Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

You do not WANT to know how old I was when I figured out "Eiluned's rather anti-man" meant.

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cesario.livejournal.com

It took me about ten re-reads, and then it was really only because of how it was depicted in the Ed. Petherbridge adaptation that I really figurted it out.

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The recent pitch-perfect adaptation of Ballet Shoes, a book I have loved since I was six, put lots of subtext into the two Oxford graduates who had retired together and I said Ohhhhhh.... Of course.... (it didn't hurt that one of them was Harriet Walter!)

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I just re-read the book, and I'm still not totally clear on whether or not they had separate rooms, or just a shared suite.

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I was twenty-three...

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I was thirty-something. And I'd been rereading Sayers since age 15.

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*is polite enough not to laugh*

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It was a more sheltered time, my dear.

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prof-pangaea.livejournal.com

i got it first go! admittedly, i'd already read the mary russell books and got a feel for golden age mysteries with loads of lesbian subtext by then...

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I was just having a conversation about Harriet and how practically everything about her screams "probably swings both ways" (er, in our opinion), so this post is particularly relevant to me at the moment! The sheer quantity of time that she spends with Dr Martin is enough to cast doubt.

(I've had to deal with people who are angry that she married Peter and didn't swoon into Dr Martin's arms, though. Which is ridiculous for two reasons: 1. Peter and Harriet are the focus of the books and by far the best couple that you can form from the characters involved. And 2. Harriet Vane does not swoon!)

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You're hugging a doll and wearing a zucchetto made of tinfoil.

Yeah. Real elitist there.

(By the way, that whole thing really does suck, doesn't it? I'm very sorry that you of all people had to go through it.)

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It just came at a bad time, and mostly made me a bit self-conscious. Then

cesario made that macro, and I laughed a lot and got over it.

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I've been there. Although in my case any macro made would probably be an embarrassing picture of me and my cat in one of my 'who's a kitty? Yes, you are!' modes. I think it'd have the same effect, though.

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BTW, speaking of the hypothetical lesbianocity of Harriet Vane? You really, really, really must read the Mary Russell novels.

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A lot of things seem to be described or describeable as hyptothetical in Harrietworld. I still chuckle over her 'hypothetical telephone' comment in the beginning of Have His Carcase.

And that is the fourth time that I have been told to read Mary Russell!

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I think you'd like the Russell series; it's a total Sue fantasy, but executed well, and there's a queer subtext that is as delightful as it was unintentional on the author's part.

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I went into Strong Poison expecting to come out reeling from Sueness. When I put it down, Harriet was my third-favourite fictional character ever after Romana and John Childermass.
Actually, there's a lot of debate about how much, if any, of the subtext in the Wimsey books was intended. I'm of the opinion that Peter's close male friendships were only intended to be seen as such, but that in cases such as for example Agatha and Clara (and Vera, obviously) in Unnatural Death (which even the quite Victorian Miss Climpson picked up on pretty quickly), or pretty much everybody who's ever even been in the S.C.R. other than Annie, Sayers knew what she was putting in.

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I agree. Sayers was very far from being sheltered, and there was a moderately open lesbian community in London and Europe in the thirties.

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There was? I actually was not aware of that (which is strange since the history of gender relations interests me a lot, especially at that point in history).

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I did a lot of research on the subject when I was writing Russell fic, and obviously it was still quite underground, decadent intelligentsia and all that, but there were a lot of quietly acknowledged gay couples etc in particular social circles. Especially in Paris.

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Huh.

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Sayers was pretty damned homophobic; there's an entire mystery that is resolved by the murderess's being a Sekrit Lesbian.

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I read a book about that. The question of whether she was or wasn't is...interesting, to say the least. And really freaking complicated.

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Sayers herself, or the character in her book?

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Whether Sayers was gay/bi, homophobic, and, in the latter case, in what way if she was. The usual answer is 'neither' but there are actually more scholars than one might think who say 'both.'

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Ooh, I need to look up the book! Could I have an author/title? ("Both" would certainly explain a lot.)

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Biographies by James Brabazon, Carolyn Heilbrun, Barbara Reynolds, and others touch on it, but they don't focus on it. I read a monograph about it about a year ago but I don't remember who it's by. (something beginning with an M?)
My suspicion is that she was (at least a little) bisexual and more gay-friendly than most people of the time, but somewhat uncomfortable with this.

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