Book review: Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
Dec. 9th, 2009 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaebilityTERRIBLE.
I'm tempted to leave it at that, but hell, I got time. I'll try to explain.
There's no murder in this novel! What the hell, Sayers? And the main crime is pathetic. The criminal is ridiculous, the motive stupid.
This isn't a detective novel; it's ten thousand pages of Sayers' self-insert gallivanting around with younger men who fall all over her. There's no conversation, just blocks and blocks of "dialog" where the characters are just verbose mouth-pieces for Sayers to loudly proclaim how smart she is.
If this had been the first Sayers' novel I'd read, it would have put me off her permanently. As it is, I'm going to take a break and return to the comforting and bloody arms of Agatha Christie.
I'm tempted to leave it at that, but hell, I got time. I'll try to explain.
There's no murder in this novel! What the hell, Sayers? And the main crime is pathetic. The criminal is ridiculous, the motive stupid.
This isn't a detective novel; it's ten thousand pages of Sayers' self-insert gallivanting around with younger men who fall all over her. There's no conversation, just blocks and blocks of "dialog" where the characters are just verbose mouth-pieces for Sayers to loudly proclaim how smart she is.
If this had been the first Sayers' novel I'd read, it would have put me off her permanently. As it is, I'm going to take a break and return to the comforting and bloody arms of Agatha Christie.
