Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.
Gaudy Night was my second book club book, after Gravity's Rainbow. It was the perfect polar opposite, being well-mannered and crisp where GR was crude and crass, and so I loved it.
Gaudy Night is one of a series of mystery novels written in the 1930's featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Only, Wimsey is barely mentioned in the first half of this book. Instead, this is the story of his companion, Harriet Vane, who is a mystery novelist by trade. Not having read the previous Wimsey novels, I learned in the first chapters that Harriet had once been on trial for murder, which she certainly did not do, and Wimsey's detective skills saved her life. Now, Wimsey is in love with her and occasionally proposes marriage, which Harriet declines politely each time.
The story begins with Harriet going back to visit her alma mater, a (fictional) women's college at Oxford. She's nervous, because her murder trial was a public scandal and her reputation has suffered as a result, even though she was innocent. But as seems to happen to those who have a history of solving mysteries, a mystery finds her. While at Oxford Harriet finds a note with a crude figure on it. Upon returning home she finds another note tucked into her sleeve calling her a murderer. She brushes it off and tries to think no more of it, until she is contacted by her peers at Oxford asking her to help them find the person responsible for sending crude notes to women on campus and vandalizing college property. It's a mystery without a murder kicking off the story, which I realized is uncommon.
What is most interesting about this novel is that it is not simply a plot-driven mystery. The plot doesn't truly begin until nearly 50 pages into the book. It was a refreshing change of pace from the breakneck speed of most modern stories. The women at Oxford discuss the scholastic life versus having children, and whether educated women can marry. "I presume that, in bringing children into the world one accepts a certain responsibility toward them," one character says. Much of the discussions they hold about gender and society could easily be held today. It's unexpectedly funny, with a dry humor that made me chuckle loudly at parts. It's no quick read - the book is over 500 pages long, but I enjoyed its long, meandering path.
