An' I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did

[sovay]

On the strength of D. K. Broster's The Wounded Name (1922), I am prepared to declare the article which was the subject of my previous post stuffed full of wild blueberry muffins, at least where the deniability of the homoeroticism is concerned:

And Aymar's head lay against Laurent's shoulder, and Laurent, who rather thought he was crying himself, and didn't care, was battling with a most unseasonable desire to kiss it there, before everyone; and would very likely have succumbed only that he was sure Aymar had not quite lost consciousness.

The whump and the loyalty kink in this novel go to eleven. There is a quite extraordinary amount of tenderly caring for a bitterly sensitive person who can endure any amount of opprobrium, torture, and self-loathing before going to pieces at kindness. The setting of the previously mentioned bed-sharing and anguished confession is a sea-cave and the bed itself of sailcloth and seaweed, which makes me feel rather personally come for. I don't know how to categorize the heterosexual element which is simultaneously essential to the plot and completely out of left field, except that I think the author reconciled herself to it with OT3. No reader on the planet needs slash goggles. At one point the protagonist's family conclude from his restless, distracted, high-strung behavior that he is obviously in love and the only thing they are wrong about is which of the de la Rocheterie cousins—who explicitly look almost like the male and female versions of one another right down to the famous, unusual bronze hair, a touch more recalling Tanith Lee than Emma Orczy—it is. The author likes epigraphs even more than I do: one chapter has three of them. Browning's Aurora Leigh (1856) is sampled twice and Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) furnishes the one that really matters. Did I mention there is not just nursing through a fever, but nursing through multiple fevers? There is no apparent fandom for this book on AO3 and I can't explain it. There's courtroom drama. The tags would go on forever.

Comments

[pameladean]

I have been pondering this subject all week. I did take note of Miss Agatha and Miss Clara originally, and Miss Climpson's serene acceptance of their entire story, told with her customary relish. I remember upon my original reading being rather upset with Miss Climpson's talk with Vera Findlater and the way that she characterized relationships of the sort Vera described with Miss Whittaker. Miss Climpson's particular manner of attempting to dissuade Vera from her attachment really ruffled me up. But it forms a useful contrast to the way Miss Climpson describes the Whittaker-Dawson attachment, and I imagine that that was intentional. I would love to have seen Sayers write about the good relationship, but obviously it did not lend itself to drama. It's also very instructive that Miss Whittaker's father very much resented Miss Dawson's getting the Whittaker money. I bet she absorbed that very young.

Thank you for tracking down the other reference to dead sea apples! I knew I'd seen it in Sayers before but I misplaced it into Have His Carcase.

I feel that Sayers must have either participated in, witnessed, or both, a great many unequal relationships.

P.

[sovay]

I remember upon my original reading being rather upset with Miss Climpson's talk with Vera Findlater and the way that she characterized relationships of the sort Vera described with Miss Whittaker. Miss Climpson's particular manner of attempting to dissuade Vera from her attachment really ruffled me up.

It's fine so long as it sticks to—the recurring Sayers theme of—the danger of sublimating oneself entirely to another person and then it flanges off into the stuff about "fruitful affection" and "the right MAN" and at that point in the conversation I too would have blown at least one gasket.

But it forms a useful contrast to the way Miss Climpson describes the Whittaker-Dawson attachment, and I imagine that that was intentional.

It was also more evident to me this time around that Miss Climpson cannot be taken as a stand-in for all her author's opinions. "For Miss Climpson, men were intended to be masterful, even though wicked or foolish. She was a spinster made and not born—a perfectly womanly woman." I don't entirely know how to interpret that last description, but the rest of the series strongly militates against the default acceptance of masterful men.

I would love to have seen Sayers write about the good relationship, but obviously it did not lend itself to drama.

I'm trying to remember if we ever see her write about good relationships beyond the very end of the Wimsey-Vane cycle, which is just Busman's Honeymoon (1937) and then the three short stories collected in Striding Folly (1972), the last of which was posthumously published and therefore I feel a little weird about. She seems to have spent a lot more time wrestling with whether or not they could even exist.

It's also very instructive that Miss Whittaker's father very much resented Miss Dawson's getting the Whittaker money. I bet she absorbed that very young.

Yes. Which again diffuses the criminal significance of Mary's own lesbianism; she might just as well have done murder for the money she'd been brought up to believe was rightfully her own if she had been straight.

Thank you for tracking down the other reference to dead sea apples! I knew I'd seen it in Sayers before but I misplaced it into Have His Carcase.

You're welcome! It hit me while I was thinking about something else Sayers-related.

I feel that Sayers must have either participated in, witnessed, or both, a great many unequal relationships.

I think so, too. I hope she got one in her lifetime that felt like a true match, but I don't know if she had to write it instead.