Episode 244: “Murder Must Advertise” by Dorothy Sayers, Ch. 12-16

Today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast picks up our series on Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers with a discussion of chapters 12-16. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Thomas begin by talking about whether Sayers is “too accomplished” to be writing detective stories and the decline and resurgence of the genre. Angelina makes more connections between the medieval romance and Murder Must Advertise, as well as the images that parallel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland scenes and the purpose they serve. They also talk about the many masks of Lord Peter, the “hellish hunt”, the ad world and the drug world, and so much more.

In October the House of Humane Letters will be bringing you a new mini-class with Querida Thompson, “How to Read a Symphony: Revealing the Ingenuity of Haydn’s Symphony 42 in D. Major.”

Listen to The Literary Life:

Commonplace Quotes:

She writes detective stories, and in detective stories, virtue is always triumphant. They’re the purest literature we have.

Dorothy Sayers, in Strong Poison

Many forerunners….would have felt rather ill if they had seen the things they foreran.

G. K. Chesterton, from The Victorian Age in Literature

Selection from “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Went”

by Robert Browning

X.

So, on I went. I think I never saw
  Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
  For flowers---as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
  You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove.

XI.

No! penury, inertness and grimace,
  In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See
 "Or shut your eyes," said nature peevishly,
"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
"'Tis the Last judgment's fire must cure this place,
  "Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

Book List:

(Amazon Affiliate Links are included in this post.)

Lloyd Alexander

Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Hercule Poirot series by Agatha Christie

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith

The Georgian Literary Scene by Frank Swinnerton

The Secular Scripture by Northrop Frye

The Adventures of Tintin by Herge

The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde

Metamorphoses by Ovid

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

Support The Literary Life:

Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support!

Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Subscribe to The Lit Life: