Gaudy Night

Lord Peter Wimsey, Book 12

By: Dorothy L. Sayers

Narrated by: Jane McDowell

Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

The best of the golden age crime writers, praised by all the top modern writers in the field including P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers created the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. The twelfth book featuring Lord Peter (the third novel to feature Harriet Vane) is set in an Oxford women's college.

Harriet Vane has never dared to return to her old Oxford college. Now, despite her scandalous life, she has been summoned back....

At first she thinks her worst fears have been fulfilled, as she encounters obscene graffiti, poison pen letters, and a disgusting effigy when she arrives at sedate Shrewsbury College for the Gaudy celebrations.

But soon Harriet realises she is not the only target of this murderous malice - and asks Lord Peter Wimsey to help.

©1935 The Trustees of Anthony Fleming (deceased) (P)2015 Hodder & Stoughton

Critic Reviews

"I admire her novels...she has great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail." (P. D. James)

a murder of a lovely book by narration

This is such a beautiful text, full of humor, intelligence, period details and the loveliness of Oxford. And it was brutally murdered by a shrill, humorless, staccato narration. Nothing in the world could make me dislike the heroes and the book itself, but I have to say money was wasted on this production.

Jane McDowell did a very unpleasant narration: humorless, tactless and slap-dash.

As she already did all of the books, there is obviously no chance of another try in the nearest future with a different narrator. Such a pity.

Gaudy Night

I've adored this novel for 20 years. This reading of it made me dislike Harriet and Peter.

Run to the end of the story

jane Sayers reads too quickly which detracts readers attention. Story is weakened significantly as a result

Spoiled by narrator

The mystery and the progress in the relationship between Wimsey and Harriet Vane make this one of the most important and enjoyable books in the series, and always my favourite.
Unfortunately this narrator was the wrong one with no understanding of the period and the setting, with no differentiation between multiple characters and a reading style of irritable misplaced emphasis.

i liked the narrator! (favorite book)

Unlike others here I thought the reader was perfect for a book set in an Oxford college in the 1930s. A more dramatic and emotional reading would have been wildly inappropriate and this gave a wonderful sense of place.
And, it's one of my favorite books ever! but if you're just picking up Sayers for the first time, start with Strong Poison at least and preferably also Have His Carcase.

Love Whimsy and Harriot!

I love all Dorothy Sayers! First class performance! Thank you! Looking forward to more! Cheers!

Awful performance nearly spoils good book

If you could sum up Gaudy Night in three words, what would they be?

Oxford; romance; mystery

What did you like best about this story?

A Continuation of the ongoing story of Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, as well as a love-letter to Oxford and a detective story.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

in many, many, ways. I will avoid any book she is reading - she could spoil any book! She pauses irritatingly after every few words, at inappropriate places, she stresses the wrong words to make sense of a sentence, and she frequently mispronounces words - even homophones, such as 'bow' are pronounced incorrectly (revealing that she has little understanding of what she is reading. Why on earth was she recruited as a reader????

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

the book delighted me, but the reading made me scream with frustration and irritation.

Any additional comments?

PLEASE restore or re-commission new readings of the Sayers books, and don't let this woman loose on any books again.

Great story ruined by awful narration

What did you like best about Gaudy Night? What did you like least?

Complex and engaging plot - one of Dorothy L. Sayer's Best. On the downside the narrator sounded like nothing so much as a satnav and seemed to have no idea what she was saying.

How could the performance have been better?

Another narrator.

A lamentable narrator and badly produced

Stilted! She stops halfway through speeches to take a breath where nobody would. Reads like an amateur. However, I did feel that some editing, or production, might have spared us the howlers and mispronunciations. Plus not knowing how Oxford names should be spoken. 'Saint Aldgates' indeed. And 'Dives' pronounced like seedy nightspots. it should be 'DivES, with the E pronounced. I stuck with it, because I like the story, but this is the second of the new series of Lord Peter books I have been disappointed by and I shan't get any more. I and Ms Sayers deserve better than this. Thank heavens I have all the Ian Carmichael recordings.

Weird staccato narrator

Gaudy Nights and Busman's Holiday are some of Sayers best work, and they are almost butchered by this narrator. She has a strange staccato way of speaking, and seem at many times to be cut short, which exaggerate this even more.
HOWEVER the story is sublime, so if one can overhear the narrator, one is still captivated. I think one must be a convinced Wimsey lover however, to accomplish this though.

Change the narrator.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I enjoy this book very much so the time wasn't wasted but the narrator let the story down.

What did you like best about this story?

The story line itself.

What didn’t you like about Jane McDowell’s performance?

There were a couple of shocking mispronunciations that irritated me more than somewhat and made nonsense of what was being said. English lends itself to this but context usually makes it clear. In this case 'row' and 'bow' both caused confusion to the narrator but it was clear from the context which pronunciation was required. I found the word 'mischievous' being mispronounced 'mischeevious' most annoying.Sayers' use of language in Gaudy Night is quite complex and is a demanding read. Perhaps due to this the narrator lost her way at times.. For me, she simply didn't manage to capture the 'feel' of the book at all. On the other hand her French was good.

Could you see Gaudy Night being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

There was a TV series made some years back that was very good. Harriet Walters played Harriet Vane very well.

Any additional comments?

I see that Jane McDowell has recorded a lot of the Wimsey stories. I won't be buying any more. I have a couple narrated by Ian Carmichael and Edward Petherbridge, which were excellent.

Enthralling story, poor delivery

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Different narrator

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Jane McDowell?

Phyllida Nash - Claire Higgins

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Gaudy Night?

It's best unabridged

Any additional comments?

Jane McDowell is obviously unacquainted with Oxford as she mispronounces names connected with the place, such as Cherwell. More surprising are the many other mistakes in pronunciation she makes, among which "Bredon", "mischievous", "lyricists" and "bow" (drawn at a venture) are the most egregious. This is very grating, more so particularly because of her flat and rather breathy delivery, which kills what should be a very lively narrative.

Miss Sayers at her best - shame the narration wasn't that great

I have waited a long time for this book to be released I audio for at. In my humble opinion this is Miss Sayers at her very best. By why oh why didn't the get Edward Petherbridge for the narration. This is why I have marked down the performance.

Dreadful narration

My favourite Dorothy L Sayers book spoilt by dreadful narration. I couldn't tell the characters apart and haven't actually finished listening to the whole audio book. Have returned to the radio adaption!

My favourite Dorothy spoilt by narration

I love this book but almost didn't finish it because of the narration. I would almost say that the narrator doesn't understand much of what she is reading, as she continually stresses less important words in sentences; and mispronunciations abound. And she narrates all the Wimsey/Vane books! Does no-one at the publishers listen to the books before releasing them?

The narrator does not do a good job

This story is absolutely wonderful.

All the way through I kept trying to figure out the exact nature of the narrator's shortcomings:

1. She has a nice voice
2. She doesn't have the ability to differentiate her voices according to character, sometimes she tries it and applies the voice too late, mostly she doesn't (Martin Jarvis is one of the best in this regard and often improves one's enjoyment of the story).
3. The way that the words are strung together sounds like my kindle when I select the voice option (what you get is a computer selecting the words from a database and stringing them together without the necessary understanding to give the correct intonation and emotion).

It is a real tragedy because it appears that this narrator is currently the only option in the audible stable for the Lord Peter Wimsey books.

However, this story is wonderful and scholarly, I am not a scholar and supplemented my understanding by researching for example Latin phrases on the Internet - it gives more depth and tenderness to the story.... Sublime, truly sublime..............shame about the narrator.