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Posted by Lale on 18/12/2001, 1:17:14
This personal ad appeared in this months's Literary Review classifieds:
BOOKISH MAN, 50s, seeks woman familiar with works of Dorothy L. Sayers and Evelyn Waugh. Must have read Brideshead Revisited. Chester.
Has anyone read these authors? Does anyone know what "Brideshead Revisited" is? What do you think of this ad?
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Posted by Chris on 18/12/2001, 2:46:41, in reply to "Literary personal ad"
I've never heard of Sayers, but Evelyn Waugh I enjoy. I've read "A Handfull of Dust" and "Brideshead Revisited" and liked them both immensely. Waugh writes in a dry, subtle, and very witty style that is light and fun.
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Posted by Anna van Gelderen on 18/12/2001, 10:38:58, in reply to "Literary personal ad"
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh was turned into an immensely successful BBC tv-series in the 1980s, featuring magnificent countryhouses, marvellous Venetian palazzo's and beautiful Oxorfd colleges. The whole breathed an atmosphere of idealized nostalgia. The latter also goes for Dorothy Sayers: she wrote very oldfashioned, very English detective stories with a sleuth called Lord Peter Something (Whimsey, I believe). Rather dreadful. I do recommend Evelyn Waugh, though.
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Posted by Michael Sympson on 18/12/2001, 15:50:00, in reply to "Re: Literary personal ad"
Dorothy Sayers, apart from her Detective stories, was a good Dante scholar and produced a translation of the "Divine Comedy" which remains true to the form. A veritable achievement - language a bit on the archaic side though. Not my translation of choice, but infinitely better than Pinsky's phoney thingy for which he received accolades and awards.
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Posted by Dave on 18/12/2001, 22:13:37, in reply to "Literary personal ad"
Lale, that's quite the ad. Single as I am, maybe I should place something similar somewhere: BOOKISH MAN 30's. seeks woman familiar with the works of C.S. Lewis, and at least sympathetic with Tolstoy. Working knowledge of Anna Karenina a must.
Anyways, I wanted to add to the comments about Dorothy Sayers. She was a brilliant writer, as Anna commented, she wrote scads of brilliant mystery novels with the recurring character/hero of Lord Peter Wimsey in them. And as Michael commented, she also was a well-known translator of Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. I have read none of these. However, I did read her amazing book entitled "The Mind Of The Maker" which is a sustained treatment of a particular set of statements made in the Christian creeds and their claim to be statements of fact. In it, she deals a lot with the study of the creative mind, and she likens the creative process of God to be very similar to that of an author. It is fascinating, and deep stuff. Anyways, Sayers was a brilliant, varied, and prolific Oxonian author (1893-1957).
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Posted by Lale on 19/12/2001, 12:04:56, in reply to "Re: Literary personal ad"
Dave, you forgot to say "must worship cats".
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