I built the sea, not the boat you're in

[sovay]

I could have sworn I owned Mo Moulton's The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women (2019) and it is driving me up the wall that if so I can't find it, because I have been noodling on and off at the question of Sayers and queerness ever since discovering that she was published in the sole issue of The Quorum: A Magazine of Friendship (1920) and in the process of confirming the co-authorship of the original 1936 stage version of Busman's Honeymoon with Muriel St. Clare Byrne, I was presented with this gem from its pages:

Reading both Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon as the product of collaboration between DLS, Bar, and Muriel changes the texts. It's clear, for one thing, that Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane as characters are not just ego projections on DLS's part. They are also composite portraits, capturing the conversations she had with Muriel and Bar about relationships and love and work. In a sense, Muriel and Bar become alternate models for Harriet and Peter. There's Muriel, with her curly blond hair, her scattershot brilliance, and her moods; there is Bar, with her grounded intelligence, her dark-haired comeliness, and her ruby cabochon ring, exactly like the ring Peter gives Harriet in Busman's Honeymoon. Bar's students passed along a rumor that she'd been given the ring by a fiancé who had died in the war, but this is probably mixing two things up. Bar's brother, Graham, was killed leading his company into action in August 1918. It would be reasonable to imagine that the ring, meanwhile, was a gift from Muriel, a 'fiancé' who was invisible because of her sex, not her death.

"Bar" is Marjorie Barber, Byrne's life partner. Modeling an ideal het relationship at least partly on a successful queer one is a deeply appealing idea and I'd love to be able to see if it's supported by the rest of the biography, which doesn't seem to be in my possession. I can't have lent it to someone. I didn't think the pandemic had been so dreadful as to make books simply evaporate. [edit] And now the penny's dropped that the same author was responsible for the magnificent "On Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey: An Essay with Personal Interruptions" (2014), I'm really bitter.

[edit edit] I am beginning to think Marblehead these days is permanently overcast: "If we disagree, we'll fight it out like gentlemen. We won't stand for matrimonial blackmail."

Comments

[ethelmay]

I did pick up on Agatha Dawson and Clara Whittaker, I am pretty sure. I remember wondering if Sayers thought lesbianism was something that ran in families. But it was probably much more recently that it occurred to me that the "unnatural" in the title might also be a reference to relationships being called "unnatural." "And besides this, Miss Climpson felt sure that Vera Findlater was being “preyed upon,” as she expressed it to herself, by the handsome Mary Whittaker. “It would be a mercy for the girl,” thought Miss Climpson, “if she could form a genuine attachment to a young man. It is natural for a schoolgirl to be schwärmerisch—in a young woman of twenty-two it is thoroughly undesirable. ... “Love is always good, when it’s the right kind,” agreed Miss Climpson, “but I don’t think it ought to be too possessive. One has to train oneself—” she hesitated, and went on courageously—“and in any case, my dear, I cannot help feeling that it is more natural—more proper, in a sense—for a man and woman to be all in all to one another than for two persons of the same sex. Er—after all, it is a—a fruitful affection,” said Miss Climpson, boggling a trifle at this idea, “and—and all that, you know, and I am sure that when the right MAN comes along for you—”"

[vass]

I can't remember Agatha Dawson and Clara Whittaker, but I very much do remember the Miss Climpson bits you're quoting, and being upset by them and the title, which I interpreted the same way. (There's another passage where she calls it "silly schwärmerei".)

Seeing it just now, I'm wondering for the first time if Miss Climpson is actually a deeply closeted, excruciatingly Anglo-Catholic woman who denied all her own chances for happiness in favour of waiting around for the right MAN for her, who never came because "the right" and "man" were for her an oxymoron.

[sovay]

I can't remember Agatha Dawson and Clara Whittaker

See link in comments above for the relevant passage. (I am trying to avoid text-dumping one thread into another, with perhaps mediocre results.) One of them was the murder victim, the other the great-aunt of the murderer, and they seem to have been very happy for the whole of their lives together. I had missed them the first time I read the book and then didn't read the book again for decades for the obvious reasons.

Seeing it just now, I'm wondering for the first time if Miss Climpson is actually a deeply closeted, excruciatingly Anglo-Catholic woman who denied all her own chances for happiness in favour of waiting around for the right MAN for her, who never came because "the right" and "man" were for her an oxymoron.

Elsewhere the novel refers to Miss Climpson as "a spinster made and not born—a perfectly womanly woman," but I don't think it would take a lot of theory to connect her with the other figures of unmarried women in the novel, similarly professional and independent, who are textually queer. The working title for the novel was The Singular Case of the Three Spinsters. If we assume that the victim was one and the murderer another, that leaves only the investigator as the third.

The scare quotes struggle to contain what is between them

[vass]

If we assume that the victim was one and the murderer another, that leaves only the investigator as the third.

Hmm. Do the victim and murder happen to fit the invert/pervert paradigm that was going around then? I guess they wouldn't, if they were the same social class. But if they did, it'd be three different models of a spinster: one by birth (the "invert", born this way and can't help it, nobly suffering), one by "choice" (the "pervert", capable of "normal" desire but basely choosing to take advantage of the usually-aristocratic "invert"'s "affliction" instead of choosing heterosexual marriage as God intended), and one purely by chance (Miss Climpson, ending up "on the shelf" through neither "defect" (inversion) nor "fault" (perversion) of her own.) So the working title wouldn't require her to be a closeted lesbian herself.

Edit: I've read the quoted passage now, and wow, yes. Back in my teens I always thought the italics etc were just meant to indicate how fluffy Miss Climpson was. But they're carrying a lot more freight than I understood back then!

The scare quotes did their heroic best

[sovay]

So the working title wouldn't require her to be a closeted lesbian herself.

I don't think it does. But the novel itself is either really sloppy or revealingly precise about its terminology in ways that interest me. Miss Climpson, Mary Whittaker, and Agatha Dawson and Clara Whittaker are all textually identified as spinsters. Agatha and Vera additionally describe themselves and their partners as old maids, coupled in each case with an explicit statement of disinterest in men; the same term is used by Peter in reference to Miss Climpson, but she herself is careful to try not to attract it by sounding too, to borrow Sylvia's word for Eiluned in Strong Poison (1930), "anti-man." She thinks confidently that Mary "is not of the marrying sort. She is a professional woman by nature" and italicizes the fact that Clara Whittaker was a "good business woman" and is herself a self-supporting, unmarried woman who might have gone for an even less traditionally feminine career had her father's old-fashioned sexism not kept her from the necessary education. I am really not sure the text knows it's collapsed her into these queer categories. Whatever her actions, she's its voice of heteronormativity. But it's still done it—the terms are used scrupulously for this small set of characters—and thus affords one of the reasons I would be willing to credit your reading of a closeted Miss Climpson despite what I assume is the intended heterosexual reassurance of "womanly woman."

But they're carrying a lot more freight than I understood back then!

DEEPLY ATTACHED.

[tree_and_leaf]

Miss Climpson shares her author's faith, but I don't think that means that all her views are Sayers's.

[sovay]

Miss Climpson shares her author's faith, but I don't think that means that all her views are Sayers's.

Agreed. As noted to pameladean, whatever Miss Climpson may think men are intended to be, the entire series around her is skeptical to dynamiting of "masterful."

[tree_and_leaf]

And I certainly don't think that we're supposed to see the Dawson/ Whittaker partnership as unnatural. I don't have a copy handy, but doesn't the old man who tells Peter and Charles about them muse that he knew a mare who could never be brought to mate with a stallion, in a completely non-judgemental manner, and admiring of Miss Whittaker's business sense? He seems to view it as perfectly natural - unusual, but well within the bounds of nature.

ETA: found it online. Not a mare, but a terrier. The bloke concludes: "‘The Lord makes a few of them that way to suit ’Is own purposes, I suppose.'"

[sovay]

And I certainly don't think that we're supposed to see the Dawson/ Whittaker partnership as unnatural.

No; they're remembered fondly by everyone Peter interviews and Miss Climpson is firmly on their side when she writes about the feud with Clara's family.

ETA: found it online. Not a mare, but a terrier. The bloke concludes: "‘The Lord makes a few of them that way to suit ’Is own purposes, I suppose.'"

He calls the terrier a "business woman," too! Was this a coinage for the novel or a code of the time I just haven't encountered outside of it?

(I have been relying extensively on Faded Page for this conversation, all of my own copies being in boxes.)

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, I didn't realise it was on Faded Page! Excellent.

[ethelmay]

It depends - Sayers did have various odd-to-my-way-of-thinking views about sex, which don't fit neatly into modern categories. That letter about it being the business of the "bedworthy" man to make sure that "a good time should be had by all," for instance. Harriet saying "obey" for another. (Hell, Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't say "obey"!) And the "masterful" man is contrasted with one who is clearly overmastered by his wife, not one who is egalitarian.

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't know if Sayers was lesbian, or bi, but I'm pretty sure she liked being submissive in the bedroom. Look at the dog collar stuff in Gaudy Night. (Mind you, I'm not sure if Harriet would have been so keen to say 'obey' if Peter hadn't shown his support for her independence across the board - and I recall Peter wasn't keen on 'obey').

[sovay]

I don't know if Sayers was lesbian, or bi, but I'm pretty sure she liked being submissive in the bedroom. Look at the dog collar stuff in Gaudy Night.

That's never pinged much for me [edit: I think because even though they joke about it, the implications of ownership are not pleasant to Harriet; contemplating her collared reflection is what prompts her reverie about dead sea apples and Philip], but in Busman's Honeymoon there's "The last two words in the language I ever expected to get a kick out of."

(Mind you, I'm not sure if Harriet would have been so keen to say 'obey' if Peter hadn't shown his support for her independence across the board - and I recall Peter wasn't keen on 'obey').

He wasn't. They had to negotiate it:

"At this point, Helen got up and left the house, leaving P. and Harriet to wrangle over the word 'obey.' P. said he would consider it a breach of manners to give orders to his wife, but H. said, Oh, no—he'd give orders fast enough if the place was on fire or a tree falling down and he wanted her to stand clear. P. said, in that case they ought both to say 'obey,' but it would be too much jam for the reporters. Left them to fight it out. When I came back, found Peter had consented to be obeyed on condition he might 'endow' and not 'share' his worldly goods. Shocking victory of sentiment over principle."

Which is characteristic of their relationship with or without overtones of kink. They don't do anything by received roles; if they do something traditional, they've talked their way to it. I'm still standing by my statement about "masterful," especially since it is further qualified "even though wicked or foolish." If the series accepted that, it wouldn't have taken Sayers three books to write Harriet and Peter out of the inequalities of their initial position and Gaudy Night would have had a different villain.

[sovay]

That letter about it being the business of the "bedworthy" man to make sure that "a good time should be had by all," for instance.

I was not familiar with that letter! I don't seem able to get the full text online (I fell into her Sherlockiana in the process, though), but I see she wrote it to Charles Williams, who I have been given to understand was an interesting choice of person to talk sex with at all. I agree that personally I don't want to place the responsibility for a mutual good time on any one partner alone, but in the context I have managed to wring out of Google snippet view, the rationale behind the statement doesn't look completely bonkers:

"The second Assumption rules out the hasty, the clumsy, the lazy, the inconsiderate, the peremptory, the untimely and (in most cases) the routinier – though one would not wish to be too hard on Mr Shandy, senior, since Mrs Shandy may have been as orderly-minded as himself and possibly preferred it that way – and those who have 'l'Amour Triste' or are morose and unmannerly, or are without skill in the management of bed-furniture or wind the whole combination into toppling and insecure complications of pillows and blankets or (in extreme circumstances) bang their partner's head against the wall."

Also that last part made me laugh out loud and wonder if it was from personal experience.

And the "masterful" man is contrasted with one who is clearly overmastered by his wife, not one who is egalitarian.

He is considered by Miss Climpson to be rightfully masterful whether he's deserving of the accord or no, which I really don't see borne out by the rest of the books.

[legionseagle]

At this point, and apologies to tree_and_leaf who has probably heard this one from me several times already, I have the oblg! rant about the Established Church, consequential interference of the Houses of Parliament in prayer book reform (see here .) That is, Laura Ingalls Wilder might have had her problems like bears, scarlet fever, locusts and being a racist git edited by a libertarian racist git, but at least she didn't have to contend with the Houses of Parliament. Which meant that whenever the Church had got round to deciding that yes, actually, "obey" was a bit anachronistic*, the whole might of the Rural Members would rise up and either argue that it was going to led to self-flagellation before statues of the Virgin Mary erected in St Paul's or that it would end up giving handles to the Non-Conformists. Hence the Prayer Book never got itself reformed, and priests offering the bride the option were technically out of line.


*My objection to "obey" isn't just that but that the whole might of the Law of England was for half a millennium hell-bent on enforcing a woman's marriage oath with the full weight of its power, up to and including forcing her to have sex with a husband knowingly infected with active communicable syphilis, whereas the same legal might was equally hell-bent on removing any splinter of truth from the husband's promise to "endow" and protecting his property against the wife's claims come what may.

[ethelmay]

That's fascinating. I had assumed Helen Wimsey's surprise at Harriet saying "obey" implied that people in Helen's circles mostly didn't by then. But perhaps she just thought of Harriet as being the sort of person who wouldn't, and would have gotten in a dig at her either way - rather like someone in the hippie era being faux-astonished that a young woman wore a bra and shaved her legs for her wedding day.

[legionseagle]

Talking about Helen's circles, there was an absolutely idiotic fuss that Kate Middleton didn't, only ten years ago (it seems from the attached that Diana didn't in 1981, either, but it's interesting that it was still newsworthy in 2011.)

Now you mention it, it sounds exactly what you suggest. The bit Helen is genuinely squeamish about in the traditional prayer book is the stuff which is more 17th century frank than early 20th century prudish about sex. I think the "obey" business is her having a go at Harriet.