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.
