I originally started this several months ago. The themes have lingered still, and it’s been an encouragement to me, actually, to revisit, review, and refine my more immediate response.
I recently binged a bit on Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night, at least as much as I’m able to this time of year, and although I’ve finished the book, some of its themes have lingered a little longer. That’s at least partly due to a new-to-me podcast that discusses the book in some detail and brings out more motifs than I caught on my own (which you can find for yourself at theliterary.life, #3-5 and 7-8), but it’s also because the questions addressed therein are ones I’ve asked for and of myself.
Dorothy Sayers is considered one of the queens of the golden age of detective novels. In this particular work, the mystery of the College Poltergeist plays a secondary role to the bigger issues through which her protagonist, Harriet Vane, is working. In many ways, Sayers is probably sorting through her own life in almost an autobiographical manner. Some of these questions include the place of an intelligent woman in the world; whether one should follow the mind or the heart; marriage; and whether an academic or intellectual woman is unnatural.
I’m not going to attempt to recreate the afore-mentioned podcast episodes or analyze the book really at all; that’s not my wheelhouse, that’s not my role, and I don’t really have anything to contribute to that discussion. It’s enough for me to recognize that others do it far better and more thoroughly than I could, and to be grateful for that. I only bring it up because the book and the podcast together made me grateful anew for my current role as a (mostly) stay-at-home homeschooling mom.
If I’m honest, I’ll admit that I didn’t really love college. I paid good money for the privilege of taking tests, writing essays, and doing homework, which are not really enjoyable by anyone’s definition. What I did love, though, was learning, and I think the life of an academic would suit me nicely. The real world intrudes, though, and I chose a practical major, married, and worked a professional full-time job until our older daughter was a year old. It’s only been recently that I realized that my life at home is the life most conducive to continued learning that I could reasonably hope for. It’s true that for what seemed like a lifetime, I was in the throes of infants and toddlerhood, and those years are not conducive to adult sanity, let alone learning. But as my children have grown older and gained some independence, I’m really kind of spoiled. Yes, I’m in charge of my children’s education – but their bookwork is done in a couple hours, and for the remainder of the day they’re engaged in their own pursuits of artwork and independent reading (or listening, as the case may be) and engineering with Legos and Lincoln logs…..leaving me free to read. Yes, I could fill that time with thrillers and Harlequins if I chose, but I can also fill it with systematic theology, history, and biographies.
I won’t always have this much time to invest in a self-selected curricula of sorts. More than anything, I think reading Gaudy Night made me more grateful for the last 7 years than I might have been otherwise, and gave me some much-needed perspective.