According to my mother (who, okay, ought to know, since she studied these books in college and they’re like her favorite thing. But it has been a while since she told me this and I might not be remembering correctly) Dorothy Sayers wrote Harriet and Lord Peter’s romance because she was tired of the series and wanted to end it. She didn’t like Harriet as a character and didn’t really want their relationship to be compelling or realistic; she wanted people to stop liking the series.
I’ve always found that hard to swallow. Their relationship isn’t any sillier than the rest of the emotional content of the series. Am I supposed to take absolutely everything else much less seriously than I have been, too? (Peter’s PTSD, flashbacks, etc.? Both Mary and her fiance’s difficult feelings in Clouds of Witness? Peter’s internal conflict over sending sympathetic people to jail/ his right and/or duty to stick his nose in things as a detective? The “advertise, or go under” social commentary aspect of Murder Must Advertise?)
And that fricking sonnet, though!
To write such emotionally compelling books and then go “Well, you weren’t supposed to like it! You weren’t supposed to take it seriously!” is just cruel. I CAN’T not love that sonnet.
http://smokeandsong.blogspot.ca/2012/05/gaudy-night.html
I KNEW I had it bookmarked! There’s the essay where Sayers talks about the genesis of the series, and including Harriet Vane. Clearly, while some things were whimsical, like Peter’s car and tastes, most was carefully crafted. Harriet was invented as a Reichenbachian series ender, but quickly turned into a real person who Sayers was quite unable to thrust into Peter’s arms with a triumphant exuent omnes.
chequerootlurks
