Strong Poison

  Strong Poison 

  by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ★★★★☆

 

Now this is what I was hoping for when I read Whose Body? last year! That was the first book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, but definitely not the best. After reading it I wasn’t sure I wanted to try any others, but I’m so glad I did. Everyone who told me that the series improved the second Harriet Vane showed up was absolutely right.

 

From the first moments the book hooks you. It starts with a judge speaking to a jury as they deliberate on a case. A man was either murdered or committed suicide by arsenic poisoning and they must determine if the accused is guilty of the crime. Many of the facts point to his estranged girlfriend, Harriet Vane, who is on trial for her life. As the case heats up Wimsey decides Vane is innocent and he needs to prove it if she’s going to be acquitted.

 

One of the best elements in the book is the focus on characters outside of Wimsey and Vane. We follow a secretary as she tries to obtain evidence from her slippery boss and later Miss Climpson, who must travel to a small town in search of an elusive will. These side trips and stories kept the plot moving quickly.

 

BOTTOM LINE: I will definitely read more of the books from this series as long as they contain Harriet Vane! Wimsey needs her intelligent repartee to balance his and together their chemistry makes for a great mystery novel.

Mini Reviews: Whose Body and The Wisdom of the Desert and The Zoo Story

Whose Body?

by Dorothy L. Sayers

★★☆

The Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery series starts with this book. A body is found in a bathtub with nothing on but pince-nez glasses. Starting with very little information, Wimsey tackles the case from the sidelines.

If Bertie Wooster was a detective he would be Lord Peter Wimsey. His is a gentleman and is inspired by Sherlock Holmes. The case is mildly interesting, but not enough to be a page turner. I was surprisingly bored throughout the book. There were a few parts I really liked, including one section where Wimsey is questioning a witness. The witness scoffs at the amount of detail people seem to remember in detective novels. No one remembers so much, he says! Then Wimsey walks him through a line of questions that help him remember exactly what he was doing on the night in question.

BOTTOM LINE: I wasn’t too impressed, but I will continue to read the series because I’ve heard it gets really good once the character of Harriet Vane is introduced in Strong Poison.

“Well, it’s no good jumping at conclusions.”

“Jump? You don’t even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion.”

**Anyone else read this series? Is it worth hanging in there?

I read this for the R.I.P. Challenge hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings.

The Wisdom of the Desert

by Thomas Merton

★★★★

Merton translated and compiled the wisdom and advice of monks living a hermit-like life in the desert in the fourth century. It’s an interesting collection with some wonderful bits. I’ve listed some favorites below.

There’s one parable of a man who steals a book from one of the monks. He goes to sell it in the local town. The man he tries to sell it to asks the monk who originally owned it if it was a valuable book. Instead of turning the man in and explaining that it was stolen, the monk just told the buyer that it was valuable. His actions led the man to return the book and ask for forgiveness. Showing mercy was a much greater act of kindness and it reminded me so much of the powerful scene with the priest in Les Miserables.

BOTTOM LINE: Incredibly quick read with some great advice.

"Malice will never drive out malice. But if someone does evil to you, you should do good to him, so that by your good work you may destroy his malice."

"Never acquire for yourself anything that you might hesitate to give to your brother if he asks you for it, for thus you would be found as a transgressor of God's command. If anyone asks, give to him, and if anyone wants to borrow from you, do not turn away from him."

“We have thrown down a light burden, which is the reprehending of our own selves, and we have chosen instead to bear a heavy burden, by justifying our own selves and condemning others.”

The Zoo Story 

by Edward Albee 

★★★☆

This strange one-act play is the first from the playwright who went on to fame for his marital tornado “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” This is a very different beast, quiet and disturbing all at the same time.

Two men meet in Central Park in New York City. One, Peter, is reading quietly on a bench. The other, Jerry, is a volatile individual who strikes up a conversation. He begins simply enough, but soon Peter finds himself trapped in conversation with this bizarre man. As the situation escalates we find ourselves, like Peter, captivated by Jerry’s odd behavior and bizarre stories.

BOTTOM LINE: An extreme example of an individual becoming disillusioned with life and getting lost in the flow of normal society. Weird, but like a car crash it’s hard to look away.

“The high points of a person’s life can be appreciated so often only in retrospect.” – From the author’s introduction to the play

Are Women Human?

Are Women Human?
by Dorothy L. Sayers
★★★★

Sayers gained literary fame for her mysteries, which feature Lord Peter Wimsey, and her translation of Dante’s Inferno. This collection of essays looks at the role women play in society. The title essay was actually a speech Sayers’ gave at an event.

I loved the way she lays out the issue and the simplicity of the answer. She makes it clear that she doesn’t know exactly what every woman wants to do with her life, because women want the same options that men have. They want to be able to decide how to live their own lives, nothing more.

I really enjoyed this collection (esp. the title piece) because Sayers never sounds preachy or condescending. She’s just expressing her opinion and stating that women don’t deserve special treatment, but they do deserve equal treatment. This is exactly how I feel. I don’t want different (aka lower) standards for a woman to be able to qualify for a field. If a woman wants to be a firefighter she should have to fulfill the same physical requirements as a man who would want to. It’s not about being “fair” to someone of a smaller size, it’s about being able to lift the equipment and carry someone out of a burning building.

I think Sayers represents this idea well. She thinks, as I do, that any woman should be allowed to be work towards whatever goal or profession she desires, but that doesn’t mean that every woman will want the same thing.

Here are a few good lines…

“What we must not do is to argue that the occasional appearance of a female mechanical genius proves that all women would be mechanical geniuses if they were educated. They would not.”

“Men have asked from the beginning of time, ‘what do women want?’ I do not know that women, as women, want anything in particular, but as human beings they want, my good men, exactly what you want yourselves: interesting occupation, reasonable freedom for their pleasures, and a sufficient emotional outlet. What form the occupation, the pleasures and the emotion may take, depends entirely upon the individual."