#peter wimsey | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

o-uncle-newt · 3 months

Text

We don't talk enough about the Petherbridge/Walter adaptations of the Wimsey/Vane novels.

(Well, we probably talk EXACTLY enough about Gaudy Night, which is really pretty bad, but besides for that...)

(Sorry, just a warning, Richard Morant as Bunter is fine but I won't have much to say about him here. I just really like this picture.)

The casting is basically perfect, especially Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane. I no longer see the book character in any other way- the only notable difference is that in the book she's noted as having a deep voice, but Walter's has a distinctive enough tone that I think it works regardless. She is just so, so, so good- captures the character beautifully, sells everything she does whether mundane or ridiculous (probably the best/most realistic reaction of someone finding a body I have EVER seen in Have His Carcase), makes the most of every limited minute she's on screen in Strong Poison and leaves her mark every minute that she isn't... and she looks AMAZING doing all of it. Just perfect, could not imagine better casting.

Edward Petherbridge I don't hold up to that level of perfection- I think that, try as he might, he's not really able to capture Wimsey's dynamism (possibly because he's a bit too old for the role) and is a bit overly caricatured in many of his mannerisms. But overall he does a pretty good job, in addition to looking quite a lot like how I'd imagined Wimsey- but in particular, I think he does a really lovely job of selling a lot of the emotion that he has to convey in some scenes that feel like they SHOULDN'T be adaptable from the book- specifically the scenes of him and Harriet. Him proposing to Harriet, him being disappointed when she (completely reasonably) turns him down... those shouldn't work on screen with real humans rather than in Sayers's calculated prose, but it DOES work and in no small part because he's great at selling Wimsey's feelings as being genuine even when his actions seem over the top. And, of course, Harriet Walter sells her end of the scenes right back. All in all, I think I have mixed feelings about Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey the detective, but I'm a fan of him as Peter, the man who has feelings for Harriet.

Overall, though, both are, I think, very successful in capturing these characters- the fact that they take these people who even in the book can sometimes push the boundaries of likeability (which to be clear, is part of what I love about reading them) and make them eminently watchable is a great achievement. And also, in addition to their really looking like their characters individually, they're very well matched as a pair in the way that one pictures them from the book. They're even of very similar height and build, which we know is canonically true from Gaudy Night, and thus at least a somewhat relevant element of their dynamic.

Now, the adaptations are very uneven, and that's even without talking about Gaudy Night because, while it has about as good a rendition of the punting scene as I think we were ever going to get, most of the rest of it is crap and massively expands on what I think are serious problems to Peter and Harriet's relationship that the series as a whole had (not to mention cutting the character of St George, which is a travesty). None of the adaptations are perfect, and mess with aspects of their relationship in negative ways- for example, the ending of Strong Poison is exactly backward in a really awful way. I'll get back to this.

But when the show gets the two of them right, it gets them RIGHT, even when it's adapting Sayers's text/creating new dialogue. There are scenes in this one that I love almost as much as the canon text, like this one:

I don't think any of this is in the book, and there are things that happen here that I don't think Sayers would have ever written. But at the same time, a combination of the dialogue and the actors makes it COMPLETELY believable as these two people, and it captures a moment that is just really key for Peter as he faces his limitations and his feelings- something that in the book is conveyed through a lot of internal narrative on Peter's part that would be impossible to adapt as is, but that in the world of the show needed to happen in a much more visual and narrative way. Not all of the dialogue that this series chooses to fill in those gaps works, but even when it doesn't the actors do their best to sell the heck out of it, and when the dialogue DOES work it is seriously brilliant.

Probably my favorite of the adaptations is Have His Carcase, and scenes like this one are a big part of the reason why:

They change the location, but otherwise it's EXTRAORDINARILY faithful to the equivalent scene in the book, and honestly it shouldn't have worked with real people doing it and yet it does. It's just acted perfectly, given just enough arch and silly humor (particularly with the spinning door) that we don't attempt to take it too seriously, while also conveying the relevant emotions so well. The actors in the scene through only their faces and ways of speaking convey subtext that Sayers, in the book, conveyed a lot later on as actual text in the characters' thoughts, and there's something pretty great about that.

Other Have His Carcase scenes are less good (the dance scene is mediocre at best, I think), but if there's another Have His Carcase scene that I think illustrates how great Walter and Petherbridge are at selling the human sides of their characters, it's That Argument- seen here:

The Argument is a pale imitation of that in the book- the one in the book is, in fact, probably unadaptable as is- but it is still just so good because the actors are so good at selling it. Walter is just brilliant in the role and utterly inhabits it while also imbuing it with her own spin, and makes us feel Harriet's pain- and Petherbridge, through some relatively subtle facial expressions and reactions, is able just as well to make US understand what all of this means to him and how he feels. It's actually really remarkable that, just like how Sayers writes a relationship dynamic that only feels like it works because she's the one who wrote it that very specific way, this scene feels like it only works because these two actors play it in this specific way. Could two other actors do it? Very possibly, but it would feel super different and I wonder if it would feel this authentic. (I do want to note though that this scene made me really wish that we'd seen a Frasier-era David Hyde Pierce in the role of a younger and spryer, but equally posh, witty, and vulnerable, Wimsey. It just gave me vibes of something that he'd do beautifully.)

Now, as I said above, this doesn't get EVERYTHING right. In fact, quite a lot of their relationship ends up going pretty wrong- as I think a major mistake is their throughline which emphasizes Peter's continued pursuit of Harriet as not just reiterating his interest to make it clear that he hasn't changed his mind, but actively taking advantage of moments and situations in a romantic sense, taking a much more specific role in engaging with her physically, commenting on her appearance, saying how difficult it is for him to NOT pursue her more, etc. It makes the whole thing feel a lot more cat-and-mouse rather than a budding relationship of equals, and one where Peter acknowledges the whole time that they HAVE to be equals for a) Harriet to feel comfortable with him and b) them to be good together. In fact, however good the Argument above is, it's kind of undercut by this very pattern- he makes the book's point about him treating his feelings like something out of a comic opera, but he also at that point in the story has had a few much more oppressively serious scenes with her that clearly make her uncomfortable- nothing like anything in a comic opera. It's like the show misses the point a little.

I think the place where this really starts is at the end of Strong Poison. (I could see an argument to be made that it starts earlier, in a few smaller nuances of their jailhouse scenes, but I like those enough that I choose not to read into them too much lol.) After what I think is a great addition to the final jailhouse scene (one that I loved so much I repurposed it for a fic)- "it's supposed to be about love, isn't it" and some excellent reactions from Petherbridge- Harriet goes to court, her charges are dismissed, and unlike in the book, when it's Wimsey who leaves first (which Eiluned and Sylvia point out is a sign of his decency in not waiting for Harriet to thank him), here Wimsey is the one who watches as Harriet rejects him and walks away from him- the beginning of the chase. But nothing about their relationship is meant to be a chase! It's so frustrating to watch as that proceeds to be a continuing issue to a limited degree in Have His Carcase (where it's at least balanced by enough good moments that it doesn't matter so much) and to a MASSIVE, genuinely uncomfortable degree in Gaudy Night.

The only praise I will give it is that while the punt scene in the book is unfilmable, I think this adaptation did its best here and it's pretty good.

I'm not going to spend much time talking about Gaudy Night otherwise, because I'd need all day for it and also I'd probably need to rewatch it to make sure I get the details right and I have zero interest in doing that, but the way that it has Wimsey imposing himself and his feelings/hopes on Harriet to a really ridiculous degree, in a way that he never, ever does in the book, is just so so discomfiting and makes me feel terrible for Harriet. She doesn't deserve that. If I recall correctly, in that scene at the dance at the beginning, she's so happy just being with him and then he's all "oh so this means you want to marry me" and she just droops. He's so aggressive!

And that's what makes the worst part so bad, because not only does this miniseries not depict Wimsey's apology as the book does- one of the best scenes in a book full of brilliant scenes- it would actually be weird if it did, because this show doesn't imply that there's ANYTHING for Wimsey to be apologizing for! In fact, unlike in the books where we see Wimsey growing and deconstructing the parts of himself that had been demanding of Harriet, in the series we only see him get more demanding- until finally he wins. It's honestly infuriating and I hate it- the actors do their best to sell it (and apparently they were given bad enough material that they actually had to rewrite some of it themselves, though I have mixed feelings about the results) but it is just massively disappointing. Basically the whole emotional journey between the two of them is not just neutered but twisted.

For all of my criticisms of the adaptations' all around approach to their relationship, I do have to reiterate- Walter and Petherbridge do a wonderful, wonderful job. (Especially Walter.) When they're given good material to work with, and even often when they aren't, they are able to sell it so well- and particularly in the case of Walter, I genuinely can't think of the character as anyone but her rendition now. She IS Harriet Vane for me. And, for all the flaws that the series has, that's something pretty dang special.

Anyway, for anyone who read through this whole thing and hasn't seen these adaptations, I DO recommend Strong Poison and Have His Carcase- but not Gaudy Night unless you're either really curious or a glutton for punishment. The first two, though, have very good supporting casts, are quite faithful plot wise (sometimes to a fault- another flaw is that they are really devoted to conveying the whole mystery with all its clues sometimes to the point of dragginess, but will drop sideplots like, for example, Parker and Mary- which is totally reasonable, but still vaguely disappointing as those sideplots tend to add some levity/characterization), and just generally are an overall good time. (Some standout characters for me are Miss Climpson in Strong Poison and Mrs Lefranc in Have His Carcase.) And, of course, the best part is seeing the little snippets of Peter and Harriet that come through- less so their journey, vs in the book where that's central, but so many scenes where we just see the two of them together as they are in that moment and it's so satisfying.

#peter wimsey series #peter wimsey #lord peter wimsey #harriet vane #dorothy l sayers #edward petherbridge #harriet walter #a dorothy l sayers mystery #as was apparently the official title of the petherbridge/walter series #my thanks to the as my wimsey takes me podcast people #for a) coming back and finishing have his carcase #which was very enjoyable plane listening #but also for mentioning the adaptation in one of the episodes and inspiring the rewatch that led to this post #also this blog is basically now a sayers blog just as it is a finnemore one i guess #which as i note is fitting due to my Dog Collar Theory #which is YET ANOTHER THING THAT THE GAUDY NIGHT ADAPTATION LEAVES OUT GRRRRRR #strong poison #have his carcase #gaudy night

38 notes · View notes

copperbadge · 1 year

Note

i'm reading all the peter wimsey novels because someone recommended gaudy night and that's how i work, and now i'm up to the nine tailors and just finished murder must advertise (my favorite so far), but i found it really hard to get through have his carcase, which was odd since i loved harriet vane so much in strong poison. even the characters seemed to bugger off at the end of have his carcase instead of tying up all the storylines and sayers seemed disengaged after the first act or two. i liked the parts with peter and harriet, even the two chapters that are 99% cipher, but everything else felt weak. did you enjoy this one/why or why not? do you have a favorite of the wimsey novels other than gaudy night?

I may be inducing a fight by saying this but I think Have His Carcase is one of Sayers' weakest novels, and certainly the weakest of those featuring Harriet Vane. I tried to re-read it recently and couldn't get very far into it, and I'm a huge fan of Sayers. I think it's also a necessary book in order to create a complete story for them -- but I don't know that it's necessary to read it in the modern era, and certainly not necessary to re-read it.

(My other picks for least enjoyable: Five Red Herrings and Nine Tailors, both of which are visibly her attempts to write like Agatha Christie, one of her literary heroes -- and they're not bad books, I just don't like Agatha Christie style "clockwork" mysteries, which tend to sacrifice personality to logistics. I suspect this may have impacted Carcase somewhat. We will come back to this.)

Gaudy Night is actually not my favorite overall -- I think it's one of her best, but Murder Must Advertise is my favorite and in fact the first one I read. Which is hilarious because Peter spends a significant amount of time Not Being Peter Wimsey in it, but it's just such a combination of things I love. Advertising (which Sayers worked in and which she also clearly loved writing about), secret identities, crime rings, a hint of romance, office gossip...

Anyway, Carcase. I think the problem is that to get from Strong Poison to Gaudy Night, there has to be a bridge, and it has to be kind of an unpleasant one, and thus you get Have His Carcase. One of the major points of Harriet's arc is that Sayers wanted to contravene the "damsel rescued by the hero" narrative. Not so much because she believed women should save themselves or not, but because she believed that a relationship based on that kind of inequality, where one partner was grateful (or was expected to be grateful eternally) for being saved, was inherently unhealthy and unsustainable, and it was also a super common narrative at the time she was writing. This reaction to the narrative is most visible in her unfinished novel Thrones, Dominations -- which was finished after her death by Jill Paton Walsh, and I'm not a huge fan of the end product, but I've seen the original manuscript held at Wheaton and it's evident that this was a theme before anyone else took over, it wasn't forced into the plot.

In any case, Sayers had to get Harriet and Peter from victim and rescuer to equal footing, and while Gaudy does a lot of lifting in that regard, it doesn't do enough on its own, there had to be a previous groundwork laid. In a sense I'm glad that the grappling they have to do, which is sensible and intelligently written but also really unromantic, was done in Have His Carcase, so that it doesn't intrude more than briefly into Gaudy Night. Carcase is a lot about Harriet setting boundaries and testing whether Peter will cross them, and Peter reacting (sometimes poorly) to someone challenging him in ways he's unaccustomed to being challenged. Carcase is two people finding out the worst parts of each other so they can work out that they love the reality of each other anyways, which is what they're doing in Gaudy. But we have to witness it in Carcase, which is unpleasant. At least for me.

As she matures as an author and gains more power over how she's published, you can see Sayers trying new things -- after Bellona (another fave) she gets very literary with Strong Poison, and then seems to swing between these kind of torturous attempts at Christie's style (Herrings, Tailors) and incredibly sensitive, emotionally delicate books like Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night. Carcase is a weird combination of the two, where she seems to be applying the dispassionate Christie style to a book that wants to be Gaudy Night but can't be.

Anyway, even her less enjoyable books can still be pretty fun, and it's worth it to have books like Murder Must Advertise and Strong Poison, and the thrilling romance of Gaudy Night. But yeah, Carcase is a bit of a slog to get through.

#dorothy sayers #peter wimsey #harriet vane

145 notes · View notes

thesarahshay · 5 months

Text

Sayers Hivemind: Does anyone know why Ian Carmichael never recorded an audiobook of Five Red Herrings? I spent ages trying to find it, and finally realized that the Patrick Malahide version was released by Chivers, and apparently in between their releases of Strong Poison and Have His Carcase read by Carmichael.

My first guess was that he didn't feel equal to recording that much in a Scottish accent, but that didn't stop him from using his absolutely ridiculous French accent in practically every other book (I'm very fond of the man, but that accent is bonkers). Plus he does a Scottish accent for plenty of other characters in the other books, and it sounds fine.

If anyone knows the answer, I would be very much obliged.

#Lord Peter Wimsey #Lord Peter #Peter Wimsey #Ian Carmichael #Dorothy Sayers #Dorothy L. Sayers

21 notes · View notes

homoqueerjewhobbit · 1 year

Text

Truly, must one pay attention to "clues" and "suspects" to enjoy a mystery? Isn't it enough just to vibe with a clever bisexual?

#I'm back on my Peter Wimsey bullshit and I cannot keep the six suspects straight in this book #peter wimsey #lord peter wimsey #dorothy sayers #harriet vane #Miss marple #agatha christie #post o' mine #clearing out the drafts

70 notes · View notes

mywingsareonwheels · 10 months

Text

I always forget precisely how much Jill Paton Walsh was a Lord Peter Wimsey multishipper until I relisten to the talking book of The Attenbury Emeralds.

Her Harriet/Peter? superlative and beautiful and warm and sexy and glorious, absolutely lives up to what Sayers created

Bunter/Hope? delightful, a lovely JPW-canonical pairing for Bunter, approve so much

Peter/Bunter? everywhere, and tender and moving and unspoken, with Harriet and Hope massively shipping it.

Harriet/Hope? not *not* there, for sure Harriet/Peter/Bunter/Hope? honestly, not too far from being canon

Parker/Mary? oh yes, they’ve still got it, Parker’s still a parfait knight, love them

Peter/Parker (aka the Spiderman ship ;-) )? off the scale implications, glorious; contains a completely gratuitous neck-touching scene, and a theology-related meet-cute in the flashback; Peter and Mary are clearly managing to be siblings who are also metamours just fine; Harriet clearly adores it all too

Also JPW seems to have a lot of interest in characters that Sayers, dearly as I love her, had got a bit bored of. Like when Eiluned and Sylvia the glorious (and pretty definitely canonical) lesbian couple from Strong Poison turn up in Thrones, Dominations. And the fact that Freddie keeps turning up and being a darling and a bunny-ears lawyer (well, bunny-ears finance expert). :)

In short: hooray. :D

#dorothy l sayers #dorothy l. sayers #lord peter wimsey #jill paton walsh #harriet vane #mervyn bunter #hope bunter #charles parker #mary wimsey #peter wimsey #the attenbury emeralds

21 notes · View notes

e-b-reads · 11 months

Text

Seven Covers in Seven Days: Day 1

My seven days will certainly not be consecutive, but for now, I thought I'd start with my battered, hand-me-down copy of Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers!

tagged by @beardedbookdragon

tagging...who hasn't done this yet? feel free to let me know if you're interested in a future tag! for now, will tag @wearethekat (in a usual, non-obligatory way)

(Every day, post the cover of a book you love and tag someone else to do the same.)

#seven covers in seven days #eb's photos #id in alt text #gaudy night #dorothy sayers #peter wimsey #and of course #harriet vane #this copy was once my mother's - but she also had another (better) copy so gave this one to me!#then I read the cover off

25 notes · View notes

honoriaeditions · 2 years

Text

The Nine Tailors. Vade mecum on campanology by Sarah Asarnow (2017).

#book binding #book art #dorothy l. sayers #peter wimsey #bells #change ringing #campanology

138 notes · View notes

emjee · 13 days

Text

Starting my annual reread of Gaudy Night and once again asking: new adaptation with Jessie Buckley as Harriet Vane WHEN

#mg says stuff #peter Wimsey

3 notes · View notes

e--q · 1 year

Photo

Ringing in a Whimsical New Year with Lord Peter Wimsey

(Handmade Soft Toy inspired by the character created by Dorothy L. Sayers)

28 notes · View notes

cronicasdelholoceno · 4 months

Text

#drayton #poetry #poesía #peter wimsey #dorothy l sayers #gaudy night

5 notes · View notes

cantsayidont · 5 months

Text

In a fit of I know not what, I also watched the following:

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS: Kenneth Branagh is an unlikely choice to play Agatha Christie's eccentric Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and neither his performance nor his direction brings much life to this glossy but slapdash adaptation of one of Christie's most famous books. As with the 1974 film version with Albert Finney, the star-studded cast is both a major selling point and a central weakness: Many of the big names act like they've wandered in from completely different movies, preventing the film from ever feeling of a piece. (The casting of Johnny Depp, even as the film's most detestable character, also sits ill, as does a disagreeable opening sequence set in prewar Jerusalem.) Moreover, the prominence of the stars eventually underscores the absurdity of the story's ludicrous denouement. For all its popularity, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS is really one of Christie's weaker mysteries, particularly now that the real-world Lindbergh kidnapping that obviously inspired the novel has faded from the popular consciousness. As a story, EXPRESS is best served by adaptations less burdened by stunt casting, like the 1992 BBC Radio 4 dramatization, with John Moffat as Poirot. If you're mostly interested in costume porn, stick with the 1974 film, which isn't a great movie either, but has superior costume design and fine cinematography to help keep you awake through its many lulls.

DEATH ON THE NILE: Perfectly dreadful big-budget adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel gets off to a bad start with a stupid framing sequence claiming that Poirot is a heroic (and heterosexual!) WW1 veteran who grew his famous mustache to cover battle scars, and gets worse from there. The main plot remains faithful enough to the original novel to make its variances all the more distracting (without changing the fact that anyone familiar with the book or the earlier adaptations already knows the solution to the mystery!), its slick production values are badly undermined by terrible CGI inserts, and many of the stars are miscast or just plain awful (with Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, and Russell Brand particularly bad). Either the overstuffed 1978 feature version with Peter Ustinov or the 2004 David Suchet TV movie is a much better use of your time.

A HAUNTING IN VENICE: The third time's not the charm in this lavishly produced but unsatisfying reinvention of Christie's 1969 HALLOWE'EN PARTY, relocated from late-sixties England to postwar Vienna. Hercule Poirot's old friend, mystery novelist and Christie self-insert Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey, fingernails-on-chalkboard bad), lures the great detective out of retirement to attend a Halloween party in the supposedly haunted palazzo of former diva Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), where noted spiritualist Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) plans to hold a seance to contact the spirit of Drake's daughter, who recently committed suicide. The mystery itself is okay (and is so far removed from the original story as to be barely recognizable), but the gothic horror trappings seem misplaced (more Conan Doyle than Christie), Michelle Yeoh is completely wasted, some of the supporting cast is distractingly awful (like Kyle Allen as the dead girl's former fiancée), and Branagh remains wholly unconvincing as Poirot. Significantly better than its two predecessors, but that's no great achievement unless you just want to stare at the scenery, and any time you start thinking it's really not so bad, Tina Fey wanders back in to set your nerves on edge.

Why Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green are so determined to make Hercule Poirot into a bad pastiche of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey is a bigger mystery than the plots of any of these movies, but I wish they'd cut it out — or at least turn their attention in some other direction. At that, Branagh would probably make a decent Peter Wimsey: He's the right age and temperament, and Lord Peter (who IS a haunted, more-or-less hetero WW1 veteran) seems much more in line with Branagh's predilections than Poirot.

6 notes · View notes