  • We discuss at length Raymond Chandler’s 1944 article for The Atlantic Monthly titled “The Simple Art of Murder”
  • We refer to the meme Worst Person You Know Made a Great Point
  • And we also share our mutual love for the 2013 film Pacific Rim

Episode 18: “The Professor’s Manuscript”

~ Sharon

In which Charis and Sharon take a detour through a Sayers’ short story that features a different detective than our eponymous Wimsey: Mr. Montague Egg, traveling salesman representing Messrs. Plummet and Rose. We follow Monty as he notices something amiss with a potential customer he is visiting in “The Professor’s Manuscript.” We also talk about the underlying class anxiety that the story betrays, as well as the personality traits Monty shares with Lord Peter. And we take some winding detours through theology, anti-capitalism, and more!

Our next episode will return us to the shores of Wilvercombe and HAVE HIS CARCASE.

Download the Episode 18 transcript.

Shownotes:

  • “The Professor’s Manuscript” is part of the IN THE TEETH OF THE EVIDENCE short story collection, published in 1939.
  • In one of our tangents, we mention RETURN OF THE THIEF, the final book in Megan Whalen Turner’s incredible QUEEN’S THIEF YA series. We both very much recommend the series, starting with the first book, THE THIEF. (Warning, you may need to find a time when you can gulp all six books down in quick succession. They are compulsively readable!)
  • For more on T.S. Eliot’s views of John Donne, read his 1921 essay “The Metaphysical Poets”

Episode 17: “The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach”

~ Sharon

Surprise! We took an unplanned and unannounced long hiatus from the podcast because [waves hands vaguely at 2020]. Charis and Sharon are now back in the saddle and ready to tackle the rest of HAVE HIS CARCASE. But before we do that, we have a couple special episodes featuring two short stories from the Sayers canon. In this episode, we discuss the story “The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach,” which sees Lord Peter back in Scotland for a gutsy adventure.

Content note: In this episode, we discuss anti-Semitic views and writings contemporary to Sayers’ time.

Download the episode transcript.

Shownotes:

Episode 16: HAVE HIS CARCASE, part 1

~ Sharon

In which Charis and Sharon attempt to begin discussing HAVE HIS CARCASE, the seventh Lord Peter Wimsey mystery. Spoiler alert: they don’t get very far. They cover their mutual love of the book’s opening paragraph, the practice of the British walking tour, and Harriet Vane’s discovery of a corpse. They then go on a very long tangent about the depiction of policing in detective fiction. Also: Harriet’s relationship with the press, how various characters in the novel attempt to construct narratives for themselves, and Sayers’ increasing attentiveness to place in the latter half of the Wimsey series.

This episode covers the first three chapters of HAVE HIS CARCASE and does not give away the whodunnit.

Download the episode 16 transcript.

Shownotes:

  • “There’s only one set of footprints in the sand and it was not when Jesus carried the corpse.” Sharon is making flippant reference to this (in her opinion) terribly insipid Christian poem.
  • The Terry Pratchett quote that Charis mentions is indeed from NIGHT WATCH. The full quote is: “Yes, thought Vimes. That’s the way it was. Privilege, which just means private law. Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.” But Pratchett also has another character, William de Worde, mention the literal meaning in THE TRUTH: “We’ve always been privileged, you see. Privilege just means ‘private law.’ That’s exactly what it means. He [his father, Lord de Worde] just doesn’t believe the ordinary laws apply to him. He really believes they can’t touch him, and that if they do he can just shout until they go away. That’s the de Worde tradition, and we’re good at it. Shout at people, get your own way, ignore the rules.”
  • The Tana French book that Sharon brings up in our discussion about policing is THE TRESPASSER.
  • “I just realized I’m thinking of the beginning of GREASE.”
  • Sharon refers to M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque, first put forth in PROBLEMS OF DOSTOEVSKY’S POETICS, in our discussion about the way that the characters at the Wilvercombe hotel create different personas for themselves.

Episode 14: FIVE RED HERRINGS, part 1

~ Sharon

In which Charis and Sharon return from their short hiatus to talk about traaaaaiiiiinnnnssss. That’s right, this is the first of two episodes on THE FIVE RED HERRINGS! Our friend Angela Hines joined us to represent the pro-timetables point of view.

We discuss Sayers’ correspondence about the novel with her publisher, as well as how the book differs from the previous Lord Peter mysteries. We also cover the scene of the murder, discuss a depiction of marriage in THE FIVE RED HERRINGS, and get ourselves tangled up trying to distinguish which Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood version of “The Lady of Shalott” we’re respectively referring to.

This episode covers roughly the first half the novel and does not give away the whodunnit.

Download the episode 14 transcript.

Shownotes:

Episode 13.5: Neuroscience with Gavrielle Farmer

~ Sharon

In this special episode, Sharon spoke with listener Gavrielle Farmer about breakthroughs in neuroscience in the early 20th century, contemporary conversations about brain chemistry and behavior in Sayers’ day, the evolving conversation around shellshock between the world wars, and more.

Charis and Sharon also catch up on each other’s lives during Covid-19 shelter-in-place.

The podcast is taking a short hiatus and will return in four weeks with an episode on FIVE RED HERRINGS.

Download the episode 13.5 transcript!

Shownotes:

  • Sharon and Charis note that neither STATION ELEVEN (Emily St. John Mandel) nor DOOMSDAY BOOK (Connie Willis) may be comforting pandemic reading. They do recommend TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG and HOGFATHER (Terry Pratchett) if you’re looking for an engrossing read that’s on the lighter side.
  • If you’re interested in learning more about milestones in the study of neuroscience, Gavrielle recommends this resource.
  • Gavrielle cited the following publications in our discussion:
    -“Where Has Psychology Left Religion?” (1923), George Malcolm Stratton, The Journal of Religion Vol. 3 no. 1 p. 51-63
    -“Psychology and Free Will” (1937), Aidan Elrington, Blackfriars Vol. 18 no. 205 p. 262-272
    -“Has Psychology Failed?” (1935), Joseph Jastrow, The American Scholar Vol. 4 no. 3 p. 261-269
  • For more on our current understanding of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, you can find resources from the American Psychiatric Association and the US National Institute of Mental Health.
  • If you would like us to relay a question to Gavrielle on the topic of glands and neuroscience, you can email us at talkingpiffle AT gmail DOT com.

Episode 13: STRONG POISON, part 4

~ Sharon

In which Charis and Sharon conclude their discussion of STRONG POISON. We follow Miss Climpson as she has an encounter with Spiritualism, Miss Murchison as she snoops, and give away the whodunnit and howdunnit. We also talk about narrative echoes to previous Wimsey mysteries, such as Mrs. Wrayburn in relation to the other elderly women in UNNATURAL DEATH and THE UNPLEASANTNESS AT THE BELLONA CLUB. And we consider the callbacks to the scene in WHOSE BODY? where Peter solves the case.

Download the episode 13 transcript!

Shownotes:

  • We bring up TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG by Connie Willis, which we both love so much, again in our discussion about Miss Climpson’s fake seance.
  • W.B. Yeats’ interest in Occultism is well-documented in his own writing and biographies about him.
  • For more on the Fox Sisters, see this article from The Smithsonian.
  • Charis brings up LEVERAGE, her favorite tv show.
  • “You’ve been Dread Pirate Robertsing it”; Sharon is referring to a pivotal plot revelation in THE PRINCESS BRIDE.
  • We both talk about our distaste for Turkish Delight, despite early reading of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE convincing us it would be delightful.
  • The anecdote about Anne Shirley expecting diamonds to look like amethysts is from ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.
  • King Cophetua; Harriet’s friends are referring to a ballad in which a king falls in love on first sight with a beggar maid and proposes marriage.

Episode 12: STRONG POISON, part 3

~ Sharon

In this third of four episodes on STRONG POISON, we start discussing the second half of the book. We talk about the very uncomfortable Christmas Peter spends at Dukes Denver. We also consider detective fiction as “the purest literature we have” and how STRONG POISON marks a turn in Sayers’ style. Sharon finally learns how to pronounce Norman Urquhart’s name, the book catches us up on several characters’ love lives, and we see how a Cattery operative works. Also: more plot!

Download the episode 12 transcript!

Shownotes:

  • We talk about contemporary mystery writer Tana French as an inheritor of Sayers’ style of character portraiture.
  • THE SECRET HISTORY is by Donna Tartt, and we both highly recommend it.
  • Charis paraphrases JRR Tolkien’s comments on Sayers from a 1944 letter to his son, in which he actually wrote “I could not stand Gaudy Night. I followed P. Wimsey from his attractive beginnings so far, by which time I conceived a loathing of him (and his creatrix) not surpassed by any other character in literature known to me, unless by his Harriet.” [Letter 71 from THE LETTERS OF JRR TOLKIEN, ed. by Humphrey Carpenter]
  • We reference the Bechdel test in our discussion of JRR Tolkien’s criticism of Sayers’ mysteries.
  • “I served seven years for Rachel”; this is a story from the Hebrew Bible that Freddie Arbuthnot cites to Lady Levy.
  • “The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba” is from the short story collection LORD PETER VIEWS THE BODY, first published in 1928. In it, Peter fakes his own death in order to infiltrate a gang of criminals.

Episode 11: STRONG POISON, part 2

~ Sharon

In this episode, Charis and Sharon talk about the real-life inspiration for Philip Boyes and what was happening in Sayers’ life around the time she wrote STRONG POISON. We also see more of Marjorie Phelps, learn about Harriet’s circle of friends, and reflect on Peter’s gender performance and privilege in a world of double standards.

This is the second of our episodes on the first half of STRONG POISON. We talk about events up through chapter 11 and do not give away the whodunnit. Here’s our previous episode with part one of our discussion.

*Audio note: There is a slight high-pitched buzz in the background of this episode on Charis’ side of the audio that we could not quite edit out and do apologize for!

*Content note: We bring up the topic of narcissists and abusive relationships at two points in this episode. While we do not go into detail, if this is a topic you would rather not hear about, those discussions take place between minutes 23:40 and 25:04, and again between minutes 47:48 and 50:00.

Download the transcript for episode 11!

Shownotes: