I was asked to review this book for a small French bilingual literary journal: 
It's the French translation of Dorothy Sayers' most popular detective novel, Gaudy Night, with an introduction by a detective-fiction specialist colleague at Lille Catholic University. As I prefer to read fiction in English rather than in French, especially original English-language fiction, I decided to order an English version to read first:
My review is over two pages long single-spaced, so a little bit long to include here. Anyway, the gist of it is I didn't really appreciate the book until I had read the excellent comprehensive introduction to the French volume and perused the practical information in the translator's footnotes. There were too many things about 1930s Oxford culture that I didn't understand without being illuminated by someone more knowledgeable than myself. This is one case in which I might have been better off just reading the French volume. If you detective fiction afficionados in the family haven't read this one yet, my specialist colleague would definitely say it should move to the top of your reading list.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
"Gaudy Night" by Dorothy Sayers
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3 comments:
Which version?
Either. But probably the English for most Tromble bloggers.
I read all of Dorothy Sayers in the early 1970s but have probably forgotten them all, too, so maybe it's time for another go! As I recall, there's one about bell ringing (which Google informs me is "The Nine Tailors") which has fascinating old-English-custom stuff.
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