Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers

I don’t know the last time I’ve enjoyed a book this much. I read the whole thing with an impish grin on my face and a constant chuckle in my throat. 

At the end of the last book (Gaudy Night), Harriet Vane finally accepts Peter’s proposal of marriage. Busman’s Honeymoon begins with various letters expressing opinions on the match, which are delightful in their cattiness. Then there were darling extracts from the Duchess of Denver’s (Lord Peter’s mother) diary, which primed the pump for my continued enjoyment of the book.

If you are looking for a cracking good mystery, you may be disappointed with all the dialogue about marriage, but for me those conversations were what made the book my favorite of all the Lord Peter novels. Sayers herself described it as “a love story with detective interruptions.”

Sayer’s novel are loaded with scrumptious literary references. Lord Peter and Inspector Kirk cheerfully exchange quotes from the Bible, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Browning, Keats, etc. I wish I could find an annotated version of this novel to save me time from looking up translations of the Latin and French, but as it was, I looked up about half the references and was richly rewarded in discovering their meaning. Frankly, most of them were discreet reference to sexuality that would have made me blush considerably in my younger years.

There is a lot of (discreet) talk about previous liaisons, expectations for the wedding night, etc., which I could appreciate after my three decades of marriage because they showed Peter and Harriet wrestling with every aspect of their marriage, not sugar-coating the past, but showing their growth in understanding of what true love entails. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them come to grips with the tough realities and indescribable joys of marital commitment.

In spite of all the fancy quotes, Lord Peter finally concludes: And what do all the great words come to in the end, but that? – I love you – I am at rest with you – I have come home.

As if the love story weren’t enough, the mystery is quite good. AND BUNTER GETS HIS DUE as the devoted, unruffled servant - so much so that Harriet jokes that maybe she should have married him instead of Lord Peter. I don’t know a thing about wine, but the care with which Bunter handled the liquor in this book was laugh-out-loud hilarious.

A delightful read from start to finish. This is not a stand-alone novel. It is necessary to read the previous novels to get the full impact of how Harriet and Lord Peter are piecing their new lives together. Bravo to Dorothy Sayers for showing the beauty and complexity of it. 

Blessings,

Anthony Esolen on the Importance of Memorizing Poetry

Although I am not a Catholic, I am a fan of Anthony Esolen's insightful articles in Crisis Magazine. I recently discovered his more lighthearted weekly newsletter “Word and Song,” which is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of truth, goodness and beauty. Three times a week he writes out his thoughts on various poems, songs or movies. 

He began a recent post with this verse from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat:

A book of VERSES underneath the bough,

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness –

That wilderness were paradise enow!

He then goes on to elaborate on the meaning of the word “verses” and how poetry and song have been an integral part of previous civilizations because they were the best way to hide the stories & poetry & truths in one’s heart. He regrets that our present generation “no longer has the VERSES in our soul.”

He adds, “People nowadays often scoff at this sort of thing, calling it “rote memorization,” but that misses the heart of the matter entirely.  You can’t really “own” a song unless you hear it sung and you can sing it yourself, and poetry is essentially song.  When you commit a poem to heart, when you get the VERSES within you, you must engage your imagination; you see and hear things that make the VERSES fully present; you exert your voice, and you hear your voice; your body moves, and the movements have meaning; all kinds of memories, actions, emotions, thoughts, and feelings come into play and involve themselves with the poem.” (from Oct 24, 2022)

I highly recommend this brief and delightful newsletter.  

Blessings