Friday, March 27, 2020

Pandemics in Fiction: Dorothy L. Sayers', THE NINE TAILORS

On a very different note from what usually comes up here: If you're finding it difficult to keep yourself entertained these days, you might want to consider checking out Dorothy L. Sayers' most highly acclaimed whodunnit novel, The Nine Tailors.

Sayers, in case you don't know, was a contemporary of Agatha Christie and her main character, Lord Peter Wimsey, rivals Christie's Hercule Poirot as one of the most memorable and entertaining characters of that genre.

The Nine Tailors has been judged by many to most to be Sayers' greatest novel, though it's not my personal favorite.

Two points of interest for people who'd be reading this blog:

1. A significant portion of the novel is centered around a rural Anglican parish. The novel presents a very interesting and sympathetic vision of the positive role the English church played in everyday English life back in the day. It features, as an important character, the parish's vicar who is quirky and good hearted and committed to the Matthew 25 way of being a Christian, though in a kind and gentle way, unlike the bristly way it's normally presented here.

2. The Spanish Flu pandemic is crucial to the story and the very unusual murder solved by Lord Peter and his gentleman's gentleman, Mervyn Bunter.

Another note of interest. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch devoted a section of their outstanding 2008 book, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church, to Dorothy L. Sayers, whom they describe as living a vivid life of obedience to the red letters of the Bible. Seemingly, there's a bit of Sayers vision of Christianity in the vicar character.

Actually, it was their description of Sayers' life and faith that first interested me in her novels.

The BBC did a miniseries portrayal of The Nine Tailors in the mid 1970s, and it holds up fairly well.

You can find it on YouTube.

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