11/15/2012

Lord Peter or Do you speak Greek?

I think this is not necessarily a post you'd expect from me, but the wheels in my head have been turning for a while and the thoughts just had to come out now. Don't be scared, it IS really me sitting here, trying to write this with a huge black cat blocking the view on the monitor.
 
The last few weeks I have been on a Lord Peter Wimsey trip once again. I have started reading the books when I was a teenager, loved them then, love them today - and have read them countless times, some more than others of course.

Each time I read one it makes me wonder if there are people like that out there anymore. I don't mean noblemen or murderers ... oh wait, maybe I should explain a bit about Lord Peter first.
His full name is Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, he was born born in 1890, brother to the Duke of Denver, and what you could call a gentleman detective.
In one of his cases he saves mystery writer Harriet Vane from the gallows, and he asks for her hand more than once afterwards until she finally says yes in my favorite book "Gaudy Night" which plays in Harriet's college in Oxford.


That's the point. They are so well-educated, they quote from here and there, they drop little remarks or names, they speak in Latin and in Greek ... well, Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter's "mother", had won a scholarship for Oxford, she was a student of modern and classical languages - she herself thought her translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy" was her best work.
Well, and there I sit and read the books, the short stories, watch the DVDs, and I can't help asking myself what I have learned in my life and, even more important, what I have forgotten. The only thing I can remember from my Cicero is the picture on the cover of my paperback copy and I'm not sure how quickly I'd find any Latin words in my poor old brain. Did I need it in my life? I guess not. Would it be nice if some of it had stayed in my life? I don't know.
I just can't help wondering if my inner dinosaur which undoubtedly exists is craving a little less technology and a little more of an old-fashioned education instead.

If you made it to this point, thank you. I could have gone on, but I didn't want to overdo it.
If you have a serious opinion about this, be welcome to share it.
If you only think the crazy cat lady has gone over the River of Bonkers for good, be nice and keep it to yourself ;-)

P.S. Yes, I know the picture was taken in Cambridge, not Oxford, but I haven't been in Oxford (yet?), so bear with me.

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