Gaudy Night is many things, and only one of those things is a detective novel. It’s an in-depth look at Harriet Vane and her internal life. It’s a focused examination of a single difficult decision. It’s a broader examination of the place of women in academia. You could even say it’s a romance. With all that, you might wonder if it still has any room to be a detective novel. I think that one of its best qualities is that it does still manage to be that, and it manages to weave that strand in alongside all the other strands to form a cohesive whole.

Now, if you’re only here for the detection, that is probably not what you want. The best puzzle plots are often pared down – they do one thing and do it brilliantly. So this isn’t that sort of book. To get the detective bits out of the way first – that part is actually very solidly done. There’s good clues, good logic, and some good misdirection.

If you’re only here for the crime novel aspect, then that is also present as part of a much larger whole. There’s no murder in this book. The crimes are a campaign of harassment and vandalism, small fry compared to most mysteries. But Sayers spends a long time in Shrewsbury College, and Harriet observes the poison of the “Poltergeist”, and of suspicion, seeping in to the relationships around her. The effects of the Poltergeist become more and more serious, until a crisis point is reached two-thirds of the way through the book. This is perhaps a more serious look at the effects of crime and having to live with it than most other Golden Age books.

In case you think all this sounds a little dour and depressing, the book is also often funny. There are many comedy-of-manners moments, and many witty lines.

“It was so abundantly clear that Miss Flaxman did not want Harriet, that Mr Farringdon did not want Mr Pomfret, and that Mr Pomfret did not want to go, that she felt the novelist’s malicious enjoyment in a foolish situation.”

It manages to swing back and forth from lighter moments to moments of tension and unease. The enclosed world within Shrewsbury College holds pleasures for Harriet and many of the other characters. It’s a world I enjoyed spending time getting to know, and Sayers spends time – occasionally too much time for my liking – taking us through the changing seasons as Harriet spends time investigating.

I liked Harriet as a viewpoint character; her concerns made her feel real. She could be judgemental at times (particularly of her old friends!), but her sense of duty and her practicality, as well as her intelligence, were compelling.

“But Harriet had broken all her old ties and half the commandments, dragged her reputation in the dust and made money, had the rich and amusing Lord Peter Wimsey at her feet, to marry him if she chose, and was full of energy and bitterness and the uncertain rewards of fame.”

The women of the college also felt like well-rounded characters – ones who had led varied lives and had ended up with many different perspectives. Well, maybe not all the minor characters. I did struggle to keep some of them straight in my head – there was a massive amount of named characters. They varied from those who only got a few lines on up to those like Miss de Vine and Miss Hillyard, who were more complex, while still having a “thematic” function in the plot, which they could not stray outside. I did like some of the minor cameos, like the slightly pitiable Miss Shaw who insists that she is best friends with all of her students, because she tells them they can confide in her. These side characters often made for some funny moments.

Something that the book takes very seriously is the romance between Harriet and Lord Peter. The question of whether Harriet should accept Peter Wimsey’s marriage proposal is a momentous one in the book. Even when Wimsey isn’t present, even near the beginning when Harriet isn’t considering his proposals seriously at all, she is also being presented with different ideas of marriage, constantly observing what works and what doesn’t work. It’s like Harriet’s (and her creator’s) idea of a perfect union between husband and wife must be navigated to, with the other examples serving as waypoints to approach or avoid. In my opinion this works best when ticking away in the background of the book; when Harriet faces the question head-on it can become frustrating.

Also, one caveat – the romance involving Lord Peter involves, unsurprisingly, the appearance of Lord Peter. This was slightly disappointing to me for several reasons (even though I knew it would happen), one of which is that I find Lord Peter annoying as a character in full-length books. Another issue is that I would have quite liked Harriet Vane to solve her case herself. And yet another is that I feel it slightly undermines the exploration of marriage as a concept to have the partner be so “perfect”. Obviously Lord Peter is not perfect to me; but Sayers is so clearly rooting for him, and he’s able to sweep away all obstacles before him. Aside from his struggle with Harriet’s complicated feelings, he gets on everyone’s good side within minutes, able to charm even the most hostile acquaintances within a single conversation. Admittedly I don’t have all the build-up for Harriet and Peter’s relationship from the previous books, so I’m not invested in it panning out well.
After he arrives in the book, I also felt the focus of the book turn inwards, towards Harriet confronting her feelings, which is an odd shift when the tension in the Poltergeist strand has reached a high point!

I also enjoyed the outward-facing earlier sections more, where Harriet interacted with the dons and students, and where I got to know all the quirks and foibles of the Senior Common Room. The Dean was a particular favourite – a reliable friend for Harriet and she gets a lot of the best lines, too. And special mention goes to Miss Lydgate’s magnum opus, the Prosody of the English Language, the shambolic state of which gives Harriet an excuse to stay on as investigator, and which always provoked a chuckle.

It was interesting that Sayers did examine Lord Peter’s privilege to some extent, even though she didn’t resolve it, or indeed apply the same class consciousness downwards, to the scouts and porters of the college for example. But I can forgive Sayers for examining – or realising – only the inequalities which apply to her, because she does a fantastic job of exploring the pressures faced by women at that time (and yes, even now) and how they might navigate their way in the world. The situation for marriage equality might not be as dire as it was then but the considerations are still relevant. It didn’t feel intrusive to the plot, because I perfectly believed that those people would say and do the things that Sayers has them say and do.

I came to this book almost ready to be intimidated. I knew that there was lots of college terminology to pick up, lots of characters – but slowly, I learned to recognize people and terms, without being left confused. I knew that there was Latin involved, and quotations – and, well, I did struggle with those a bit. Though “struggle” isn’t quite the right word. I applied myself to the chapter quotes and moved on. Admittedly I mostly skimmed past Peter and Harriet’s quotes. I grasped the end result of the Latin from the context. I didn’t understand everything fully, but that didn’t frustrate me, and I understood enough to enjoy myself.
I also read the book twice through in order to review it (which I don’t usually do). The book as a whole felt like it was bigger than each single reading I made of it. There was more for me to explore on the re-read, and there will be still more if I re-read it again. Not necessarily to the extent of learning Latin, though I did find this handy guide.
I can see why this book, which provides a whole world to sink into, is such a favourite of many, and while I can’t rank it as that myself, I felt rewarded by reading it, and by re-reading it too. I don’t feel the mystery genre needs “elevating” in the way Sayers aims for here, but I also don’t see why authors shouldn’t choose to write a different kind of mystery book, if the result is as cohesive and compelling as this.

PS:
Bonus points for the book mentioning the scandal over the Nineteenth Century Pamphlets, which would have been a trending topic at the time!

Other opinions:

Clothes in Books
crossexaminingcrime
The Grandest Game in the World
In Search of the Classic Mystery
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
My Readers’ Block
Past Offences