Review: Gaudy Night

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my favorite Dorothy Sayers. The mystery is a perfectly serviceable one, but what makes this book wonderful is the observations of the way people behave. The relationship between Harriet and Lord Peter gets a lot of attention in this book and Harriet spends a lot of time figuring out who she is and what she wants. It is also full of wonderful lines.

“Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.” “We shall know what things are of overmastering importance when they have overmastered us.” “A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity.” “How fleeting are all human passions compared to the massive continuity of ducks.""She admired the strange nexus of interests thar unites the male half of mankind into a close honeycomb of cells, each touching the other on one side only, and yet constituting a tough and closely adhering fabric." 

If you want to know what the last two lines of the book mean there is a good (but spoiler filled!) explanation here.