Admiring Dorothy L. Sayers

I listened to Stephen Fry yesterday talking about, amongst (many) other things, how he holds the act of admiring in high esteem. Well me too, and I admire Dorothy L. Sayers, the writer of detective fiction, creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, and also writer on theology and translator of Dante. I love her incisive use of language, her Oxford-trained logical mind, that I can appreciate but not quite match, due to slightly lesser training. Reading her detective novels I feel at home, with a peer, comfortable. Her letters have been published, by, if I remember rightly, Barbara Reynolds. The one volume of these that I have read so far shows many facets to her being and her life - the Molière plays she staged at school - much as George Sand did - the two years she cried over her lost love - her demand to be in control of her own fiction and not let some committee take over the writing of her book. Her energy of mind, will and action. Her imperfections, ridiculous emotional humanity, marriage that didn't succeed in forming a home for her son but did give her great insight into what a man gassed in the trenches could behave like. The necessity of dropping her writing work during the Second War as she couldn't get household help, so her days were filled with scrubbing floors and cooking meals for said husband and self: "and you can't cook a decent meal in under an hour and a half" (I paraphrase). Most of all, her successful combination of deep characterisation of real, complex, intelligent people and a murder mystery. She is one of my heroes. Teufel