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Gaudy Night

by Dorothy Sayers

Except for the play, "Busman's Honeymoon', Gaudy Night was the final work Dorothy Sayers wrote about Lord Peter Wimsey. Gaudy Night was the culmination of 14 novels about this protagonist, although three-quarters of the book is built first around Lord Peter's intended, Harriet Vane. Gaudy Night doesn't refer to an evening a-splash with color in the dress or environment of the characters. The Gaudy is a term used for the reunion of Oxford scholars. According to Webster, a rather archaic meaning is an annual feast at British colleges. Leave it to the English to title an event with such an inappropriate name! Don't ask me why - the British seem to respect antiquity even more than many Far Eastern societies.

At first glance, the reader may be put off by being faced with unrelenting, solid paragraphs at the beginning of this book. However, Dorothy Sayers is nothing if not a scholar herself, and simply uses those paragraphs to introduce us to Harriet Vane, her main protagonist - allowing us insight on Harriet's psychological as well as mental and physical states. We find Harriet Vane is still avoiding marriage with Lord Peter Wimsey, although it's obvious that peer desires her above all other possible choices. Alone, Harriet attends the reunion at Shrewsbury College in Oxford (no such college actually exists) at the request of an old friend and fellow student. Shrewsbury College is an all-female college from which Harriet had graduated some time ago - having since made a name for herself in the field of crime writing.

Harriet discovers the friend (Mary Stokes) no longer has anything in common with herself - then Harriet is immediately swallowed up in some very unpleasant circumstances, entailing a rather rude drawing, thievery, and malicious mischief which escalates to actual destruction. The Dean of the College, Miss Martin, convinces Harriet to stay on under the guise of research, to uncover the person behind the destructive acts. Poison pen letters are regularly being shoved under don's doors, and suspicion continually points to one or another of the women professors.

During her investigations, which result in little more than a collection of letters and other obscene epithets, Harriet encounters two young men - one another student at Oxford, a Mr. Pomfret of Queen's College, and the other Lord Saint-George, Peter Wimsey's nephew. Neither are of much help in her perusal and search for the vicious instigator of upheaval at Shrewsbury. The terms at Oxford drag on, with little or no evidence available to Harriet about who the culprit might be, while the vandalism escalates. She finally attempts to contact Peter Wimsey himself, only to find he's been sent abroad.

Lord Peter Wimsey then suddenly appears on the street at Oxford, dressed in his gown and conversing with his own Fellows from All Souls and Balliol. The explanation for his appearance in Oxford has to do with certain police machinations, and goes right over Harriet's head. All she wants is for Peter to help her find the perpetrator at Shrewsbury College. Peter is willing enough, and goes off on his own explorations, attempting to find evidence for his own suspicions while simultaneously performing his regular job, and returning to court Harriet as inconspicuously as possible.

There is no murder in Gaudy Night, although an effigy is hung and Harriet almost strangled. Dorothy Sayers adroitly uses suspense instead by focusing on the possibilities rampant among the women dons. When Peter Wimsey at last uncovers the individual who caused all the mayhem, the reason is enough to cause sympathetic reaction among most of those present. Gaudy Night closes with the definite prospect of Harriet and Peter Wimsey being married; a suitably romantic ending after all the negative excitement!

Dorothy Sayers has left us an entertaining book in Gaudy Night. It's
obvious that here Ms. Sayers has used her own educational background and acquaintance with Oxford to advantage. All of her previous Lord Peter Wimsey novels are well worth the read, regardless of how long ago they were written; but Gaudy Night, with its classical quotes (and the obvious scholarly knowledge of which Dorothy Sayers was so richly familiar) is a sample of this writer at the top of her form.

Alan Paul Curtis

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