Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12) in Reading the Detectives

Mar 27, 2019 Christine PNW rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-my-hoard-2024, 2024

This book is only nominally a mystery. What it really is is Dorothy Sayers's manifesto, which holds that educating women is valuable, that women can be scholars, that work is work whether it is done by men or women, that intellectual work is valuable in it's own right, and that women should have agency to do the work that they feel they are best suited to do, whether that work involves marriage or children or not.

The mystery is engaging, but it's Oxford, and intellect and the sisterhood of acade ...more

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Dec 14, 2015 Teri-K rated it really liked it

Shelves: z-permanent-bookshelf, audio-recommended, mystery, old-favorites, mystery-golden-age

This has always been one of my favorite books of the series, even though it sometimes drives me crazy. Because there are so many levels in this story I can either be pulled happily along the philosophical and sociological rabbit trails, or just be frustrated because I want to get to the plot.

Every time I read this I wish Sayers had managed to not put quite so much of herself in here. Then I decide I'm glad she did, because the glimpses are fascinating - almost like a train wreck is fascinating. ...more

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Jul 08, 2019 Bev rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: vintage-mystery, virtual-mount-tbr-2019, mystery, british-mystery, audionovel

Continuing with my orgy of listening to Dorothy L. Sayers novels on audio, I've listened to the Gaudy Night (1935), the penultimate book in the Wimsey/Vane mystery cycle. As with the other audio reviews, I am not focusing so much on the whole story here. If you'd like to see my thoughts on the novel, please see my review on a print edition.

Ian Carmichael gives another fine narrating performance, giving voice to a full range of characters from dons and students at Oxford to American visitors to ...more

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May 06, 2024 Maine Colonial rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, favorite-authors, british, mystery

I don't re-read many books, but I like to re-read (or listen to) Gaudy Night and its successor, Busman's Honeymoon, every two or three years. Despite being written nearly a century ago, the books' treatment of women's roles isn't antiquated. There are a few unfortunate references to Jews--not hateful, but casually prejudiced--that always make me cringe.

I would love to see somebody do a new dramatization of the Wimsey/Vane novels. ...more

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May 17, 2019 Lekeshua added it

This is my first Lord Peter Wimsey novel and decided to pick up Gaudy Night based on The Literary
Life Podcast produced by Angelina Standford and Cindy Rollins new podcast. I am so pleased I picked this book up and will definitely start back at the beginning of series even though I didn't feel like I was terribly lost without knowing the back story of the characters. Clean British Mystery that handled matters of feminism nicely. It reminds me of Sherlock Homes which I am an huge fan. ...more

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Jul 14, 2024 Bev rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: british-mystery, mystery, vintage-mystery, audionovel

It's time once again for me to have an annual reading of/listening to at least part of Dorothy L. Sayers' novels on audio and so I've listened to the Gaudy Night (1935), the penultimate book in the Wimsey/Vane mystery cycle. I've read this one and listened to it so often that I don't have much that is new to say this time. Except that like Harriet and her ivory chessmen, I developed an unreasonable love for the Lord Peter Wimsey books over thirty years and I must revisit them regularly even tho ...more

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