October '06 discussion thread: Gaudy Night

[Caryl]

Here is our discussion thread for Gaudy Night, our October group read. As always, be cautious of reading the posts below if you haven't finished, as they may contain spoilers.

[Caryl]

I have just over 100 pages left of this book, and I have no idea how it's going to end. The mystery has me as baffled as it has Harriet.

I love the characters of Harriet and Lord Peter, and I'm wondering how Sayers will leave things with them, too. I've never read Sayers before, and I'm enjoying it. I just requested the first Wimsey mystery from the library, Whose Body?

[Maribeth]

Caryl - I won't spoil the fun for you except to say, it ends differently than I expected in some ways, but not all, if that makes any sense

I picked up Whose Body? at my last trip to the library. It's much shorter but I have some other books I need to get back before I read it.

There were parts of Gaudy Night that got a tad dull and yet I enjoyed it. It's an intelligent type of mystery without all the gore. I'm reading Kate Atkinson's latest right now and it gets quite gory and dark in places. I'm not in a good place to handle that right now so Sayers' type of mystery writing fits the bill quite well, if you know what I mean. I loved the setting too. Can't you picture Harriet and Lord Peter floating down the river in their fancy outfits. Such a different age! I think I read that Dorothy Sayers graduated from a woman's college at Oxford way back when - possibly one of the first graduating classes so it made me wonder how much of Dorothy is in Harriet's character.