A writer's research

 

    "[Dorothy L. Sayers's] notebooks show the intensive work she devoted to the question of bell-ringing. Sixty-three pages exist, containing detailed notes on bells, bell-cages, bell-inscriptions and the care of bells; forty of them are sheets of changes, on which she spent innumerable hours until she could do any method accurately in her head. Her understanding of this difficult subject was entirely theoretical - she had never pulled a rope in her life. She visualised and felt through her imagination what it was like to handle a bell and what it meant to have 'rope-sight'. In the end, she wrote, 'the experts could discern only (I think) three small technical errors which betrayed the lack of practical experience'. This made her, she confessed, 'sinfully proud'.

    "She had every reason to be proud. The Campanological Society of Great Britain invited her to become their vice-president. The Oxford Companion to Music refers the reader to The Nine Tailors for a lucid explanation of change-ringing. The book has been praised as 'one of the finest examples of a mystery story incorporating specialised knowledge'."

    From Dorothy L.Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Barbara Reynolds.

    If you've read The Nine Tailors or are reading it with our group, you'll appreciate the significance of the subject of bells and their ringing to the book. I don't want to pre-empt our discussion (we'll begin that on 24th. March, so there's still time to join in) but having read the novel now, I'm not at all surprised by the passage I've quoted above - the attention to detail throughout that cracking book is mightily impressive!

Edited to add: but now look at this!! - (scroll down to the third paragraph from the end).

Comments

[Bill Peschel]

I spent a great amount of time annotating her books, because they're crammed with learning. Poetry from Donne and Shakespeare, references to the sciences like Eddington, religious fights over the divinity of Jesus, contemporary references to books, plays, music-hall songs. They neatly encapsulate life and thought in Britain during the 1920s and '30s and are well worth re-reading.

[ChrisCross53]

Perhaps she just didn't like him! She must have spent hours researching, not just the bells, but church architecture, and the fenland waterways and all kinds of other things. And the story must have been so well planned, because there don't seem to be any loose ends or discrepancies - did she hold the plot and characters in her head, or keep notebooks to ensure it all panned out correctly?

[Barbara MacLeod]

I am in the middle of it and, I too, am mightily impressed with this author! I got the book on request from the library as it had been taken out of circulation. Definitely worth the effort!

[Mr Cornflower]

She may not have pulled many bell-ropes, but she certainly knew how to pull someone's leg....

[Joan Kyler]

One of the many wonderful things about England is change ringing. I love it and wish it were common in the United States. We have churches, we have bells, but almost no one rings (the?) changes. I know two churches in Boston that do, but none in Philadelphia. So sad.

I liked Dorothy Sayers but read my books and gave them away. Now, I wish I hadn't.

[Cornflower]

On the basis of this one alone I'd certainly agree, Bill.

[Cornflower]

The detail of all aspects of the book is so impressive.

[Cornflower]

Out of circulation - gasp!!

[Cornflower]

I hope you're right.

[Cornflower]

I love to hear bells rung (and had a brief go myself once).