INVITATION to the launch of WiseWords, Women’s History Month In East London And International Women’s Week
But none of these writers, I think, did more justice to that most famous of homicidal poisons, arsenic, than did Sayers in Strong Poison. The title comes from the lyrics of a 17th century ballad, The Poisoned Man: “O that was strong poison, my handsome young man/O yes, I am poisoned mother; make my bed soon/For I’m sick to the heart, and I fain wad lie down.” But the chemistry is absolutely up-to-date for 1930, the year the book was published. In fact, Sayers for all her literary background (she was an Oxford University educated scholar of classical languages and considered her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy to be her best work) performs as an outstandingly good science writer in the course of the story.
Cocktail Party Physics:
The novel’s subplot — fans might argue it’s the main plot, cleverly shrouded in the poison pen mystery — revolves around Harriet’s struggle to reconcile her feelings for Wimsey, and desires as a woman, with her fear of losing her hard-won individual identity and independence… a not-insubstantial concern for women of that era, especially those, like Harriet (and Sayers herself), of high intelligence. That tension finds the perfect musical metaphor in a scene set in a small antiques shop, where Harriet has allowed Peter, for the first time, to buy her a gift (a set of antique ivory chessmen that has captured her imagination). Wimsey spots an old spinet piano in the shop, and knocks out a couple of tunes… It is here that he makes his famous observation about preferring counterpoint to harmony.
On Armistice Day, some years after the first World War is over, an old general is found dead, sitting in his usual chair by the fire at his club, the Bellona Club. Oddly, he’s not wearing in his lapel the usual remembrance poppy. He’s very old though, he must have died naturally; his body is removed from the club and life goes on. A number of plot developments later, however, he’s found to have been murdered. The last person to see him alive was his grandson, Captain George Fentiman, who was in the war and who has been mentally and emotionally unbalanced by shell shock. …
