Choose Your Own Adventure (Authors Edition)

[fictional]

Item: Lord Peter Wimsey.

Sadly Dorothy Sayers wrote Lord Peter mysteries of a finite number, and then moved onto religious plays, and Dante of all things...[and I say, wasn't one infernal poet enough??? I ask you. When the world could have been blessed with tales of Lady Peter (nee Miss Harriet Deborah Vane) and the Wimsey sproglets in WWII to say nothing of Bunter & Lord Peter's engrossing activities in Intelligence as well as those of Viscount St. George alias Jerry (it occurs to me that nickname couldn't have done him any favors in the RAF, now could it???) and his adventures in the Battle of Britain... from where I am sure he effected a daring escape of some kind, Miss Sayers' opinion to the contrary. And Winnifred. Perhaps we might actually meet her. And some more Dowager Duchess wouldn't come amiss. But I digress.]

So, okay, you read all the mysteries, then move on to the continuations by Jill Paton Walsh, then you want more. Naturally, being a person of sound taste and judgement, you proceed to the Wimsey fanfic on the web, all of it being of a surprising quality, but small in number. (Perhaps the explanation of the former lies in the latter.) You watch the filmed adaptations (Strong Poison and Have His Carcase excellent; Gaudy Night unforgivably awful).

And then? What then?

There are numerous directions to go: one can proceed to the incomparable Miss Heyer for the regency worldbuilding tinged with a gorgeous and delightful twenties/thirties aesthetic - (Incidentally Lord Peter's world, and Heyer's Regency are... surprisingly similar, now that I think of it. Including rhythms of phrase, etc.; says something about our tendency to merrily and muddily accept anything prewar and historical as "back then")... and know the path from there is straight towards comedies of manners, and probably on into fantasies of manners. Unexceptionable, what?

But suppose that's not desired... one can go and read inspirational texts... not the spiritual kind (not the chicken soup meaning anyway), but the ones that have their genesis in love. I've got Lois McMaster Bujold at my fingertips... and I remember my last reread of the Sayers oeuvre was in fact a sort of reverse application of this phenomenon -- I was desperate for more Miles Vorkosigan, and clearly the only thing to do was apply poultice of Lord Peter and hope for the best.

However! Ruthlessly back to the original quandary. One could go straight into P.G. Wodehouse say, and maybe after that wind up with a little Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)... and then... maybe a soupçon of Evelyn Waugh? Or backwards instead and choosing to indulge in a little, as Lord Peter might say, coming over all Galsworthy? I've always meant to give the Forsyte saga another wallop. And from thence backwards to Miss Austen? And then through to Emily Eden's "The Semi Attached Couple" and oh golly, back to la belle Georgette. A person could get dizzy with all this perambulating backwards and forwards in time.

[Incidentally, it occurs to me there is something quite Wimsey-esque to the Doctor and his TARDIS. Screwdriver/monocle, TARDIS/enviable Lagonda, post-(Time)war PTSD -- the arrogance, and the angst over condemning those that must be condemned... the list goes on and on. There's the fun of it all too.

Anyone up for a Tennant-Wimsey remake????

Incidentally, I wonder what pre-WWII era Torchwood would have made of Lord Peter....

...I but stir the pot.]

Thoughts? The important thing is to have a Plan.

Also, I really need a "reading books" icon.

Comments

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

You've seen the LPW/TW crossover? I'd never read the LPW stuff, but I liked the crossover. :P

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

If one were exceptionally stunted by their rural upbringing, and hadn't, you know, actually read any Dorothy Sayers ... where would you suggest one start?

Please advise by return post, after, certainly, taking some time to recover from the shock caused by the knowledge that there are still such uninformed readers out there...

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

If it were me, I'd read Margery Allingham, which is just what I did when I finished the Wimsey books at the age of 13 and had nowhere else to go. I never found an even remotely adequate substitute for Heyer though. She remains unique to this day.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

Anyone up for a Tennant-Wimsey remake????

Never do. David's much too hyper and not nearly horsey enough. :D

I waited for *years* for someone to figure out that Peter Davison would make a PERFECT Wimsey, on the other hand.

Edward Petherbridge is delightful as Wimsey, but agree that Gaudy Night was dreadful (but really, how can one collapse 500+ pages into 90 minutes well?)

LOVE Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane.

ETA: Sayers led me directly into Wodehouse, Waugh, and also Graham Greene. :) One might also suggest E.M. Forster for delicate romance..

[chimosa.livejournal.com]

OT- but are we on for tonight?

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I would actually go from Lord Peter to Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax series as having the same sort of quirky, intelligent lead.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I would do whatever it took to get Tennant as Wimsey. Whatever it took.

I opted to reject Jill Walsh's continuations of the Wimsey books, but instead to go the UUBERGEEK route of going up to Wheaton IL, where the original MS for Thrones Dominations is stashed, and reading Sayers' version of events. Her handwriting is atrocious but once you get used to it you only have to squint about four times a page.

If I could write mysteries I'd write more LPW fic; I'm pretty good at the piffle but the plot never seems right.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

I want Tennant to be Lymond. So bad.

[chiara7.livejournal.com]

I'm on the Tennant Bandwagon, waving a bottle of Cockburn '68 or whatever the damn vintage was. I'm with you; I can picture him, and only him.

I did love the original Ian Carmichael Wimseys on BBC, even if he was a little old for the part. Murder Must Advertise, in particular.

Of Sayers' near-contemporaries -- mystery-cum-comedy-of-manners writers -- the one I love next best is Josephine Tey, and by no means all her books equally. She's quite different from Sayers, far less engaged in class mechanics (as befits someone almost a generation younger), but with similar wit. "The Daughter of Time" and "Brat Ferrar" are my faves, with "Miss Pym Disposes" close behind (and how can you not love a book with a title like that).

And now, Sam, I'm deathly curious to know what you found from the Thrones, Dominations ms. There are about three scenes that ring very true to me in Paton's book (especially the state visit from Wimsey's godmother), and the rest I could dispense with, so I never read any of the later iterations.

*I'm really bad at deciphering handwriting. I took a paleography course once and had to quit in self-defense. Only after I had bled over a 15th c. manuscript, after stabbing myself with a pencil, of course.*

Having spent way too much of my professional life deciphering 15th-century mss., I can tell you that it does get easier, but that suicidal impulse never quite goes away.