The Curious Case of Dorothy L. Sayers & the Jew Who Wasn’t There
August 12, 2016 11:24 AM Subscribe
"More than her actual portraits of Jews, what comes through most clearly is the confused urgency of her emotions about them." -- For Moment, Amy E. Schwartz looks at How Dorothy L. Sayers treated her Jewish characters. Some spoilers, some antisemitic quotes.
Best and most illuminating essay on Sayers I've read yet.
posted by jamjam at 11:48 AM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 11:48 AM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have been around a long time and so I am already immune to the antisemitism that is in British literature, as well as lit and life in just about every Western nation. Now, antisemitism is no longer conventional, taken for granted, and so it not polite to voice such things in public. Sush. Say such things among your friends. T.S. Eliot, Pound, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and on and on. My view when I confront such things online: keep it up. It makes Israel a needed place, and with your views you help bring about the nation you now badmouth.
posted by Postroad at 12:02 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Postroad at 12:02 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've never managed to get past the first 50 pages a Sayers novel and I can't for the life of me understand why, as I should, by everything I understand of myself and the world, love her work. I'm pretty certain I'm letting myself down badly. Can someone point me at the best starting point?
posted by howfar at 12:03 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by howfar at 12:03 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also this is a fantastic essay.
posted by howfar at 12:03 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by howfar at 12:03 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
Oh man - so what made the 50 pages hard for you? I can recommend from there, I've read literally everything she's written about Wimsey, including the WWII letters.
posted by corb at 12:06 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by corb at 12:06 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
The Sayers mysteries are in the "comedy of manners" genre, as well as mystery. Her (non-Wimsey) play, Love All: A Comedy of Manners even has this in its subtitle. Most of the classes of people she writes about are written about in fairly broad strokes: the upper class twits, the bohemian artists, admen and women, the yeomanry, curates, the perfect butler etc. This is for better or for worse; this essay captures her Jewish characters pretty well.
There are well drawn individual characters, including Wimsey himself (eventually), Harriet Vane (pretty much from the start), even for minor characters like Hilary Thorpe in The Nine Tailors.
If you're looking for a first book to read, howfar, you might like Murder Must Advertise. It moves along at a good pace.
posted by willF at 12:30 PM on August 12, 2016 [7 favorites]
There are well drawn individual characters, including Wimsey himself (eventually), Harriet Vane (pretty much from the start), even for minor characters like Hilary Thorpe in The Nine Tailors.
If you're looking for a first book to read, howfar, you might like Murder Must Advertise. It moves along at a good pace.
posted by willF at 12:30 PM on August 12, 2016 [7 favorites]
This is really interesting. I read Gaudy Night a long, long time ago and wasn't hooked enough to continue (I'm not much of a mystery reader), but I don't remember Jews being particularly present. Will probably try again.
A bit of a derail, but I had the opportunity to take a seminar with R.W.B. Lewis, who wrote what is probably still the definitive biography of Edith Wharton, and I asked about her anti-Semitism (which occasionally shows up in her novels but is similarly not so overt as to indicate what the author actually thinks). And his response was that the only thing he left on the editing floor was references to her anti-Semitic leanings, partly because they were simultaneously so off-putting and so perfunctory that it didn't actually indicate how she felt. As if in prewar and between-the-wars Europe (or at least literary Europe?) talking about Jews in that way was so commonplace and accepted that people may not have even realized they were being offensive.
Not sure I believe you can give writers in particular a pass on not being aware on the weight of their words, but I wonder whether at some point attempting to reflect your culture may make it impossible to even casually push back against it without hijacking your story?
posted by Mchelly at 12:40 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
A bit of a derail, but I had the opportunity to take a seminar with R.W.B. Lewis, who wrote what is probably still the definitive biography of Edith Wharton, and I asked about her anti-Semitism (which occasionally shows up in her novels but is similarly not so overt as to indicate what the author actually thinks). And his response was that the only thing he left on the editing floor was references to her anti-Semitic leanings, partly because they were simultaneously so off-putting and so perfunctory that it didn't actually indicate how she felt. As if in prewar and between-the-wars Europe (or at least literary Europe?) talking about Jews in that way was so commonplace and accepted that people may not have even realized they were being offensive.
Not sure I believe you can give writers in particular a pass on not being aware on the weight of their words, but I wonder whether at some point attempting to reflect your culture may make it impossible to even casually push back against it without hijacking your story?
posted by Mchelly at 12:40 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
I had the opportunity to take a seminar with R.W.B. Lewis, who wrote what is probably still the definitive biography of Edith Wharton
No, I think rightfully displaced (though not obsoleted) by Hermione Lee's. She discusses Wharton's anti-Semitism in a little more detail. And...sorry, the depiction of Mr. Rosedale in House of Mirth, while not purely monstrous or caricature, is pretty overtly anti-Semitic. I am very fond of Wharton, but she clearly echoed her social circle's prejudices.
posted by praemunire at 1:08 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
No, I think rightfully displaced (though not obsoleted) by Hermione Lee's. She discusses Wharton's anti-Semitism in a little more detail. And...sorry, the depiction of Mr. Rosedale in House of Mirth, while not purely monstrous or caricature, is pretty overtly anti-Semitic. I am very fond of Wharton, but she clearly echoed her social circle's prejudices.
posted by praemunire at 1:08 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
Another Sayers addict checking in, so maybe we can help, howfar - what did you try? Although no pressure, there are writers out there that I also feel like I should love but haven't yet been able to penetrate (one example is Dorothy Dunnett, which is kind of ironic since I think one of her heroes is a very Lord Peter type?).
I've read pretty much all the Wimsey stuff and a few of her plays and also her Dante translation. I'm visiting London soon for the first time and plan to go swoon around Oxford like the most obnoxious of literary tourists.
posted by PussKillian at 1:09 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've read pretty much all the Wimsey stuff and a few of her plays and also her Dante translation. I'm visiting London soon for the first time and plan to go swoon around Oxford like the most obnoxious of literary tourists.
posted by PussKillian at 1:09 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
Sayers' treatment of Jews is very much in the "genteel" mode inherited from nineteenth-century anti-Semitism, which, as Anthony Julius has pointed out, is contemptuous rather than lethal. In some respects, it's reminiscent of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, which features a Jew, Mr. Brehgert, as one of its only truly decent characters, but which also can't quite make up its mind about how far Jews ought to be assimilated into English society. (Trollope has no patience with "medieval" anti-Semitism, of the blood libel/monstrous Jew/etc. variety, but he doesn't seem too happy with the prospect of intermarriage, either.) Mr. Brehgert also functions in much the same way as the Jewish lawyer in Sayers' novel, as an outsider voicing the author's critique of contemporary culture.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:27 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by thomas j wise at 1:27 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
That antisemitism was commonplace seems then to make it ok...odd. Try then to write bad stuff about gays or Blacks and simply say it is commonplace...When confronted, though, you can take this tack: Judge the art and not the artist. Exception: Ezra Pound. A man insane who went beyond a mere reference to Jews and in his Cantos suggested historical nonsense about Jews and the world of economics and deviltry.
posted by Postroad at 1:29 PM on August 12, 2016
posted by Postroad at 1:29 PM on August 12, 2016
I've been reluctant to reread Sayers ever since I heard the claims that there were anti-Semitic elements in her stories. Now I don't need to worry that the books will be ruined for me.
As for a starting point, how about Gaudy Night? Murder Must Advertise struck me as boring.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:47 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
As for a starting point, how about Gaudy Night? Murder Must Advertise struck me as boring.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:47 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Harriet Vane novels are (in this order): Strong Poison, Have His Carcase , Gaudy Night, Busman's Honeymoon. I personally would recommend them in that order.
posted by willF at 1:51 PM on August 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by willF at 1:51 PM on August 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Howfar: Five Red Herrings is all plot and jogs along at a cracking rate. The Nine Tailors has some of Sayers' best writing. Strong Poison is wonderfully atmospheric. Three good re-entry points, maybe.
posted by Prince Lazy I at 1:53 PM on August 12, 2016
posted by Prince Lazy I at 1:53 PM on August 12, 2016
Gaudy Night may be the most boring of Sayer's mysteries. I love her work, but Harriet Vane is a total Mary Sue and kinda meh. I love Nine Tailors, Five Red Herrings, and Murder Must Advertise best.
posted by dame at 1:58 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by dame at 1:58 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
(But I also worked in advertising.)
posted by dame at 2:00 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by dame at 2:00 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
willF, thanks. I was actually thinking of Strong Poison.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:06 PM on August 12, 2016
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:06 PM on August 12, 2016
Another Sayers addict chiming in -- Gaudy Night is my favorite book of all time, and the great forgotten feminist novel of the 20th century (IM not-very-humble O), but I wouldn't start there. I liked Murder Must Advertise and Nine Tailors the best, and Strong Poison to start on Harriet's story. Murder Must Advertise in particular is self-contained, and moves along at a cracking pace.
Away from her mysteries "Are Women Human?" (a long-ish essay) is a must-read.
posted by kalimac at 2:06 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
Away from her mysteries "Are Women Human?" (a long-ish essay) is a must-read.
posted by kalimac at 2:06 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
Murder must Advertise stands on it's own and contains my favor run on sentence (which is still also an accurate glimpse into the world of publishing AND may as well be my job description) thusly: "Mr. Bredon had been a week with Pym's Publicity, and had learnt a number of things. He learned the average number of words that can be crammed into four inches of copy; that Mr. Armstrong's fancy could be caught by an elaborately-drawn lay-out, whereas Mr. Hankin looked on art-work as waste of a copy-writer's time; that the word "pure" was dangerous, because if lightly used, it laid the client open to prosecution by the Government inspectors, whereas the words "highest quality," "finest ingredients," "packed under the best condidtions" had no legal meaning, and were therefore safe; that the expression "giving work to umpteen thousand British employees in our model works at so-and-so" was not by any means the same thing as "British made throughout"; that the north of England liked its butter and margarine salted, whereas the south preferred it fresh; that the Morning Star would not accept any advertisements containing the word "cure," though there was no objection to such expressions as "relieve" or "ameliorate," and that, further, any commodity that professed to "cure" anything might find itself compelled to register as a patent medicine and use an expensive stamp; that the most convincing copy was always written with the tongue in the cheek, a genuine conviction of the commodity's worth producing--for some reason--poverty and flatness of style; that if, by the most far-fetched 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; that the great aim and object of the studio artist was to crowd out the advertisement and that, conversely, the copy-writer was a designing villain whose ambition was to cram the space with verbiage and leave no room for the sketch; that the lay-out man, a meek ass between two burdens, spent a miserable life trying to reconcile these opposing parties; and further, that all departments alike united in hatred of the client, who persisted in spoiling good lay-outs by cluttering them up with coupons, free-gift offers, lists of local agents and realistic portraists of hideous and uninteresting cartons, to the detriment of his own interests and the annoyance of everybody concerned."
posted by a humble nudibranch at 2:31 PM on August 12, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 2:31 PM on August 12, 2016 [18 favorites]
Here I will confess that I have read Five Red Herrings once, and decided life was too short, even for Sayers, to ever attempt it again. I think Murder Must Advertise is a great entry point because it's so much snappy fun, but if not, the Strong Poison-Have His Carcase-Gaudy Night route might be the best way to go.
Gaudy Night is my favorite book of all time, and the great forgotten feminist novel of the 20th century (IM not-very-humble O)
Enthusiastically agree. And I swear I'm not pointing fingers, dame, but calling Harriet Vane a Mary Sue makes me want to bite. I think it gets into the "haw haw, stupid lady artist fell in love with her own creation" thing that I've seen around and I really hate it.
posted by PussKillian at 2:31 PM on August 12, 2016 [9 favorites]
Gaudy Night is my favorite book of all time, and the great forgotten feminist novel of the 20th century (IM not-very-humble O)
Enthusiastically agree. And I swear I'm not pointing fingers, dame, but calling Harriet Vane a Mary Sue makes me want to bite. I think it gets into the "haw haw, stupid lady artist fell in love with her own creation" thing that I've seen around and I really hate it.
posted by PussKillian at 2:31 PM on August 12, 2016 [9 favorites]
a humble
I had always thought a "run on sentence" was something NOT to do in writing.
"A run-on is a sentence in which two or more independent clauses (i.e. complete sentences) are joined without an appropriate punctuation or conjunction. For example: It is nearly half past five we cannot reach town before dark".
posted by Postroad at 2:38 PM on August 12, 2016
I had always thought a "run on sentence" was something NOT to do in writing.
"A run-on is a sentence in which two or more independent clauses (i.e. complete sentences) are joined without an appropriate punctuation or conjunction. For example: It is nearly half past five we cannot reach town before dark".
posted by Postroad at 2:38 PM on August 12, 2016
Gaudy Night is my favorite book of all time, and the great forgotten feminist novel of the 20th century (IM not-very-humble O)
Enthusiastically thirded. I am not joking when I say it's basically Dorothy Sayers' fault that I have a master's degree from Oxford--and it's telling how many women academics and writers I've met (from some very different social and cultural backgrounds, too) turn out to have read that book at a formative age. I was 14 or 15, I think, and I've probably reread it at least once a year since. What's particularly striking (and kind of depressing) to me as a now-thirtysomething reader is how much less dated the core themes about women's struggle to gain recognition for their intellectual and emotional labor, and reconcile that struggle with their personal lives, seem than they did when I was a teenager.
Also this is a great piece--the casual anti-Semitism (and racism, classism, etc) in the novels is something I've always wrestled with as a reader, and Schwartz has complicated my reading of it in a new way.
posted by karayel at 2:46 PM on August 12, 2016 [12 favorites]
Enthusiastically thirded. I am not joking when I say it's basically Dorothy Sayers' fault that I have a master's degree from Oxford--and it's telling how many women academics and writers I've met (from some very different social and cultural backgrounds, too) turn out to have read that book at a formative age. I was 14 or 15, I think, and I've probably reread it at least once a year since. What's particularly striking (and kind of depressing) to me as a now-thirtysomething reader is how much less dated the core themes about women's struggle to gain recognition for their intellectual and emotional labor, and reconcile that struggle with their personal lives, seem than they did when I was a teenager.
Also this is a great piece--the casual anti-Semitism (and racism, classism, etc) in the novels is something I've always wrestled with as a reader, and Schwartz has complicated my reading of it in a new way.
posted by karayel at 2:46 PM on August 12, 2016 [12 favorites]
Gaudy Night got so under my skin that it took a while to reconcile myself to the fact that I wasn't cut out to go for a PhD. Sayers' description of what a scholar does was beautiful, and most of all seemed so restful. I work for a university now, and see how complicated the world of academia can be, but the idea of putting your small mite of research on the pile of human knowledge is really romantically beautiful.
posted by PussKillian at 2:58 PM on August 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 2:58 PM on August 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh yes, her portrait of academia is more than a little bit rose-tinted (though there's some very funny portrayals of scholarly pettiness and infighting in there, too). That's what makes it such a dangerous read for a bookish teenager inclined to idealize the academic life....
posted by karayel at 3:07 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by karayel at 3:07 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
I can trace my emotional coming of age by the difference between my reactions to Gaudy Night at my first reading and my second. When I first read it in high school I sympathised with many of the opinions expressed by the perpetrator, and couldn't really understand why Harriet and Peter kept stepping around each other and not just getting on with it. The second time of reading, I was in my late twenties, and the difference in my reaction and my understanding was astonishing. It was as if I were reading a totally different book, but it was I who had changed.
I reread Gaudy Night periodically, and it's always a delight, and still relevant in its exploration of inner and outer tensions for women.
posted by andraste at 4:00 PM on August 12, 2016 [7 favorites]
I reread Gaudy Night periodically, and it's always a delight, and still relevant in its exploration of inner and outer tensions for women.
posted by andraste at 4:00 PM on August 12, 2016 [7 favorites]
Oh man, PussKillian. I love books more than men and generally don't call things a Mary Sue, but Harriet Vane is the worst author stand in I have ever read. Your shining knight will wait forever! He won't expect you to give up everything but you get to be rich! and loved! and perfect! Barf-o.
Obviously opinions differ, but to me Gaudy Night lets a bunch of boring meditations interrupt a good mystery — and I would probably read the rest of those meditations in another book, but not when I want a good time.
(All this disagreement is said with good humor; I hope it comes across. :) )
posted by dame at 4:11 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
Obviously opinions differ, but to me Gaudy Night lets a bunch of boring meditations interrupt a good mystery — and I would probably read the rest of those meditations in another book, but not when I want a good time.
(All this disagreement is said with good humor; I hope it comes across. :) )
posted by dame at 4:11 PM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
"The Nine Tailors" is my favorite. When I was a teenager I loooooved "Gaudy Night", but re-reading it as an adult makes me agree with Dame-
posted by acrasis at 4:25 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 4:25 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
But Peter Wimsey - glorious as he is - isn't perfect!
I have been unpacking layers and layers from these books as I got older, and one thing that I just want to spotlight is Peter Wimsey /as a reaction to the Great War/. It is one of the most realistic portrayals of struggling with PTSD I have ever seen in fiction. Here's a detective that feels he must catch murderers, and still follows the story to the murderer's hanging, and the detective isn't quite comfortable with it - the responsibility for the death of a man still reverberates with him.
Gaudy Night must be read after the others, or it will be incomprehensible. But you're all wrong - it's Busman's Holiday that is the most romantic book ever, which depicts real romantic fighting and the compromises you make and the compromises you can't make.
posted by corb at 4:33 PM on August 12, 2016 [17 favorites]
I have been unpacking layers and layers from these books as I got older, and one thing that I just want to spotlight is Peter Wimsey /as a reaction to the Great War/. It is one of the most realistic portrayals of struggling with PTSD I have ever seen in fiction. Here's a detective that feels he must catch murderers, and still follows the story to the murderer's hanging, and the detective isn't quite comfortable with it - the responsibility for the death of a man still reverberates with him.
Gaudy Night must be read after the others, or it will be incomprehensible. But you're all wrong - it's Busman's Holiday that is the most romantic book ever, which depicts real romantic fighting and the compromises you make and the compromises you can't make.
posted by corb at 4:33 PM on August 12, 2016 [17 favorites]
I love Gaudy Night with an embarrassing amount of love but Nine Tailors may just barely edge it out. They are my two favorite Sayers books and as a child, they ruined more "age appropriate" books for me.
posted by rtha at 7:51 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by rtha at 7:51 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Lord Peter is the Mary Sue, Harriet Vane is the self-insert, there's a difference! Plays cricket too well, that's not a real flaw, DLS.
posted by betweenthebars at 8:35 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 8:35 PM on August 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
One of the things that rescues the books for me is that the mysteries, and the whole plot, wind up integrating their Jewish characters more closely into British society. It seems to me that a big subtle point of mystery novels is deciding what can and can't be resolved into society, after the flashy flashpoint violence. Anyway, Freddie, idiot savant though he seems to be, is a clearly moral person -- not least when he makes clear to Harriet that's she has been rude to Wimsey -- and winding into a happy Rachel-and-Freddie marriage feels like a final vote for equality to me. (Insofar as Sayers has any interest in equality, which, hoo.)
Heyer's is unredeemable, though.
posted by clew at 9:13 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Heyer's is unredeemable, though.
posted by clew at 9:13 PM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
This was a very interesting read, thank you.
I read all the novels as a teen, and then the Dante translation out of desperate need for more Sayers - so she got me into Dante. I don't remember noticing the anti-semitism, but the language described in the essay is very much what I grew up with: my great-grandparents on both sides were mixed couples of the same generation as Sayers, and our family life was filled with endless rumination and worry over what that might mean and how it should be dealt with (even as I only remember the grandparents who inherited those worries from their parents, and then of course my own parents). Later in life I've wondered at how many anti-semitic tropes were mixed up with Jewish traditions and thinking in everyday life and conversation in our family. Silly case in point: every single time we had pork or shellfish, my maternal granddad had to explain why it was OK, because we were in the north, and those rules were made for the desert. It took ages before I even got what he was talking about.
posted by mumimor at 11:51 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
I read all the novels as a teen, and then the Dante translation out of desperate need for more Sayers - so she got me into Dante. I don't remember noticing the anti-semitism, but the language described in the essay is very much what I grew up with: my great-grandparents on both sides were mixed couples of the same generation as Sayers, and our family life was filled with endless rumination and worry over what that might mean and how it should be dealt with (even as I only remember the grandparents who inherited those worries from their parents, and then of course my own parents). Later in life I've wondered at how many anti-semitic tropes were mixed up with Jewish traditions and thinking in everyday life and conversation in our family. Silly case in point: every single time we had pork or shellfish, my maternal granddad had to explain why it was OK, because we were in the north, and those rules were made for the desert. It took ages before I even got what he was talking about.
posted by mumimor at 11:51 PM on August 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
I think one shouldn't start on the Harriet Vane subseries before having sampled Wimsey on his own and as mentioned, both Murder Must Advertise (my own first) and Nine Tailors are standalone novels, written at the peak of Sayers' craft. They also form a good contrast with each other. MMA is a very 'modern' book, a very City book, whereas Tailors has a very traditional, rural, English feel to it.
Afterwards, just read the rest in publication order.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:25 PM on August 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
Afterwards, just read the rest in publication order.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:25 PM on August 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
Thanks all for responses! I tried The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, and I think I struggled because I felt oddly detached from life and personality of the world. I say "oddly" because I am usually more likely to read books from the interwar period than any other single period. So something with a strong and engaging sense of place right from the outset would maybe be useful in drawing me in. I also read some of the stories in Lord Peter Views the Body and I was impressed by the puzzle side of things but felt emotionally and sensually understimulated. I have a feeling that once I'm in, that will not be a problem anymore, so (beyond the suggestions above) anything that hits that note would be awesome.
posted by howfar at 5:52 PM on August 13, 2016
posted by howfar at 5:52 PM on August 13, 2016
I am stuck in rural PA right now visiting family, with a complete collection of Wimsey. I will report back on the best book to start. :)
posted by corb at 8:45 PM on August 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by corb at 8:45 PM on August 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
Late to this thread but...
So something with a strong and engaging sense of place right from the outset would maybe be useful in drawing me in.
In that case you definitely want The Nine Tailors. I feel a bit chilly just thinking of its setting in the soggy fens.
This essay is interesting to me because I love Sayers (and yes I have a PhD now, and I studied abroad in England for a year, and yes all of that has a lot to do with my love of Sayers) and also I married into a Jewish family and have kids who have a Jewish dad and gentile mom. But I'd never considered the two aspects of my life in light of each other before.
Anyway I agree with the author that "all I can feel for this arc is sympathy." Had this Cournos fellow appreciated what he'd got, it sounds like Dorothy Sayers, like me, would've married into a Jewish family and had children with both kinds of heritage, and who knows how her theology would then have developed. It might've become idiosyncratic in entirely different ways. It's fun to imagine.
(As it is I feel like Sayers' religious writing is a sort of world-building exercise for an alternate universe where God organized things rather better, spelled out his rules more clearly, and intervened more directly, such that everything just makes more sense. By imagining myself in that universe I can muster much more tolerance and respect for aspects of Christianity that I would otherwise dislike. I wonder what that world she paints would look like if her own life had been different...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:40 PM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
So something with a strong and engaging sense of place right from the outset would maybe be useful in drawing me in.
In that case you definitely want The Nine Tailors. I feel a bit chilly just thinking of its setting in the soggy fens.
This essay is interesting to me because I love Sayers (and yes I have a PhD now, and I studied abroad in England for a year, and yes all of that has a lot to do with my love of Sayers) and also I married into a Jewish family and have kids who have a Jewish dad and gentile mom. But I'd never considered the two aspects of my life in light of each other before.
Anyway I agree with the author that "all I can feel for this arc is sympathy." Had this Cournos fellow appreciated what he'd got, it sounds like Dorothy Sayers, like me, would've married into a Jewish family and had children with both kinds of heritage, and who knows how her theology would then have developed. It might've become idiosyncratic in entirely different ways. It's fun to imagine.
(As it is I feel like Sayers' religious writing is a sort of world-building exercise for an alternate universe where God organized things rather better, spelled out his rules more clearly, and intervened more directly, such that everything just makes more sense. By imagining myself in that universe I can muster much more tolerance and respect for aspects of Christianity that I would otherwise dislike. I wonder what that world she paints would look like if her own life had been different...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:40 PM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Her The Lost Tools of Learning makes a lot more sense in that alternate universe. It isn't terrible in this one, despite the hard Anglican swerve.
posted by clew at 3:39 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by clew at 3:39 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by corb at 11:36 AM on August 12, 2016 [7 favorites]