Jill Paton Walsh writes quite decent fic shocker

[nineveh_uk]

I have failed shamefully to review the latest Jill Paton-Walsh Wimsey pastiche, The Late Scholar. Ironically, this failure is due not to its being bad, because ranting*is easy, but because it was OK, and OK is uninspiring, especially from the point of view of a not particularly brilliant book reviewer.

So, The Late Scholar. This is the first of JPW’s Wimsey sequels that doesn’t draw at all on manuscript/apocryphal DLS material, and I think it’s the better for it. In the case of Thrones, Dominations, the 30s setting and initial DLS element is a good portion of the pain: it is impossible to read it without thinking how much better it could be. In the second and third books, folding DLS into the plot just makes things feel constrained, as the plot fits around the fragments rather than cutting loose on its own. Here at least there is no constraint but that brought by JPW herself – present enough, but at least not a double whammy.

The plot is relatively simple. It turns out that along with the Dukedom, Peter has inherited the visitorship** of an Oxford college. You’d have thought that his elder brother might have mentioned this over the years, but never mind. The college is broke, and wants to sell a potentially valuable manuscript to get itself out of trouble. Other people don’t want to sell the MS, and people start dropping dead. So Peter steps in to try and sort out the dispute and the, as it turns out, murder.

I can’t say that I cared terribly about the plot. One perennial problem with JPW is that she has missed the fact that DLS’s novels are always about something other than murder***. This isn’t, no more than such period pieces as Innes’ Death at the President’s Lodgings. On the other hand, in the mid-fifties we are just about into the period JPW knows herself, and while I’m not quite convinced by the setting, it is at least handled with greatest assurance and thus evenness, than previous books. As a whodunit its OK. I’ve read a lot worse. I don’t particularly care for the solution, I’m not sure that it plays fair (I haven’t actually read a lot of whodunit), but it carries Peter and Harriet’s story along. This is a Peter who seems to have accepted being a Duke and Harriet the Duke’s wife (oh, there’s lots of references to her as a writer, but we don’t see much of it – in DLS’s letters, meanwhile, Harriet’s earnings are the ones supporting the estate at this point). They still have plenty of sex, and JPW is keen we should know this. The OOC noblesse oblige continues – it isn’t that Peter doesn’t help important witnesses, but canon Peter puts them up in hotels or takes them to the shops, he doesn’t billet them on his friends. There are a few compulsory cameos. Oxford is, despite all, sacred, although it is admitted one might have other gods ****.

Ultimately, this is a perfectly decent tribute/pastiche that will satisfy many casual readers of Sayers and perhaps attract some new ones. It is considerably better than most faux Golden Age mystery novels, and indeed than a lot of the second tier original ones. It has a reasonably credible setting, Peter and Harriet, and a plot. But in the end I’m just not really bothered about it. I don’t feel it does anything new, nor that it has anything in particular to say. And Dorothy L Sayers always had something to say.

*And ranting fic.

**Sort of arbitration role.

***Even Five Red Herrings, just.

****I can sympathise with the Eldest Son feeling thick compared to his parents, and wanting to do agriculture properly – except that surely one goes to Cirencester – but I’d have thought that Peter would have been right behind it, preferring dedication to the cause to pissing about at Christ Church doing whatever the 1950s Oxford equivalent of Land Economy was in order to join the rowing team.

Comments

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

You mean there is somewhere other than Harper Adams for agriculture? I'm stunned. Has the Archers been lying to me for decades?

[madamedarque.livejournal.com]

They still have plenty of sex, and JPW is keen we should know this.

I am quite convinced that her smut isn't as good as half the fic on AO3, though.

oh, there’s lots of references to her as a writer, but we don’t see much of it – in DLS’s letters, meanwhile, Harriet’s earnings are the ones supporting the estate at this point

I am glad that this book was less execrable than the others (and I agree that it's probably a blessing that JPW isn't wantonly appropriating the letters/apocrypha at this point), but that is still...fairly irritating? I always felt that she just didn't get Harriet, and well, this is one more indication.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that review. It's encouraging to know that it's better than the execrable Attenbury Emeralds (and I don't find it particularly hard to believe that Gerald never talked shop with Peter out of fear that Peter might talk shop back at him and then Helen would have fits). I could certainly do without the sex, though. At their age, and after three children, they ought to be "toddling along quite nicely", no need to make a fuss, rather than wallowing in the glories of the matrimonial bed (they can do it all right, but the narrator shouldn't keep banging (so to speak) on about it). considerably better than most faux Golden Age mystery novels is high praise indeed compared with Emeralds, and Oxford as a setting has a timelessness about it that presumably avoids the difficulties of the 1950s being a godawful era to set an LPW mystery in. Next time I'm in dire need of reading matter, I shall bear this one in mind!

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

As I suspected, it sounds as though she's relieved that this time she can wangle it so she stays within her comfort zone and write another Imogen Quy Oxford college whodunnit but with the names changed. I quite like them and I read them if they turn up in the library but they aren't Sayers.

[bsg-aussiegirl.livejournal.com]

I had not rushed to buy this book, after her last awful attempt. I'm seriously shocked by your comment about the sex! For JPW to even mention sex is a surprise. I think this was one of the major problems with her other books. She had Peter away for huge periods (I think because she can't write him very well, she never has his voice or mannerisms right for me) and when he came home there was hardly a mention of a kiss, let alone secksy times, between him and Harriet. DS's Peter and Harriet were extremely sexy, full of UST and burning sizzling chemistry. I always pictured JPW as a little old prudish church-going lady who couldn't bring herself to write such things.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I actually liked her earlier ones better than this one (but why, oh why, does she persist in calling Duke's Denver "Bredon Hall"?). In this one, I felt there was no actual detecting happening - one criminal confessed, and the other was caught out! No "if you know how you know who", or anything.

[tree_and_leaf]

Hm, I might give it a try, then. But I'll probably nick my mum's copy!

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Hmm, sounds like a decent library pickup if I haven't got anything else to read at the moment. I really, really don't like YearningToBeMiddleClass!Peter, though. And as someone else said, after 20 years (or thereabouts) and three children, I think we can safely assume that they enjoy each others' company in all situations, with perhaps a quote or two for emphasis.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Off topic, but this exhibition may be of interest -

http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/eyeoftheneedle/about/

[ibmiller.livejournal.com]

I am quite curious about Harriet's writings supporting the estate - sadly, none of my libraries have the later letters, so I've never been quite clear on what DLS was thinking about Harriet and Peter's later years. Did Sayers have Peter become Duke?