I admit, I was feeling a bit luxurious when I read this book. It was right after Easter, and with Lent over I could once again park a cup of tea by my side while I read. I also had a bag of those Dove dark chocolates, which are my favorite candy. I admit, though, the little sayings that they print inside the wrappers baffle me a good deal. I found myself staring at one--"Indulge your every whim"--in disbelief. I understand that it's not as if they've got Aristotle or someone dropping wisdom around up at the Dove factory, but that remains one of the stupidest things I've ever read. Only idiots indulge their every whim. Many's the time I've developed the whimsical urge to play in traffic, but fortunately for drivers everywhere I've kept this eccentricity in check.
Well, how else can I begin a review of a book about a fellow for whom "Wimsey" is a description both of name and nature? Maybe I should have started by saying that Dorothy L. Sayers is a woman after my own heart. Anyone who runs a mystery-writing society with G.K. Chesterton by day and translates Dante by night is obviously going to be a friend of mine. Lord Peter Wimsey is Sayers made male. When we first meet him he's torn between heading out to investigate a murder and bidding for a rare Dante document at an auction. "Dear me!" he understates airily, "it's a dreadful mistake to ride two hobbies at once."
I was inclined to like
Whose Body? from the beginning, since the author could have written it with me in mind. Lately I've been devouring P.G. Wodehouse, particularly the "Jeeves and Wooster" series. His writing is light and effortless, a lot like dancing, and the trouble with it is that once you've gotten it into your system, everything else seems clunky by comparison. Not so the "Sherlock Holmes" series, which I've been reading for the second time. It's a rummy thing, as Wodehouse would say, but there's something about the crisp voice of Sherlock Holmes that contrasts perfectly with the delirious ramblings of Bertie Wooster.
Wimsey is a delightful character to watch. He talks like Wooster and thinks like Holmes (when he's not talking like Holmes and thinking like Wooster), but he's definitely got some aspects of Sayer's friend G.K. Chesterton in him, too. You may or may not laugh incredulously at the mindlessly nifty gadgets that Wimsey has just lying around the place--a high-power magnifying lens disguised as a monocle, for instance, and a matchbox that conceals a flashlight--but then again, in real life Chesterton carried a sword inside his cane, apparently for no other reason than that it was cool. If Chesterton inspired Wimsey--and I'll have to fact-check that one--then Sayers appears to have toned him down considerably.
The book starts out with some perfectly-executed black comedy. Wimsey receives a phone call from his mother. She rambles cheerily a bit before delivering the news that a man they both know found a corpse in his bathtub. No, he hasn't misheard her. "A dead man, dear, with nothing on but a pair of pince-nez. Mrs. Throgmorton positively blushed when she was telling me. I'm afraid people do get a little narrow-minded in country vicarages."
You'll probably feel as if you've seen a situation like this before, especially if you've ever cracked open a Batman comic (or any parody thereof). The brilliant amateur detective, after a word or two with his butler ("…a respectable Battersea architect has discovered a dead man in his bath." "Indeed, my lord? That's very gratifying"), is out on his pointlessly awesome game. (He seems to understand himself that it's pointlessly awesome, even changing his clothes in an effort to appear more sleuth-like.) When he gets home later we find out that he has "one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in London", which merits a full description because we'd all like to live in it ourselves: "Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums."
It's all self-aware, silly fun, until it gets unexpectedly philosophical. Lord Peter, like Sherlock Holmes, is in it for the entertainment, but unlike Sherlock Holmes, he has his doubts and hates following through with a mystery. He has a Hitchcockian tendency to get into fascinating conversations about crime at fancy-dress parties, but they're only fascinating because they're full of food for thought. Wimsey is, in short, a deep, almost disturbing (and certainly disturbed) character hiding under the thin veneer of a vapid one.
What makes all of this especially odd is that Wimsey has no Watson. Oh, I've heard Bunter the butler referred to in that capacity, and he does get to participate quite a bit, but you know what I mean. There's no first-person narrator, no clear-headed companion or half-witted Hastings to guess what Wimsey is thinking. The omniscient narrator picks different ways of probing Wimsey's thoughts. Usually we see him from the outside. Only when he's alone do we get a glimpse of his thoughts. They're pointed thoughts, and reveal more about the mystery than they do about Wimsey himself--at first. That aspect of black comedy from the beginning, which at first seemed like a one-off joke to catch the reader's eye, clings to every word of the story, and we barely notice the comedy aspect dialing itself down and the blackness taking over until Wimsey's revelation comes coupled with a nightmare, in one of the most well-done scenes in the entire book. From there things get chilling, and if you, like me, were relaxing in the living-room when you began the book, you might find yourself pulling the blanket tighter and casting your eyes around for another light to turn on. (Where's a wood fire leaping on an old-fashioned hearth and an understanding Bunter to bring you tea when you really need them?)
Whose Body? is a fine beginning for what is no doubt a fine series, but that's another way in which it's like a dark chocolate--it seems to have dissolved the second you feel that you've really tasted it. I would regard this rather as an extended first chapter than as a true novel, particularly since, while the crime is solved, there's a lot about its solver that we still want to know. So some dark night I fully intend to bed down with a copy of
Clouds of Witness, the second book in the series. First, though, I'd like to reread this one again. Like that chocolate, again, it's complex, and I can't shake the feeling that there's a thing or two about it that I missed.
Goodreads rating: 4 stars
