Friday 10 January 2014

Feeling Whimsical

thronesI have just re-read Thrones, Dominations which is a Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Dorothy L Sayers had made notes for this before her death, and these had been stored in a safe. Her agent approached novelist Jill Paton Walsh who completed the book in 1998. I felt the first time I read it, when it came out in paperback, that JPW had really made a good job of continuing the Wimsey story accurately in the original DLS style.

Also this week, Radio 4 Extra has been serialising Have His Carcase, and earlier DLS Wimsey [with Ian Carmichael and Maria Aitken in leading roles] and that’s been good to.

One of these days, I may get round to JPW’s other two Wimsey books from 2002 and 2010 – Presumption of Death and The Attenbury Emeralds. The former was again written from DLS notes, the latter totally by JPW.

presumptionattenburyemralds

I feel I should tackle these two simply because last month, Mrs P-W churned out yet another Wimsey – The Late Scholar. She was interviewed about it on the Radio, and I was fascinated [but feel the other 2 ought to be digested first!]

The-Late-Scholar

This last one is set Post War and Lord Peter is in his sixties.

I wish they would repeat the Wimsey series made for TV, I did like the Edward Petherbridge & Harriet Walter episodes in the 1980s [and actually preferred them to Ian Carmichael’s version]

Still, at least they have just made some more ‘Father Brown’ programmes, which I like very much.

petherbridgewimseyFather_Brown 2013

Mind you, I am aware that Mark Williams’ interpretation of this cheerful Catholic priest is not everyone’s idea of G K Chesterton’s character. At least he is not as crazy as the clergy around Midsomer, and he is quite clear about the love and grace of God.

5 comments:

  1. As a teenager I think I was slightly in love with Peter Wimsey! He always seemed the epitome of calm, gentlemanly behaviour.

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  2. I have just read Thrones, Dominations as well! Wimsey novels are a newish find for me. I know it is a bit contraversial but this may well be my favourite. A great read I thought.

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  3. We have some Lord Peter Wimsy tales on audio book. Read by Ian Carmichael,they are very good indeed!
    Jane x

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  4. Having read all of the Dorothy L Sayers books I enjoyed both of the actors interpretations of the role.

    It was the Petherbridge series which got me started reading the Whimsey books.

    The only irritation I had with the Carmichael series was that it went off piste every now and then, adding material not found in the books.

    I found his audio series to be truer to the books and quite excellent. I have read "Thrones, Dominations" when it first came out and found it a very satisfactory "with" book. I must read the others sometime.

    As an amusing aside we watched Five Red Herrings whilst visiting Kirkcudbright last year, to add to the atmosphere.

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  5. The audio series I mentioned were full cast productions. These are really worth listening to.

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