Gaudy Night, The DVD

As part of preparing for my fall class on feminist political thought, I watched the BBC version (I think it's the only version) of Dorothy Sayers's Gaudy Night. I declared to Stearns at the beginning that if with those two (let us say not typically Hollywood attractive) actors (I've never seen Harriet Walter play a sympathetic character before) the film succeeded on selling me on their kiss at the end, I would be content. And it did.

My bones to pick: the film adaptation left out the sonnet (!--the sonnet!--that is, the one that Harriet begins and Lord Peter later discovers and completes); additionally, the film left out what was, I thought, the key to the novel as a whole--the varying occupations that Vane's friends decided on in the course of the10 years since they'd graduated, coupled with the varying levels of satisfaction with those occupations. In no other place is Sayers's point that each person ought to find his proper job more clear.

That said, what stood out to me in the film (which never had in the novel) was the way in which each person discovering his proper job applies to both the academics and Shrewsbury, as well as to the servants. The way in which servants are not treated with sufficient dignity is highlighted. All in all, the film offers a critique of academic theorizing that neglects to consider women as wives and mothers. The film reminded me of how much I love the novel. And let us not forget--it convinces the reader all over again that oh-so-nerdy Lord Peter is desperately attractive.