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alesia_charles's review against another edition
3.0
Such a gloriously intellectual series, but this first one isn't quite up to the standard of the later books. Plus, the fact that psychoanalysis was all the rage in the 1960s makes it feel rather dated now. Being published in 1964 will do that to some books! But it's cool to see "the beginning," as it were.
kheleyr's review against another edition
3.0
Not the best mystery murder I ever read, but I really enjoyed her sense of humor...she made me laugh out loud :)
sg911911's review against another edition
4.0
Best thing about this book was that it was written before everything became so politically correct: very refreshing!
meeners's review against another edition
3.0
the mystery part's a mess, but how much does that matter in a book like this one? you could say that about sayers' novels, too. the detective-scholar is a figure that has always inspired a considerable amount of longing and attraction for me, for obvious reasons, and while kate fansler is no harriet vane, the lovely precision of her observations often filled me with a simple and spontaneous delight. right in the prologue, for example, before we've barely even been introduced to kate, we get this sentence from her perspective: "It was the sort of January day when even she, who loathed spring, longed for it." not even a page in, and i already had a sense of who this person was - and liked her very much for it. also, just look at how the first chapter starts:
Someone had chalked "April is the cruelest month" on the steps of Baldwin Hall. Kate, unimpressed by the erudition, agreed with the sentiment.
really! how could i not like this!! kate's own literary erudition is on flagrant display at almost every turn, but it is not as if the author didn't have the credentials for it; amanda cross (/carolyn gold heilbrun) was the apparently the first woman to receive tenure in the english department at columbia (in 1971), and this book (first published in 1964) can be read as a kind of fascinating historical document in its own right. (don't get me started on the psychoanalysis stuff...!) at the very least you learn that things like grade-grubbing students, barely comprehensible term papers, and hostile administrators were also topics of frequent complaint by 1960s academics.
Lilian had warned her that when members of this department got together, they never discussed anything but department politics, the exigencies of the teaching schedule, the insufficiencies of the administration and the pecularities - moral, physical, psychological, and sexual - of certain absent members. What Kate was not prepared for was the violence with which all these things were discussed, the enthusiasm with which points were made which must certainly, it seemed, have been made before.
on a more serious note, this book also has some interesting meditations on intimacy as a powerful and legitimate mode of knowledge production vis-a-vis state-sanctioned forms of epistemology (a distinction that, notably, breaks down along gender lines in this particular novel) - which is one of the reasons why fans of classic detective stories most likely won't enjoy it much. i enjoyed it quite a bit myself, despite the clunkiness of the plot, though some of that enjoyment is also probably just happiness at having discovered a new mystery series to devour.
Someone had chalked "April is the cruelest month" on the steps of Baldwin Hall. Kate, unimpressed by the erudition, agreed with the sentiment.
really! how could i not like this!! kate's own literary erudition is on flagrant display at almost every turn, but it is not as if the author didn't have the credentials for it; amanda cross (/carolyn gold heilbrun) was the apparently the first woman to receive tenure in the english department at columbia (in 1971), and this book (first published in 1964) can be read as a kind of fascinating historical document in its own right. (don't get me started on the psychoanalysis stuff...!) at the very least you learn that things like grade-grubbing students, barely comprehensible term papers, and hostile administrators were also topics of frequent complaint by 1960s academics.
Lilian had warned her that when members of this department got together, they never discussed anything but department politics, the exigencies of the teaching schedule, the insufficiencies of the administration and the pecularities - moral, physical, psychological, and sexual - of certain absent members. What Kate was not prepared for was the violence with which all these things were discussed, the enthusiasm with which points were made which must certainly, it seemed, have been made before.
on a more serious note, this book also has some interesting meditations on intimacy as a powerful and legitimate mode of knowledge production vis-a-vis state-sanctioned forms of epistemology (a distinction that, notably, breaks down along gender lines in this particular novel) - which is one of the reasons why fans of classic detective stories most likely won't enjoy it much. i enjoyed it quite a bit myself, despite the clunkiness of the plot, though some of that enjoyment is also probably just happiness at having discovered a new mystery series to devour.
julieputty's review against another edition
3.0
This one was goodreads suggestion. It didn't immediately grab me, but once I got into the swing of it, it's actually very funny, if dated and sexist. I'll likely read further in the series.
caughlin's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
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