The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers

[keilexandra]

The Nine Tailors
by Dorothy Sayers
397 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Mystery/Historical

In The Nine Tailors, Lord Peter Wimsey visits a small village called Fenchurch St. Paul. A mystery is afoot, of course. The bells, to whom the title refers, play a major role that I didn't "get" until the second last page of the book, and even then I didn't truly appreciate their significance to the theme. Apparently this is part of a linked series, in which case--oops. But Sayers did not click for me on several levels, so I don't think it would have made a difference.

I want to say the style is hard-boiled noir--it is so very British--but the murder is not as important as in typical noir pieces. In fact, the mystery itself is secondary to the process of solving said mystery. This is a very different book from the typical historical mysteries, dense with assumptions of knowledge like how a church bell-tower is structured. And the plot is simply not compelling to me, although I admire Sayer's command of plotting and can see why others appreciate her so much. She is dissimilar to, yet much the same as, Agatha Christie; Christie also plots complexly but manages to make them more accessible--both ouvres have a distinctly British feel that I enjoy on a meta level but cannot make up for lack of plot or character engagement.

Major ROT13 spoilers: Fb gur oryyf xvyyrq Qrnpba--vf gung npghnyyl cbffvoyr? V jnfa'g njner gung ivoengvbaf/unezbal pbhyq or sngny. Vg svgf cresrpgyl jvgu gur erfg bs gur cybg ohg V unir gebhoyr oryvrivat va gur cynhfvovyvgl bs npghnyyl qlvat sebz oryy-evatvat. Jrveq.

In conclusion, an excellent and deep piece of literature, though not one that I particularly care to read again. The ending is cool in a fun-fact kind of way but, unless you're a true mystery fan, not worth plodding through 400 pages of labyrinthe story to find out. YMMV, as I know many on my flist will disagree vehemently in comments (I look forward to the discussion!).

Comments

[keilexandra]

My friend did break his collarbone over a weekend and seemed fine on Monday, but he also had the benefit of modern medicine, an ER, and an immobilizing sling.

I'm not fond of The English Countryside, generally speaking. My favorite part of THE NINE TAILORS was the cryptography section; does Sayer revisit that theme?

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

Uh, maybe. Depending on what you liked about it. There's a short story involving solving a cryptic crossword which has the actual crossword included, but I imagine that's a little too on-the-nose. Murder Must Advertise (a novel) has an extended thread about tracking down just how somebody at the advertising agency is signaling to the members of a cocaine-smuggling ring, and there's another short story involving infiltrating a gang that has a bunch of cloak-and-dagger stuff. Any of those like what you're looking for?

What I like about Sayers is the plotting and deduction are both Christie-solid, but the characters are like actual people instead of tokens for the current mystery (also there are a lot of funny bits, though not really quotably funny). But if the characters don't do much for you then I imagine this isn't really an advantage over Christie.

[keilexandra]

The cryptic crossword story sounds very cool, but short stories are so hard to track down. I will add MURDER MUST ADVERTISE to my TBR list, for when I come back to mysteries.

I didn't find NINE TAILORS particularly witty (although I'm a fan of dry wit in general), so maybe I'm just bouncing off Sayers's style.

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

All the short stories are collected as Lord Peter, so possibly you'll want to add that to the to-read-later list also.