Tag Archives: Oxford setting

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers – 20 Books of Summer 2024

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Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers was first published in 1935 and it was a re-read for me, for at least the third time. The first time I read it was in the late 1970s. I think this one might be a love or hate book as I’ve realised over the years that some people hate it. I think they think that Sayer’s writing is pretentious because she did write quite a lot of quotes, bits of poems. I still love it and I’ve decided to re-read the other Lord Peter Wimsey books soon, in order this time. He probably annoys some readers, I just think he is funny and I’m pretty sure she modelled him and his ‘man’ Bunter on Wodehouse’s Wooster and Jeeves.

Anyway, the setting is mainly a women’s college in Oxford where Harriet Vane has gone to do some academic research. Shrewsbury is her old college so she knows some of the staff. Not all is well though, some of the staff and students have been receiving poison pen letters, and they think that as Harriet writes detective novels she might be able to get to the bottom of it all.

Things escalate though and even Harriet is targeted with letters, grafitti appears, there’s vandalism, destruction of academic work and all sorts of nastiness going on. Harriet decides that she needs help from Lord Peter, but he is out of the country and uncontactable.

Meanwhile she meets Peter’s nephew for the first time and he doesn’t realise that Harriet is completely in the dark about large parts of Peter’s life, he’s far from being the sybaritic poseur and posh twit that she thought him to be. When he’s out of the country he’s on important government business. Harriet begins to revise her feelings about Peter.

In a weird way this is my comfort read, – well – that and du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Do you have a comfort read that you turn to now and again? My mother-in-law’s was Gone with the Wind, but I am never going to go to that one.

 

The House in Norham Gardens by Penelope Lively – 20 Books of Summer

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The House in Norham Gardens cover

This is my second book from my 20 Books of Summer list.

The House in Norham Gardens by Penelope Lively was first published in 1974. The setting is Oxford, a large rambling house at number 40 Norham Gardens, where 14 year old Clare Mayfield lives with her two elderly aunts. The 19 rooms in the house are stuffed with artefacts, nothing has ever been thrown away and the attic even has trunks full of her great grandparents’ clothes. Clare’s parents are dead and she has more or less become the carer for her aunts who are becoming quite frail. In the past the aunts had taken a lead in Oxford academic society and they have high hopes for Clare’s future which seem well-founded as Clare is a good scholar. However when Clare finds a strangely painted tribal shield in the attic it somehow preys on her mind. It must have belonged to her great-grandfather who had been a famous anthropologist. A combination of the shield and the money worries of running the household on a shoestring culminate in her schoolwork going to pot.

The aunts had previously agreed to having a lodger to help pay the bills and Maureen adds quite a bit of humour to the book. But more money is required and a young student of anthropology from Uganda moves in to the house too. John Sempebwa becomes a good friend as Clare shows him around Oxford and they visit museums, one of which exhibits tribal art.

This is a really good read and considering it was written 46 years ago it was way ahead of the times as it deals with British colonialism and the plundering of often sacred objects from other countries and cultures, something that academics are now arguing about and often unwilling to give up.

This book is set in winter and if I had realised that I would probably have saved it to read in winter, near Christmas maybe. It seems that Oxford suffers freezing cold and snowy winters. Poor Clare was often battling against snow and ice while on her bike. It helped cool me down during our recent mini heatwave.