In Defense of Sayers
Dorothy Sayers didn't just write the classic essay on classical education. She didn't just write that marvelous quote that my roommate put up beside my bureau, the one about how women should be allowed to wear pants. She also wrote mystery novels.
I know, I know... you're going to say that mystery novels are fluff. After that, you will probably make tsking noises in my general direction, wiggle your eyebrows, and indicate that you really thought better of me. You're going to ask why I waste my time on such things instead of doing nice wholesome reading--for example, German philosophers or English poets. Your argumentative speech will wind up to a fever pitch of drama and pathetic appeal, and right about the moment that you are getting into the rhetorical questions, such as "Did God make man with reason so that man might abuse it? Is this what a classically-educated young mind comes to after only a week out of school? Shall the halls of academia be thus polluted!?!"
It is at this point that we will begin to have a quibble.
Sayers novels are a tradition in my family. Or rather I should say, good literature is a tradition in my family, and Sayers is good literature. The number, quality, and kind of classical quotes or allusions with which she manages to stuff her dialogue are simply astonishing. During Finals, the High Queen sent me a youthful effort of Keats (perfectly foul, by the way) of which the last two lines read,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.
Now these very same (admittedly horrendous) lines of verse struck my open ear and hurt it, but with a familiar pain. I had heard them before. "Where?" I inquired of myself, and back came the answer "Sayer's Gaudy Night." "Ah." I said to myself. "Of course." In that remarkable book, which is, among other things, a profound analysis of women in academia, Sayers' hero Lord Peter quotes the same lines, and the heroine, Harriet, asks where on earth he got them, for they are (and will be eternally) awful. I know about the juvenalia of a famous Romantic poet--which is just the sort of obscure detail that teachers delight to find in their students' brains--because of this selfsame "fluff mystery novel." I know an hundred other allusions because of Sayers. I have been educated by this "trash" above and beyond the ordinary scope of undergrads. Sayers, to misuse Lucretius' line in praise of Venus, is an alma mater, a nourishing mother.
Ye heavens above and snails below!--who are you, O turned-up and pinched nose, to scorn such magnificence as a Sayers book? What, will you even sneer on Strong Poison and Busman's Honeymoon? Know you not that it was Sayers alone who put into her novel--splendid woman!--a marriage proposal in Latin? Do you not understand that Sayers is capable of making quotation-laden and banterful dialogue, a thing which I have never seen so well executed by anybody else? Give me another author who so loved the English language, who had such joy of it, and bid that author, "Desist from writing novels." See if they will!
Examine your conscience, and so I leave you... Have His Carcase is calling me.
PS: This tirade brought to you by (or brought on by, at any rate) all the wonderful, usually wise, and well-meaning persons who have scorned Sayers in my presence over the last few months.
I know, I know... you're going to say that mystery novels are fluff. After that, you will probably make tsking noises in my general direction, wiggle your eyebrows, and indicate that you really thought better of me. You're going to ask why I waste my time on such things instead of doing nice wholesome reading--for example, German philosophers or English poets. Your argumentative speech will wind up to a fever pitch of drama and pathetic appeal, and right about the moment that you are getting into the rhetorical questions, such as "Did God make man with reason so that man might abuse it? Is this what a classically-educated young mind comes to after only a week out of school? Shall the halls of academia be thus polluted!?!"
It is at this point that we will begin to have a quibble.
Sayers novels are a tradition in my family. Or rather I should say, good literature is a tradition in my family, and Sayers is good literature. The number, quality, and kind of classical quotes or allusions with which she manages to stuff her dialogue are simply astonishing. During Finals, the High Queen sent me a youthful effort of Keats (perfectly foul, by the way) of which the last two lines read,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.
Now these very same (admittedly horrendous) lines of verse struck my open ear and hurt it, but with a familiar pain. I had heard them before. "Where?" I inquired of myself, and back came the answer "Sayer's Gaudy Night." "Ah." I said to myself. "Of course." In that remarkable book, which is, among other things, a profound analysis of women in academia, Sayers' hero Lord Peter quotes the same lines, and the heroine, Harriet, asks where on earth he got them, for they are (and will be eternally) awful. I know about the juvenalia of a famous Romantic poet--which is just the sort of obscure detail that teachers delight to find in their students' brains--because of this selfsame "fluff mystery novel." I know an hundred other allusions because of Sayers. I have been educated by this "trash" above and beyond the ordinary scope of undergrads. Sayers, to misuse Lucretius' line in praise of Venus, is an alma mater, a nourishing mother.
Ye heavens above and snails below!--who are you, O turned-up and pinched nose, to scorn such magnificence as a Sayers book? What, will you even sneer on Strong Poison and Busman's Honeymoon? Know you not that it was Sayers alone who put into her novel--splendid woman!--a marriage proposal in Latin? Do you not understand that Sayers is capable of making quotation-laden and banterful dialogue, a thing which I have never seen so well executed by anybody else? Give me another author who so loved the English language, who had such joy of it, and bid that author, "Desist from writing novels." See if they will!
Examine your conscience, and so I leave you... Have His Carcase is calling me.
PS: This tirade brought to you by (or brought on by, at any rate) all the wonderful, usually wise, and well-meaning persons who have scorned Sayers in my presence over the last few months.
posted by Praelucor at 1:09 PM
4 Comments:
From Lisa: I don't believe it's at all non-literary to enjoy Dorothy Sayers. Mystery is after all another literary genre... and though some of it is cheap, some of it is truly good art. Will you send me the Dorothy Sayers quote on pants?
Have you ever read Agatha Christie? She is lots of fun... my favorite mystery by her is titled Curtain. It's actually her final book, in which Hercules Poirot dies. But the plot of the book is amazing and so thought-provoking... I assigned it to some of my students last fall as a literature selection, and it inspired very interesting discussion.
I have read some Agatha Christie, and have great respect for her writing abilities. :)
Christy, know what? She also wrote plays! I was looking up some Sayers mysteries in the library computer, and I noticed this phenomenon. So I took out a book that has two plays she wrote. One is about Lord Peter's and Harriet's life after they get married. :) The other is a somewhat depressing comedy (heh!) in which this foolish man is trying to divorce his wife for favor of this actress, and then he finds out that his beloved and slightly boring wife has been writing plays, and that his actress friend is determined to act in one of them... It's clever, but as I said, depressing.
Anyway, I just thought it was funny that you were writing about Sayers and Lisa was writing about Annie Dillard, both of whom are authors whom I had determined to read this summer. :) I have finished The Writing Life already.
SAYERS IS NOT FLUFF! SAYERS IS BRILLIANT AND ALSO WELL-EDUCATED!!!
The hysterics hereby end. I also feel firmly about this subject. :-D Thank you, Trissie, for the post.
Did y'all know Sayers also wrote a fair amount of theology? I have *Creed or Chaos* (complete with remarkably Catholic intro) and *Mind of the Maker*--or rather, Megan has my copy of the latter--if anyone wants to borrow them. :-)
--She Who Signs with the Sign of the Mouse <:3 )----
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