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01-22-2018, 09:55 AM | #61 | ||
o saeclum infacetum
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01-22-2018, 12:57 PM | #62 |
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You can see the difference between the rich and the not-so-rich from books written back then. But, I think if you look at how things are today, it's a much larger divide.
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01-22-2018, 01:42 PM | #63 |
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Definitely, and the point I was trying to make earlier in this thread. Yes, there's some paternalism here, and certainly some racism/anti-semitism. But no more than we have today, even if today's is less recognized by our current eyes. Can we honestly say that Muslims are treated any better in the current political climate than the unquestionably nasty treatment of Jews in Whose Body? Does a change in religion make the one more acceptable than the other?
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01-22-2018, 03:42 PM | #64 | |
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Passing which is the current book club book, I expect there to be some racism and it most likely won't bother me given the time period and the subject of the book. Whose Body? bothered me because it doesn't belong. |
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01-22-2018, 07:04 PM | #65 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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Would Freke have reacted so strongly to his rejection by Christine if the competitor wasn't a Jew? We don't really know, but the book suggests it could have been a factor. |
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01-23-2018, 02:39 PM | #66 | |
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I felt that Sayers was having a lark with the book. For example, the suggestion that the unidentified might be “An Australian colonist, for instance, who had made money?” - this seems like a nod at Magwitch from Great Expectations. I found the modernity of the language interesting - “Before the fire he sat down with his pipe in his mouth and his jazzy coloured peacocks gathered about him.” Another interesting thing for me was the way that marketing language crept into the text -surely a reflection of Sayer’s day job as a copy writer. “She wore a charming wrap from Liberty’s”), "vulcanite" and the repeated references to Formamint. Here is a near contemporary advert for Formamint - “them nasty jujubes” https://www.illustratedfirstworldwar...1109-0025-001/ |
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01-24-2018, 08:43 AM | #67 | |
Bah, humbug!
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January 2018 Discussion • Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
The humor, especially at the beginning of the book, at times made me laugh out loud.
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A slight aside: Did Aristotle really say that the Golden Mean kept one from being a golden ass? Finally, for a Lord, Peter Whimsy sure seemed to use a lot of street English. I refer to his excessive use of dropping the final "g" with words ending in "ing" and his constant use of "ain't" instead of "isn't". I confess to not having experience with lords, but this ain't how I pictured 'em talkin'. Last edited by WT Sharpe; 01-25-2018 at 07:55 AM. |
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01-24-2018, 08:57 AM | #68 | |
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01-24-2018, 12:56 PM | #69 | ||||
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I borrowed the book from an Overdrive library. The second chapter is biographical details about Dorothy L. Sayers. There were a few passages that I would like to share that support Bookpossum's post. I think it's also interesting to consider how the detective story in this period was evolving. Quote:
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01-24-2018, 06:11 PM | #70 |
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Thanks very much for this, Bookworm-Girl - sounds like another book I need to read! It sheds an interesting light on what was going on back then, and I must admit to being pleased to learn that my interpretation seems to be accurate.
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01-25-2018, 12:01 AM | #71 |
cacoethes scribendi
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Okay, so we think we know why they read so much of this stuff back in the 1920s etc. What's our excuse?
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01-25-2018, 12:24 AM | #72 |
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Why do I need an excuse. They're fun.
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01-25-2018, 12:50 AM | #73 | |
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I think that there is always room for fiction where the characters don't have to worry about finances. I don't think that this is the only reason that people seem to like stories with competent people looking after upper-class employers who couldn't do without them (such as Jeeves and Wooster, Alfred and Bruce Wayne, Frodo and Sam....). Some of the servants I've read about hardly seem to be in need of pity; a decent salary (as defined by one's needs), the chance to enjoy one's hobby and caring for someone who badly needs you seems like the ideal life for a certain type of person (Jeeves certainly seems to enjoy his life ). Another reason may possibly be enjoyment of the idea that those upper-class people would starve, have a nervous breakdown, be married off to a scary woman, succumb to evil or otherwise be unable to cope left to their own devices. Or it may be enjoyment of the romanticized view of a household with servants where all parties care deeply for each other and make their own contributions to the well being of everyone in the household. |
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01-25-2018, 02:01 AM | #74 |
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In a later Wimsey book, Harriet Vane says that when she was poor and unhappy, she wrote light hearted novels (probably cozy mysteries), but now that she's happy and financially secure, she discovers that the book she is writing is turning much darker.
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01-25-2018, 05:24 AM | #75 |
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