Being employed means you have less time for reading silly crap.

[snarp]

But I'm re-reading Whose Body?, and man, Wimsey's really annoying early in the series. I am surprised Parker doesn't whap him.

Relatedly, I watched the first episode of Sherlock with Mom. The world seems to revolve around Holmes; everyone keeps looking at him and talking about him and going to great lengths to get his attention. It's generally the negative kind of attention, but it's still all abot him.

This sort of narcissism within a narrative isn't something I usually associate the mystery genre. Traditionally, I think it's more common for the detective to be someone who either tends to be overlooked or underestimated (Peter Wimsey, Miss Marple, Brother Cadfael, Hilary Tamar, (early) Anita Blake, Mito Koumon, Detective Conan, Judge Dee) or shuns ordinary social contact in some way (original!Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Poirot, L *).

The movie last year did the same thing. Has someone decided that this sort of stuff's required to make mysteries palatable now?

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* Hey, are there any female examples of this one? The closest I can think of is Yuuko from xxxHolic.

Comments

[hollyberries]

I think Sherlock is a lot more claustrophobic about the John-Sherlock-Lestrade world of crimes and mystery. In a way, the show has to spend a lot of time reassuring the audience that, yes, this Sherlock is different, but he's still essentially Holmes. The movie... is probably just in love with itself.

A friend told me to start the Wimsey books with Unnatural Death and move on to the Harriet Vane books. I've read the other ones in the series, and I find that these 4 are the strongest novels in characterization.

[wealhtheow]

I wasn't particularly impressed with the majority of Whose Body?, but there's a section where Wimsey is really troubled by his interest in crime and what it means about him, and whether he has any right to interfere. Plus, the h/c is strong between him and Bunter, which gives the book a nicely fannish zing.