Tag: as my wimsey takes me podcast

Episode 26: The Nine Tailors, part 1

~ Charis Ellison

In which Charis and Sharon are back to begin discussing THE NINE TAILORS. We cover the first section of the book, the strong sense of place and atmosphere, and puzzle over where this book fits into the Wimsey chronology.

The Ngaio Marsh book that Charis found so tediously lacking in corpses was TIED UP IN TINSEL (1972)

As part of our discussion about the various young women in Sayers’ novels we refer back to our special episode with Mo Moulton, in which they joined us to discuss their book THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY: HOW DOROTHY L. SAYERS AND HER OXFORD CIRCLE REMADE THE WORLD FOR WOMEN and which you can listen to here.

Episode 25: Murder Must Advertise, part 4

~ Sharon

In which Charis and Sharon wrap up our discussion of MURDER MUST ADVERTISE with an early reveal of the whodunnit and then our longest conversation yet on the howdunnit, various side quests offered up by the double identity plot, cricket, the novel’s sympathy for the murderer, and more!

This episode covers events and revelations from chapter seven through the end of the book and reveals the whodunnit.

Shownotes:

  • 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.
  • We bring up James Joyce’s Ulysses in our discussion of the catalogue of capitalistic advertisement.
  • Sharon refers to a proleptic moment in Strong Poison in our discussion of the opening of chapter 11. The full quote is: “Wimsey was accustomed to say, when he was an old man and more talkative even than usual, that the recollection of that Christmas at Duke’s Denver had haunted him in nightmares, every night regularly, for the following twenty years.”
  • Peter’s quotation of “Tears, idle tears” comes from a Tennyson poem.
  • Charis brings up the film Remember the Titans and Sharon brings up the TV show Friday Night Lights in the preamble of our conversation about the cricket.

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 23: Murder Must Advertise, part 2

~ Charis Ellison

In which Charis and Sharon continue our conversation on MURDER MUST ADVERTISE, beginning with a discussion of literary Modernism and why Sharon views this as the most Modernist of the Wimsey novels. We also run through the copy department staff and their merits as coworkers, summarize the Great Nutrax Row, get a welcome dose of domestic bliss and a glimpse of marital equality during a visit to the Parkers, and touch briefly on Peter’s antics moonlighting as a masked harlequin.

This episode touches on events and revelations through the eleventh chapter, and does not give away the whodunnit.

Shownotes:

  • Sharon refers back to our second episode on Whose Body, which also discusses literary Modernism. She mentions THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford, and ULYSSES by James Joyce–particularly the episode ‘Aeolus’, which Sharon connects with the end of chapter five in MURDER MUST ADVERTISE. Sharon references THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY (Paul Fussell), an influential book of literary criticism. Fussell’s thesis is that the trauma of WWI necessitated the changes in poetic language and narrative representation that gave rise to Modernist forms.
  • In discussing the plethora of minor characters, Sharon refers to Alex Woloch’s THE ONE VS. THE MANY: MINOR CHARACTERS AND THE SPACE OF THE PROTAGONIST IN THE NOVEL
  • Charis paraphrases chapter three of MURDER MUST ADVERTISE, the exact quote being “…if, by the most farfetched stretch of ingenuity, an indecent meaning could be read into a headline, that was the meaning that the great British Public would infallibly read into it…”
  • The lamp that brought the quote to mind:
  • “This is the most Bruce Wayne–” Bruce Wayne is, of course, the billionaire playboy behind the mask of Batman.
  • “What in the Sexton Blake is that, Peter?” Sexton Blake was a popular pulp detective fiction character during the era of Dorothy L. Sayers, and a particular favorite of Peter’s young friend Ginger Joe.

Episode 22: Murder Must Advertise, part 1

~ Charis Ellison

In which Charis and Sharon begin our conversation on MURDER MUST ADVERTISE and introduce the mysterious goings-on at Pym’s Publicity that summon one Death Bredon to investigate. We cover the difference between the “mystery of the mystery” and the “mystery of the text,” Dorothy L. Sayers’ own work at an advertising agency, her views on mass consumption and the tricky ethics of the advertising trade, and more.

This episode touches on events and revelations from the beginning of MURDER MUST ADVERTISE to approximately halfway through the fourth chapter, and does not give away the whodunnit.

Shownotes:

  • The excerpts Sharon pulls from Sayers’ letters to her publisher regarding writing MURDER MUST ADVERTISE and to her parents about her job at Benson’s ad agency come from The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers 1899 to 1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist (edited by Barbara Reynolds). Regarding MMA, the full quote from her letter to Victor Gollancz, her publisher, reads as follows from a letter she sent him in September 1932: “The new book is nearly done. I hate it because it isn’t the one I wanted to write, but I had to shove it in because I couldn’t get the technical dope on The Nine Tailors in time. still, you never know what the public will fancy, do you? It will tell people a little bit about hte technical side of advertising, which most people are inquisitive about, and it deals with the dope-traffic, which is fashionable at the moment, but I don’t feel that this part is very convincing, as I can’t say I ‘know dope.’ Not one of my best efforts. The Nine Tailors will be a labour of love—and probably a flop!”
  • We briefly mention the TV shows Mad Men and Leverage
  • Note that Sharon initially correctly notes the dates Sayers worked at Benson’s ad agency (1922-1931) and then immediately misspeaks twice and says she left in 1929.
  • The essay on “The Other Six Deadly Sins” that Sharon brings up in our conversation about Sayers’ disapproval of mass consumption and advertising as a means to create a public appetite for goods that people do not need was initially delivered in 1941 and then published in her Creed or Chaos? collection in 1949. Sharon cites from the essay as it appears in the more widely available collection Letters to a Diminished Church.
  • We bring up Amanda Mull’s essay “Your Sweaters Are Garbage” (The Atlantic, October 2023) in our conversation about fast fashion. For further reading/listening on this topic, we recommend the Culture Study podcast episode “Why Do Clothes Suck Now” as well as Aja Barber’s book Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism. Charis refers as well to “the Vimes boot theory” which is taken from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and proudly has its own Wikipedia page.
  • When Sharon mentions Ursula K. LeGuin’s injunction that we must imagine our way out of capitalism, she is referring to LeGuin’s remarks in her acceptance speech for the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” You can find video of the full speech and transcript here.

Episode 21: HAVE HIS CARCASE, part 4

~ Charis Ellison

In which Charis and Sharon wrap up our discussion (finally!) of HAVE HIS CARCASE. We pick up about halfway through the book with an emotional watershed moment for Peter and Harriet, cover the discovery of the corpse and subsequent hullabaloo, and give away the whodunnit and howdunnit. Also in this episode: some fond ribbing of Theater People, Mrs. Weldon as the series’ Final Girl when it comes to elderly women murdered for their fortunes, our impatience with ciphers, and more!

Shownotes:

  • Many thanks to supporters who’ve joined us on Patreon! We’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes content, creating open posts for patrons to chat with us after each episode drops, and if you sign up at the $20/month Dowager Duchess level, Charis will sing every verse of “On Ilkla Moor Baht’at” to you (or the victim of your choosing).
  • Sharon is never not bringing up The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and this episode is no exception.
  • Sharon also mentions the American competitive cooking show Chopped, in which chefs must create three courses out of secret ingredient boxes.
  • The audiobooks that Charis listens to are the ones narrated by Sir Ian Carmichael.
  • You’ll also get to hear us look up details of Thomas Beddoes’ Death’s Jest Book in real time in this episode.
  • Sharon quotes from Sayers’ letter to her cousin Ivy Shrimpton, collected in The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899 to 1936: “I am struggling wiht another book—horribly complicated! But it must be done, under contract, so there’s nothing for it but to wire in and work it out.”
  • Charis would like it to be known that all her comments about Theater People come from a fond place, as she herself is also a Theater Person and can do the Alpha Psi Omega secret handshake to prove it!
  • Thank you to our patrons who’ve joined the Patreon at the $5 and up/month level as of the date we recorded this episode: Rose O., Jan L., Caisee F., Jessie S., Sarah C., Katherine S., and Kindra C. Your support literally makes this work possible!

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.