Wimsey covers: Whose Body?

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Let's look at a Lord Peter Wimsey book. Specifically the cover art.

    The thing about old and enduring series is that over 70-80ish years of reprints in various countries, they'll usually accumulate themselves some artwork. Usually the cover artwork reflects the time period of its creation and printing and the approach to the attached genre taken by the public and publishers at the time and so on. This is definitely so with the Lord Peter books. One can browse eBay for quick examples of LPW covers, and one finds everything from the corny to the bizarre and the surrealist, including straightforward objects-from-the-book covers, painful and amusing "the artist has no idea what the characters look like" covers, vague yet lovely covers with photographs depicting rich British people in nice '30s clothes, covers which offer tiny, tantalizing drawings of Harriet Vane buried in the rest of what's going on, naked almost-first-editions, cheesy text-only pocket editions, and once in a while, my absolute favorite: the unspeakably hilarious edition of Busman's Honeymoon wherein the cover shows the murderer fixing up the murder weapon with a diabolical leer on his face.

    There are even a few rather pretty covers.

    Also, I just like talking about Lord Peter Wimsey books. I'm going to do that now.

    Whose Body? (1923)

    This one must be a fairly straightforward job, I think. The premise of a random dead body in a bath is so charming that artwork depicting it fronts most every edition. Let's look at those, and a few exceptions.

    (each block of text will describe the picture preceding it; Blogspot's caption system can get unwieldy.)

    There you have it. Pince-nez, bath, text. I'd like to see a corpse on this cover, but it's quite serviceable.

    I don't know anything about these uncolorful, Elizabeth George'd editions beyond their covers, but their covers are lovely. This one is deeply noncommittal, as they tend to be, but I like the cold color and I'm a huge sucker for top hats.

    I don't mind the dinky look of this book; I don't even mind its topmost blue going badly with the zombie/pea-soup green they chose for the bulk of it. I mind this cover because it creeps me the fuck out. The pince-nez are nicely distracting and "pop" well, but then we get to the dead, staring eyes and furrowed brow and it's like, holy shit, Edward Everett Horton became a librarian and then died and came back to life and he's really fucking angry and he's gonna come for me in the night, somebody fucking save me.

     You know what? This was the first LPW book cover I ever saw. I was at the library with my mom and I was bored and browsing through the audiobooks and I saw this - and mind you, I'd never read any LPW books before - and I actually remember thinking, I bet the main character guy really doesn't look anything like that at all.

   All right, well, that's just, like, Cary Grant.

    I like the piano but the pince-nez is kinda awkward and inappropriate. I wish it was Lord Peter's monocle instead.

    I can't find a better picture of this but it looks fuckin' rad so I'm posting it anyway.

    AW YEAH CUBISM

    This cover just...kills me. I'm dead, man. Dead. Look at his hair. Look at that zombie climbing out of the bath. Kill me now.

    LATER UPDATE (3/10/11):
    I found a pile of random stuff!

 

 Also this, which is German and kinda gross.

 

name/skirt/darkness

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    One knows that Things Are Afoot when one's sister bursts into the room and demands to have the spelling of one's middle name confirmed.

    Also I am pretty sure that my high-waisted skirt is preparing itself to grow a circular blade 'round its top at my midriff and literally slice me in two.

    Oh, and I finished my first collection of Lovecraft stories the other day. "The Whisperer in Darkness" was insanely long and boring, and I wanted to scream at the protagonist for being an idjit and for vaguely suspecting that something was wrong when the letters from Akeley changed (after Akeley had been writing to him like "olawd the aliens are coming it won't be long now") and then dismissing those suspicions like the idjit that he is...but at least now I can make inside jokes with my dad about it. Because, really, it's too-perfect in-joke material. As in, "let's go shoe-shopping!" "We can't! The car's in the shop!" "Then let's go IN OUR FLYING BRAIN-CYLINDERS!" and so on.

this particular collection. (image taken from here)

yeah film adaptations

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I want to write awesome novels. I want to have my awesome novels published. I want Hollywood to approach me with contracts and greed and be like well hello there little missy, can we make your awesome novels into movies/miniseries?

    And then I'll be like sure thing man, but you have to give me consultation/veto rights on the casting k

    and they'll be like hmm, well, maybe, did you have anyone in mind for any particular roles?

    and I'll be like I think Harriet Walter should play So-and-so

    and they'll be like but...So-and-so is a young man with three mohawks and things...

    and I'll be like whateverrr, she can pull it off, don't you have faith in your costumery/makeup department

    and they'll be like uhh, we're not sure that -

    and I'll be like Harriet Walter needs to play What's-her-face, too, if you want to make this at all!

    and they'll be like what? you mean, instead of So-and-so, surely?

    and I'll be like no, we have to cast her in both roles!

    and they'll be like madam, we can't do that! are you really -

    and I'll be like and she should also play Dr Someone!

    and they'll be like ...

    and I'll be like HARRIET WALTER SHOULD PLAY EVERYONE

    and they'll be like Miss, are you feeling all r-

    and I'll be like EEEVERRRRYYYYYOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNEE

    and then I will stick to my terms and keep renewing my copyrights and write very clear instructions into my will and no one will ever make a movie or miniseries based on my novels, which will be just fine by me.

only way to do things right.

      (image linked from here, and let us notice that Dolly Parton also resides in that same photo gallery and seeing her, I would like to thank you, Ms Walter, for not doing unnatural things to your face. And for dressing awesomely. Can we come up with a good, happy word for "wrinkles" that is less degrading and not so phonetically horrible? Because wrinkles in moderation are sexy and distinguished and I wish Ms Parton had allowed them into her life. I tried a thesaurus but only got awful results like "crinkle" and "crease" and "fold", which are obviously unacceptable. And why do people still use the word "crow's-feet" for the wrinkles around one's eyes? Facial crow's-feet don't even look like the feet of crows. I suppose it must be poetic license. Nothing more romantic than the idea of one's face being trampled by grubby, squawking things that look disease-ridden even when they aren't.)

casting Wimsey

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    You know, normally I am filled to the brim with love and affectionate regard for all my fellow Sayers fans, but when it comes to "cast actors in the roles for an imaginary film adaptation" threads and discussions, I just want to set them all on fire.

    (I will refrain from posting my own selections lest I incur somebody's similar wrath in the future. Even though my selections are a hundred times better. Fuu.)

EP is a QT

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I'm bored.

    Let's have a picture of Edward Petherbridge.

(image totally stolen from here)

    Look at how awesome that dude is. Just looking at him makes something inside me light up. My happy-cup overfloweth. Hell, look at his eyelids. Those eyelids are way more badass than my eyelids.

    Is that a camera in his hand? Is he taking a mirror picture? Damn right he is taking a mirror picture. Mr Peth is not afraid of technology. I don't know if his kids have kids but if they do he is sure to be just about the coolest granddad everrrr.

    And his summery white shirt matches his awesome hair and stubblings! He is totally stylin'!

    Oh, I love Mr Petherbridge. <3

odwalla

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    How. How do I manage to get several tiny cuts inside my mouth (usually on the roof) when I drink Odwalla drinks. Why does this happen every time.

    It is a fruit purée/juice blend/smoothie. It is not a peppermint candy or a piece of peanut brittle. It does not have "glass shards" listed in the damn ingredients.

    Why does this keep happening to me.

    (ackblthuhagh grahrararar friggin' dude)

life is a staircase full of imbeciles

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    My best friend's dad is a historian and a college professor and so does lots of research and paper-digging and so on, and he just posted on Facebook the following (politically incorrect and insensitive by modern standards) historical picture:

    (click for larger image)

    And I'm thinking, like, dude. It's the story of my life.

happy endings

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I like having all the LPW miniseries available on Youtube.

    I wonder why part 15 of Gaudy Night has more than twenty-five hundred more views than part 14?

    Oh wait.

willow

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I think that basically the worst possible noise (not coming from people) one can hear when one is dogwalking into the park on a glorious February morning is the sound of chainsaws.

    The men in the orange jackets came to the park today. They brought their chainsaws with them.

    The men in the orange jackets hate every beautiful thing.

    They killed the willow, Ms Walter. They killed it and chopped it up into lots of ugly, undignified pieces. I don't get it. Why? Why why why why? It wasn't dead. It wasn't intruding onto anyone's property. It was just there, being lovely even without its leaves, standing there on a grassy knoll and being the only willow in the park. And now it's dead.

    My dog and I finished walking our circuit around the park while I fumed. When we got back to the place where the willow once stood, which is close to the park entrance, we saw that the men were packed up and leaving in their big ugly work-crew truck.

    We passed them as they were driving slowly over the merciless speed bumps. I couldn't help noticing that the truck had the word "SHERIFF" emblazoned on its back, and, squinched in on the side, "inmate work crew".

    The man in the orange jacket in the passenger seat leered at me as my dog and I walked by.

    Some people are just good at ruining other people's days.

towering

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    It is a highly disconcerting thing to be peacefully lying in bed after waking up, just lying there and minding one's own business and contemplating the day ahead, and to stretch one's arms a little ways above oneself...and then to have the goshdamned Eiffel Tower fall on one's head.

I feel less safe in my room now.

                                        

    Coincidentally, we have today learned that lamps are dangerous.

identify

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I love Lord Peter Wimsey. I am in love with Lord Peter Wimsey.

    I can't really identify with Lord Peter Wimsey.

    I am female. I am way younger than he is in any of the stories. I am poor. I am not universally fabulous. I am not talkative, quick-witted, a fast thinker, highly educated (yet), British, a war veteran, good with people, romantic or good at detection.

    I can't identify with Lord Peter as portrayed by Mr Ian Carmichael. Ian Carmichael is old and fat and made slightly creepy by the incongruity between his fattened oldness and his light, bouncy adopted speech, which flings Gs away with the maddened velocity of denial. (That is to say that he sounds rather affected and fake.)

Huuuu boy.

    I can't particularly identify with Lord Peter as portrayed by Mr Edward Petherbridge. Edward Petherbridge has, through his youtube videoblogging, become something of a cinematic British grandfather-figure to me. I adore him, but I watch his portrayal of Lord Peter as a grandchild would have their grandparent's old photo album from younger times shown to them and say, "gosh, Grandpapa, you were a looker back in the day!" if they had a habit of saying things before thinking those things through.

Yuss.

    I could almost identify with Peter-bridge through his devotion to a character (an awesome character) played by you, Ms Walter, except that he has a rather unusual and offputting method of expressing adoration and love and smitten-ness and so on with his face. Like, he looks kind of like he wants to stab you.

Umyeahaboutthat. (image taken from here.)

would you kindly get out of my personal space, miss vane?

                     

 (This is, I am more than happy to admit, a perfectly wonderful moment of loveface. I often think that the two of you had agreeable chemistry most of the time and completely devastating chemistry at certain well-placed moments.)

    Anyway. To get back to my theme.

    The times when I can best identify with any Lord Peter, be he literary, Carmichael or Petherbridge, is when I am watching Petherbridge as Peter and he's looking at (I want to type "loving on") a photo of you.

    At those times I am, like, one with the man. One and shining. Because I've just been there so many times. It's like "hey I'm not the only one!"

(iamsuchadork)

(let the reader note that I do in fact adore Edward Petherbridge)

he's a swell, he's a swell

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    OH MY HIPSTER FRED ASTAIRE.

    That is not even creative swearing. That is a straight-up observation. That is me having now seen Easter Parade (1948), which contained the musical number "A Couple of Swells".
    (Actually it is more like neo-Victorian hobo hipster Fred Astaire). Anyway I had never ever in my life - my life being the last eight or nine months since I saw my first Fred Astaire movie - stopped to wonder what Fred would look like with messy hair or facial hair. In this song, he and Judy Garland are onstage dressed up as a pair of high-minded bums and he has both kinds of unheard-of hair.

LOOK AT HIM

                                                    

LOOK AT HOW AMAZING HE IS

                                        

IT IS HIPSTER FRED ASTAIRE AND IT IS GLORIOUS

                              

OHMUHFUHGAAAAH

                                                

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