As My Whimsy Takes Me
Oct. 28th, 2010 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callmemadam
If you really love Lord Peter Wimsey and the thought of Edward Petherbridge playing him makes you go weak at the knees, you grab a brand new Wimsey story when you see it at the library, even against your better judgement. I read Thrones, Dominations when it came out and can’t remember a thing about it. The Attenbury Emeralds is Jill Paton Walsh’s latest Wimsey sequel, ‘based on the characters of Dorothy L Sayers’. Lord Peter’s first case, the affair of the Attenbury Emeralds took place in 1921 when he was still in a shaky state after the First World War. Rather than go back in time, the author has Peter and Bunter relate the tale to Harriet in the present, which is 1951. One particular emerald has been missed, found and lost again, with probable murders along the way. The Moonstone is invoked, not surprisingly.
Just as a new emerald problem comes up for the latest Attenbury heir, other events bring great changes to the lives of Peter, Harriet and their children. It’s quite an interesting story but all so wrong. He may now be sixty but Lord Peter as created by Dorothy L Sayers just doesn’t fit a post-war world, even if times have changed and the Bunters dine with the Wimseys. This is the Lord Peter style,
not that I can see him wearing such a collar and tie. Putting in period details, like having Harriet say she has bought a new book by Elizabeth David ‘called Mediterranean Food’ is just clunky. So is having Harriet and Peter walking through a London fog and Peter saying, ‘They’ll have to do something about this.’ (The ‘Clean Air’ Act was passed in1956). The first person narration at the start of the book, Lord Peter Looks Back as it were, doesn’t work for me; nor does telling so much of the story from Harriet’s point of view. More detection and less domestic life would have pleased me better.
I do like the younger generation in this book. Bredon, the eldest son, is a real chip off the old block as is Peter Bunter, known as ‘PB’, who is at Eton with him. The Dowager Duchess is as nice and Helen as nasty as ever. Parker, Lady Mary, and old chum Freddy Arbuthnot have walk-on parts to please the fans. It’s still just fanfic which has found a publisher.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 09:55 am (UTC)Ah. Wish fulfilment for the rest of us.
(I can't remember a thing about Thrones either.)
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Date: 2010-10-28 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 11:14 am (UTC)Harriet Walter *was* Harriet Vane. Loved those adaptations!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 01:01 pm (UTC)The series was excellent except for Gaudy Night, which was a travesty of the book. I thought both Peter & Harriet were perfectly cast. I had a quick look on Amazon and was shocked to see how much DVDs now cost. Luckily, I have copies made at the time but one is corrupted :-(
no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 06:46 pm (UTC)It's the maharajah that does it for me. Rule one of credible detective fiction, even in the 1930s, is that you don't have what DLS called a "dis-diamonded maharajah". Oh, and Bredon calling Bunter "Mervyn". Like he'd have got away with that more than once... But mostly, as you say, it is just clunky and indefinably wrong (not least because despite the obvious Period Details, the characters don't make the up-to-date refs they do in the originals).
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 07:56 am (UTC)Totally agree with everything you say.
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Date: 2010-10-29 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 07:56 pm (UTC)I hate it when a beloved series is continued by another author, it feels sacrilegious to me. I refuse to read Eoin Colfer's Hitchhiker sequel.
I have The Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh, one of those books that have been sitting unread on my shelf since time immemorial.
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Date: 2010-10-29 07:59 am (UTC)I heard the Hitchhiker sequel on the radio when it was 'Book at Bedtime'. Dreadful.
Sayers sequels
Date: 2010-10-29 02:51 pm (UTC)Nicola
www.nicolaslade.com
Re: Sayers sequels
Date: 2010-10-29 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 04:14 pm (UTC)My library has Have His Carcase, would that be a good place to start?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 06:20 pm (UTC)See list here. Or you could just start at the beginning.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:22 pm (UTC)2 actors played Wimsey
Date: 2012-01-24 04:16 am (UTC)Re: 2 actors played Wimsey
Date: 2012-01-24 07:43 am (UTC)