I dunno here....300+ pages with indecipherable bell-jargon, no Harriet, and very little piffle so far. I am trusting you, Dorothy.
p 23: Dept of Intentionally Unintentional Innuendo: "'Dear me!' he ejaculated, as they groped upon the dark spiral stair."
The Internet: "The cathedral, the parish rector and his wife, and the flood function as symbols of provision, justice, mercy, expiation, and salvation. Discuss how and why." .....//just cries
Fifty pages in. .....there's not a lot of piffle? There's no Harriet? I don't know anything about bell-ringing? (THAT APPEARS TO BE CHANGING) //cries
I do like the writing. It's also rather neat how she keeps making the dialogue do a lot of work for the action -- like she's moving toward writing plays already, or has been. That's always been in her style, but even moreso here.
One hundred twenty pages in. I cannot keep Deacon the butler and Cranton the....actor? no, reformed crook-writer (there's another one of Sayers' sly commentaries on genre and fantasies, and how books can bring the wrong kind of people together) straight, and their names don't help; it's like Baker the weaver and Thatcher the carter in Lords & Ladies. The actual mystery is always the least important element in a Sayers novel, but blah blah emeralds car conflicting stories escape bodies found beards what? And there's not enough quotation fun (altho Wimsey just did quote Poe's "Bells," which I've been expecting for a while now, heh).
One hundred sixty pages in. Piffle entered about thirty pages ago, and has just peaked most delightfully. I am much relieved.
Three hundred pages in. Well, the writing in Part IV is just amazing -- more than makes up for everything I didn't like in the whole rest of the book. Beautiful and haunting.
descensus Averno facilis est