Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I thought all hat referring to things past wasn't a good idea. Also, the anti-semitism was too much. It didn't need to be.
Quote:
|
And Levy—who was nobody twenty years ago—romps in and carries off Freke’s girl from under his nose. It isn’t the girl Freke would bother about—it’s having his aristocratic nose put out of joint by a little Jewish nobody.
|
That just one example. Saysers didn't have to put it that way. She could have left out the word Jewish and it would still work. |
I'm going to disagree with you here, Jon. I think the point of the remark was to show what a thoroughly nasty person Freke was and Sayers was using his anti-Semitism as the tool. I can read that as anti-anti-Semitism.
The issue crops up I think for two reasons, and that's one of them. The other is that Sayers couldn't resist the means of knowing that the body in the bath wasn't Sir Reuben. A little too clever and self-conscious as was much of the book, but I wouldn't call it disrespectful or anti-Semitic. A little cheesy, mostly.
That doesn't exclude, of course, the throw-away comments about "Hebrews" and so forth, but again, they were the words in the mouths of the characters and a reflection on them and their times. In fact, I don't think there was a Jewish character, or am I forgetting someone minor? Unless Lady Levy was a convert.