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Dorothy L. Sayers: A Careless Rage for Life
This biography of the novelist Dorothy Leigh Sayers - the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and the bestselling author of a dozen detective novels - brings out the spiritual pilgrimage and struggle at the heart of Sayers' life story. The author, who draws on thousands of letters Sayers wrote, reveals her to be a complex woman. Sayers was a very private person who even hid the existence of an illegitimate child from her closest friends. She was also someone to whom faith was central and wrote many theological books as well as the famous detective novels. Her radio play on the life of Christ, "The Man Born to be King", caused a furore when it was first broadcast and went on to win acclaim. She was linked with the Inklings - the group of writers which included C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien and others.
222 pages, paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
May 21, 2016
I'm a bit puzzled about what to write about this book. It definitely wasn't what I was hoping for, and was therefore rather disappointing. Intrinsically, however, it still wasn't great. There are a LOT of generalizations that are unexplained (about things DLS said or did or felt), and while it's great that Mr. Coomes read so very much of DLS's correspondence as part of his research, it would have been nice if he'd synthesized some of it rather than quoting from the letters in pages-long chunks.
I actually found a fairly significant portion of those letters completely impenetrable. Part of that was a lack of context, and part of it seems to have been stylistic - which is odd since I love Sayers' writing style when she was writing fiction.
Most of the effort in this book seems to have gone into trying to understand DLS's life-long "intellectual" struggle with her faith. I actually couldn't have cared less about that aspect of her life. Additionally, her letter-writing about the topic was always (quite rightfully, I'm sure, since it was her correspondence) quite heavily reliant on a fairly deep knowledge of Christian theology. I have almost zero knowledge of Christian theology, and certainly not enough to understand the finer points Sayers' wrote about (both in letters and in the plays she wrote for radio and various church benefits). ETA: in a similar vein to the lack of synthesis, Mr. Coomes provides no theological information or context for the readers who might need it, and he never bothers to explain why this area is so critical to him in understanding Sayers. (Yes, I get that it was a big part of her life, but Coomes doesn't balance it with other parts.)
Near the end of the book Coomes mentions that all her friends remember DLS as being enormous fun to be around. Coomes never showed me that woman. As a result, I come away unimpressed by both the book and its subject.
I actually found a fairly significant portion of those letters completely impenetrable. Part of that was a lack of context, and part of it seems to have been stylistic - which is odd since I love Sayers' writing style when she was writing fiction.
Most of the effort in this book seems to have gone into trying to understand DLS's life-long "intellectual" struggle with her faith. I actually couldn't have cared less about that aspect of her life. Additionally, her letter-writing about the topic was always (quite rightfully, I'm sure, since it was her correspondence) quite heavily reliant on a fairly deep knowledge of Christian theology. I have almost zero knowledge of Christian theology, and certainly not enough to understand the finer points Sayers' wrote about (both in letters and in the plays she wrote for radio and various church benefits). ETA: in a similar vein to the lack of synthesis, Mr. Coomes provides no theological information or context for the readers who might need it, and he never bothers to explain why this area is so critical to him in understanding Sayers. (Yes, I get that it was a big part of her life, but Coomes doesn't balance it with other parts.)
Near the end of the book Coomes mentions that all her friends remember DLS as being enormous fun to be around. Coomes never showed me that woman. As a result, I come away unimpressed by both the book and its subject.
March 17, 2018
I absolutely love the Lord Peter Wimsey novels, but I have never known much about the author. This book really opened my eyes about her.
Part of the fun of this book was how the author wove Sayers' books and plays into the biography, because so much of her writing has autobiographical bits in it. I also loved that, even though the book was written by a man, it was read by a woman (I listened to this on hoopla), and a feminine narrator was quite fitting because so many of Sayers' letters were part of the book.
Sayers was a complex person. She was the daughter of a minister, attended Oxford, had a child out of wedlock, then married a man who would not live with her son so she paid someone else to raise her son.
She had a lucrative job at an advertising agency for years. After she wrote the Wimsey novels the BBC asked her to write a Christmas play for their Children's Hour; the result was The Mind of the Maker, and this seemed to turn her life more toward theological writing. She wrote plays and wrestled mightily with her faith. Her crowning achievement was a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Sayers' personality also comes through in this biography. She was quite intelligent, passionate about her work, a loyal friend, not one to shy from a debate over something she felt strongly about. After reading this book I feel that Lord Peter Wimsey is just a peek into the person Sayers was. I hope to read more of what she has written, and maybe even take a trip to the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton which collects Sayers' writings along with other writers of her time.
I would highly recommend this biography to anyone who wants to know more about Dorothy L. Sayers.
Part of the fun of this book was how the author wove Sayers' books and plays into the biography, because so much of her writing has autobiographical bits in it. I also loved that, even though the book was written by a man, it was read by a woman (I listened to this on hoopla), and a feminine narrator was quite fitting because so many of Sayers' letters were part of the book.
Sayers was a complex person. She was the daughter of a minister, attended Oxford, had a child out of wedlock, then married a man who would not live with her son so she paid someone else to raise her son.
She had a lucrative job at an advertising agency for years. After she wrote the Wimsey novels the BBC asked her to write a Christmas play for their Children's Hour; the result was The Mind of the Maker, and this seemed to turn her life more toward theological writing. She wrote plays and wrestled mightily with her faith. Her crowning achievement was a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Sayers' personality also comes through in this biography. She was quite intelligent, passionate about her work, a loyal friend, not one to shy from a debate over something she felt strongly about. After reading this book I feel that Lord Peter Wimsey is just a peek into the person Sayers was. I hope to read more of what she has written, and maybe even take a trip to the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton which collects Sayers' writings along with other writers of her time.
I would highly recommend this biography to anyone who wants to know more about Dorothy L. Sayers.
December 4, 2022
I've never cared for the Wimsey books, and was drawn to reading about Sayers by my admiration for her stunning translations. This book does't have much to say about that side of her work, but is otherwise a completely satisfying look at her thought and career, focussing on her personal life and religious writings. I had no idea that the latter were so extensive and interesting; they, not the mystery novels, were her "serious" work.
But what makes the book a revelation are the extensive quotations from her letters. C.S. Lewis regarded her as one of the finest epistolarians in the English language, and one can see why! She seems unable to be dull.
Why, then, are her collected letters, particularly the superior later volumes, practically impossible to find, when so many plodding letter-writers can be had dime-a-dozen? Time for some paperback reprints, somebody!
But what makes the book a revelation are the extensive quotations from her letters. C.S. Lewis regarded her as one of the finest epistolarians in the English language, and one can see why! She seems unable to be dull.
Why, then, are her collected letters, particularly the superior later volumes, practically impossible to find, when so many plodding letter-writers can be had dime-a-dozen? Time for some paperback reprints, somebody!
March 15, 2011
This is the third, last, and most recent of the three biographies of Dorothy Sayers I acquired to read in order to have a solid framework in which to enjoy perusal of her letters. First published in 1992, it's more concise and more sympathetic than Brabazon's opus (Coomes calls Brabazon "magisterial", which I think is wonderfully apt, though you have to think about it a bit). Things I enjoyed about this biography: lengthy but highly appropriate quotations from Sayers' own writings; nice little photo section; no apparent axes to grind on the author's part; solid apparatus (selective bibliography; good notes; index). Thing I regretted about this biography: the Wimsey years and discussion of the mystery novels were pretty much crushed into one chapter. Coomes may feel that since they were crushed into one chapter of Sayers' actual life, that's appropriate, but folks like me are coming at this biography from pretty much one direction - the mysteries - so I think a biographer could afford to err on the side of expansiveness when discussing them. However, I'm not disposed to belabour this point; perhaps if I dig out my copy of Hone's Literary Biography I'll find that Hone did everything that needed doing on that front. It's been decades since I read that one.
Anyway, thanks to all this biography-reading, I feel as if I know Dorothy Leigh Sayers about as well as anybody could who didn't have the good fortune to cross paths with her in life, and I thank Mr. Coomes for his gentle, unsensational, even-tempered recounting of the story.
Anyway, thanks to all this biography-reading, I feel as if I know Dorothy Leigh Sayers about as well as anybody could who didn't have the good fortune to cross paths with her in life, and I thank Mr. Coomes for his gentle, unsensational, even-tempered recounting of the story.
November 5, 2012
First, I hate the star system. Would I rate my children by giving them stars? Sheesh.
Okay. I read this book because I found it while cleaning out my mother's apartment (talk about books!) (yes, she's fine. She has moved to a smaller place)and inside the dust jacket I read that Sayers was "terrified of emotion." Emotion and the dance of freeze-thaw that people do with it is my writing obsession. I had to read it.
Since I spent my childhood sneaking around in my mother's diaries looking for a sign of an actual person, it seemed appropriate to read a biography in which the author relies on the subject's letters to create a sense of her life.
It's there. Coomes does a good job of bringing the inner life of the highly cerebral Dorothy Sayers to the page--no small feat considering that her closest friends didn't know until she died that she had an illegitimate son. After spending time in her story, I almost understood why...with great sympathy for John Anthony!
Biggest quibble--Coomes doesn't examine her relationship with her son. Why not? To me, that's a big oversight. Still, the book enlarged my understanding of why people build the walls they do.
Okay. I read this book because I found it while cleaning out my mother's apartment (talk about books!) (yes, she's fine. She has moved to a smaller place)and inside the dust jacket I read that Sayers was "terrified of emotion." Emotion and the dance of freeze-thaw that people do with it is my writing obsession. I had to read it.
Since I spent my childhood sneaking around in my mother's diaries looking for a sign of an actual person, it seemed appropriate to read a biography in which the author relies on the subject's letters to create a sense of her life.
It's there. Coomes does a good job of bringing the inner life of the highly cerebral Dorothy Sayers to the page--no small feat considering that her closest friends didn't know until she died that she had an illegitimate son. After spending time in her story, I almost understood why...with great sympathy for John Anthony!
Biggest quibble--Coomes doesn't examine her relationship with her son. Why not? To me, that's a big oversight. Still, the book enlarged my understanding of why people build the walls they do.
August 24, 2024
Have read a few of Dorothy L Sayers' great books, I wanted to learn a bit more about the person. This was a great account about her life and how complex and clever she was. As well as being a brilliant crime fiction writer, she also did many other works and plays. A must read for her fans
April 27, 2016
A bit of a surprising read, if only because I knew so very little about its subject at the start. I'd had the Wimsey novels recommended to me in college (especially Gaudy Night), and had read several, and considered them a pleasant way to pass an idle hour. I had no idea that Sayers herself had been such a polymath (she was fluent in several languages, and taught herself to decipher the Tuscan dialect of Dante's Divine Comedy in order to read it in its original and translate it into English), or that much of her later career was made up of writing on Christian subjects. Indeed, she was an admirer of G.K. Chesterton (a trait ever swift to endear someone to me), and a friend and correspondent of C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams--making her something of an honorary Inkling. I will definitely be seeking out some of her later scholastic and apologetic works in future.
May 24, 2012
A balanced & thoughtful biography. I enjoyed the many lengthy excerpts from Sayers' letters and writings. I too came to Sayers through her mysteries; my only regret with this book is that the Wimsey years are very much condensed into one small section, but, as another reviewer pointed out, this would be in line with how Sayers' life was concerned with them, one short period with a long and productive literary period of various stage and religious projects after the mysteries made Sayers much more financially secure.
I would highly recommend this book to those interested in Dorothy L. Sayers' fascinating and rather tragic background; she was in many ways a woman who "had everything except what she most desired", to paraphrase one of her descriptions of Lord Peter himself.
I would highly recommend this book to those interested in Dorothy L. Sayers' fascinating and rather tragic background; she was in many ways a woman who "had everything except what she most desired", to paraphrase one of her descriptions of Lord Peter himself.
July 18, 2016
Coomes' study of Dorothy L. Sayers' life rings quite true from what I have read of her and by her. Another reviewer took issue with the quality of the sound production; other than one instance of a telephone heard quite clearly in the background, this version seemed quite good. The narration by Wanda McCaddon, with her British accent, lent a sense of authority to the storyline. Until this time around I had missed the fact that Sayers own outlook on her life's work saw her most fond of her work in the translation of the works of Dante. Has motivated me to look again into listen to Sayers' "The Mind of The Maker." Well worth your time to understand some of the life of England through the war years, although this work does not go deeply into what that life was like.
March 1, 2017
I am not very fond of biographies, but I thought this a good one, perhaps because it spends quite a bit of time with Sayers's writings. I especially enjoyed the last part, her translation of Dante. She was definitely the one who taught me Dante.
March 7, 2018
Not what I expected - this is more of a bio of all she authored, not a personal story, but so well done I still recommend it. I have never read her work, and now I will.
June 12, 2020
C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkein--you may be familiar with, but you may be unsure about Dorothy L. Sayers, "a woman committed to the pursuit of truth and the highest standards" (221). Her pursuit of truth wove together all the various strands of her work--essays, letters, drama, detective novels, and more. As a result, Sayers was "a woman of great scholarship, talent, Christian faith, and above all, commitment to truth" (221). Shortly after her death, C.S. Lewis wrote, "For all she did and was--for courage and honesty, for the richly feminine qualities which showed through a part and manner superficially masculine and ever gleefully ogreish--let us thank the Author who invented her" (221).
Sayers was an extremely entertaining and delightful companion. "What made her so was her 'careless rage for life' which revealed itself in the tensions, mostly creative, between combativeness and vulnerability, between a knock-about style and a devout seriousness, between bombast and frailty (222).
Reviews of the biography must focus on the subject--because David Coomes captures her as a "brilliant student, controversial apologist, witty, bawdy, intolerant of fools--the woman 'terrified of emotion'"--who is revealed through thousands of letters she wrote. Her Christian faith was the overarching force in her life and work.
Coomes allows Sayers to speak in her own voice as he quotes extensively from her letters. The biography is rich, but sometimes slow. What an introduction to an incredible writer.
Sayers was an extremely entertaining and delightful companion. "What made her so was her 'careless rage for life' which revealed itself in the tensions, mostly creative, between combativeness and vulnerability, between a knock-about style and a devout seriousness, between bombast and frailty (222).
Reviews of the biography must focus on the subject--because David Coomes captures her as a "brilliant student, controversial apologist, witty, bawdy, intolerant of fools--the woman 'terrified of emotion'"--who is revealed through thousands of letters she wrote. Her Christian faith was the overarching force in her life and work.
Coomes allows Sayers to speak in her own voice as he quotes extensively from her letters. The biography is rich, but sometimes slow. What an introduction to an incredible writer.
June 3, 2018
This book was given to me knowing my interest in and love for Dorothy Sayers, but I don’t think I would have chosen it on my own. This biography focuses in on Sayers’ theology and the development of that theology through her writing (both published works and letters) but it seems that the biographer’s theology comes out more clearly than Sayers. I’m not saying his interpretations are completely off but because of what he praises and what he condemns in her writing the biography comes off as far from objective. Even his subtitle for the book seems to imply a recklessness and aloofness that I failed to see evidence in Sayers’ life except for perhaps in his point of view.
August 1, 2018
Audiobook: 7h.14m.
If you want to learn more about a fictional world you fancy, begin learning more about its maker. The stories and personal details revealed in this book will likely deepen my appreciation for Dorothy L. Sayer's detective fiction, but it's far from necessary reading. Sayers is an interesting, unconventional lady with a turbulent internal life and a great number of stories to tell. I would recommend this book to other Christian writers as a contemplation of the role that our faith can / ought to have in our secular writings, but it's unlikely to jump to mind when friends ask for suggestions. Not thrilling or terribly insightful, nor a waste of time.
If you want to learn more about a fictional world you fancy, begin learning more about its maker. The stories and personal details revealed in this book will likely deepen my appreciation for Dorothy L. Sayer's detective fiction, but it's far from necessary reading. Sayers is an interesting, unconventional lady with a turbulent internal life and a great number of stories to tell. I would recommend this book to other Christian writers as a contemplation of the role that our faith can / ought to have in our secular writings, but it's unlikely to jump to mind when friends ask for suggestions. Not thrilling or terribly insightful, nor a waste of time.
January 31, 2022
I have been a massive fan of Sayers's writing for years, so I was excited to learn about her more as a person. I loved the little info from her real life which was used in her books, such as her life at Oxford being transcribed into Gaudy Night. I also felt like I understood her more by the end of the book. It does use a bit too many long quotes for my liking, but it's a great and informative biography.
March 2, 2017
An interesting look into her life. Some surprises.
dnf
September 30, 2025Too much talk of theological dogma and not enough information about her actual life outside of intellectual discussions.
October 5, 2010
Truly fascinating lady!! She longed for love, & had a secret as a result. She wrote mysteries that I could never read--they felt so unreadable to me, much as i tried--and religious tracts too. She finally married, her desperate wish to have a love of her own at last realized, & he turned into a drunken her tyrant. She should have divorced him, but that was a no-go for women of her time, her class & her religious ideals. And her secret didn't come out till her death. This book reinforces my strong conviction that real lives are almost always stranger than fiction could ever dream up . . . .
February 4, 2013
This warts and all account begins with the controversy surrounding Dorothy L Sayers' BBC Radio play on the life of Christ, arising from her decision to write in 'the kind of language we use nowadays.' Sayers enjoyed controversy and was not averse to deliberately creating a stir. Coomes, formerly Senior Producer in BBC Radio's Religious Department, is particularly interested in her faith and beliefs. He discusses her detective fiction, but also explores her time as an advertising copywriter; the son she kept secret; her unsatisfactory marriage, and the last years of her life, which she devoted to translating Dante.
March 24, 2014
This biography contains many letters that Sayers wrote and by these you can understand the title of the book - that she was moved by a careless rage for life. She did not suffer fools gladly, and yet many said she was entertaining and enjoyable company. A genius, incredibly creative and gifted in many languages she was a daunting personality. She endured much personal suffering through her own sin and that of her husband, which made her doubt her salvation. By the end of this book I felt truly sorry for her, and wondered if her life would have been different had her parents loved and guided her more, and kept her home instead of sending her to boarding school.
June 12, 2008
I fell in love with Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mystery stories as a child (a sort of P.G. Wodehouse-meets-Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle-but-better). Later I discovered she was the author of a specially caustic brand of Christian-Humanistic articles and also a marvelous translation of Dante. Including as it does so many of her letters, this biography is sympathetic (in the precise meaning of the word) without undue sympathy (read sensation). As she is one of my favourite authors I am heavily biased, but I very much enjoyed reading about what impacted and influenced her life.
March 24, 2016
Interesting biography written by someone who has studied letters Sayers wrote and received. Of special interest to me since Sayers' letters and papers are part of the collection of the Wade Center at my alma mater, Wheaton College.
June 26, 2012
Well written biography. Coomes does a fantastic job of portraying Sayers as not only a scholar and writer, but as a woman who has faith and faults like all of us.
August 1, 2013
This was a good biography with lots of great quotes. It definitely made me want to read more of Sayers, especially her non-fiction.
August 21, 2014
amazing woman
June 15, 2016
An interesting and sympathetic biography.
Read
May 26, 2011Bio of my favorite author.
February 2, 2015
An adequate book about an absolutely fascinating life.
October 23, 2015
Leaves me with more and more respect for this lady and her work - all her work.
Read
June 25, 2017I read about half of this. I'm afraid I prefer the Brabazon biography.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews