A good day for short pants

[icepixie]

OMG, it's too hot to breathe outside. The worst part is that it stays humid all day, but won't rain. And believe me, we could use the rain.

*

I finished Dorothy Sayers's Gaudy Night early last week, and I have a question for those of you who've also read it. At the end, why does Harriet finally accept Wimsey's proposal? Just because of that odd little bit of introspection on the river in the middle? If so, that seems remarkably facile. It was a nice little scene, with the Magdalene Bridge and the "Placetne, magistra?"/"Placet," but...hmmm. Perhaps it would make more sense if I watched the BBC adaptation.

(Confession: I have yet to read Strong Poison. It all might become clearer once/if I do.)

I started Busman's Honeymoon, but Harriet and Wimsey have both become irritatingly sappy and smarmy in equal measures, and I don't think I'll end up finishing it. I might try the short story where they evacuate during WWII, though. I like Homefront stories.

Comments

[asinpterodactyl.livejournal.com]

...short pants?

*pants*

Now you've got me waxing nostalgic...

[tarzanic.livejournal.com]

Heh, I just borrowed Gaudy Night to reread. I think Strong Poison might help, but I'm not sure. I just remember cracking up at the dog collar bit. I thought Busman's Honeymoon had a bit where they recognized (?) that they were being a bit ridiculous, but it's been awhile.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

The BBC adaptation certainly won't help to make sense of it, as it's a terriby abridged version of the book (not particularly good, either). If you read Strong Poison and Have His Carcase, it might become clearer, though, why she accepts his proposal.

Yes, it is because of the introspection on the river, which is her personal epiphany, but it builds on what came before: She does get along with him very well; she does like him a lot; they have got enough interests in common, but are different enough not to be joined at the hip during their marriage; there is a certain spark of attraction.

But Harriet is completely screwed over after her affair with her late lover, and she hates Peter for being the rich aristocrat who saves her from the gallows and then asks for her hand in marriage; she hates the burden of gratitude of a "damsel in distress" to a "white knight in shining armour". But she finally realizes that their relationship is not bound up
by these roles -- because of everything that happens in Gaudy Night.

Sorry for tl;dr comment; Harriet/Peter are one of my OTPs, and I easily get carried away on that subject.

[icepixie]

I read Have His Carcase before this one, so I have a basic idea of what's going on in regards to their relationship, but...it was almost like Sayers was too good at giving reasons for why Harriet wouldn't want to marry Peter, and so it's shocking, and not in a good way, when she does?

I dunno.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I always link it with the scene earlier in the novel, just after Peter arrives in Oxford - they talk in her room, and when he leaves he takes her gown rather than his own. I can't remember the scene exactly, but she thinks idly, that they're both the same anyway, but then, that it's "strange that they should be the same." (paraphrasing wildly there, sorry!)

The point being made is that he's the rich aristocrat who saved her from the gallows, and she resents him for it - she resents having had to be saved, mostly - and she resents that his charm and money can get him whatever he wants, which seemingly includes her, but that here, he doesn't have superiority - they both have BA degrees from Oxford, they were both scholars, they are intellectual equals. And she agrees to marry him only when he addresses her as "magistra" - a title she's only entitled to because of her degree - because it emphasises that theirs will be a marriage of equals.

Sorry for being lengthy - it's one of my favourite books, so I've thought about it a lot. :)

[icepixie]

Oh, I like that interpretation! Interesting.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

SO HOT. SO GROSS. AM DYING.