#the nine tailors

[thesarahshay]

Dorothy Sayers in 1932: "Church clocks and bodies in belfries are rather overdone lately."

Dorothy Sayers in 1934: lol jk I have a new special interest so strap in

[rueroyale]

"Not in the least, Mrs. Venables. Nothing would please me more than to ring bells all day and all night. I am not tired at all. I really don't need rest. I would far rather ring bells. The only thing that worries me is whether I shall be able to get through the peal without making stupid mistakes."

🤣

[talkingpiffle]

this time of year i can reread the nine tailors only if it's raining those are the rules

[skyriderwednesday]

I have eighty-two pages of The Nine Tailors left, and I wish I could say I think I know where Ms Sayers is going with this but I do Not lmao

[105nt]

Norfolk Reeds: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers

This is the tenth(?) Norfolk book I've read this year - I was hoping to fit in 9 before publication of the 10th - The Running Grave - on 26 September 2023, so I think this is a bonus.

Part of the celebrated Lord Peter Wimsey series, (of which I have read this and Clouds of Witness) and surely must be one of the best.

The mystery is hellish complicated and unfolds like a waterlily, repeatedly and beautifully, until the very last page.

I can't find words to describe the dramatic flooding episode, except that it reminded me of John Wyndham, and there's no higher praise than that in this house.

The final list of my Norfolk reads is:

Waterland/Graham Swift

David Copperfield/Charles Dickens

The Shrieking Pit/Arthur J Rees

The Crossing Places/Elly Griffiths

The House on the Brink/John Gordon

Salt/Jeremy Page

Death on Cromer Beach/Ross Greenwood

The Accidental/Ali Smith

The Elephants of Norwich/Edward Marston

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers

[e-louise-bates]

Here we are. I always blow my horn here; the wall and the trees make it so very dangerous ... Here is the Rectory--just opposite the church. I always blow my horn at the gate for fear anybody should be about. Ah! Safely negotiated ... I always blow my horn at the door, so as to tell my wife I am back.

-Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors

The route the kids and I rode our bicycles along once a week to our homeschool co-op while living in Cambridge had several unexpected sharp curves along it, and eventually I got into the habit of ringing my bicycle bell as I approached each of them just in case any cyclists were approaching from the other direction. Every time I would think of this bit from Nine Tailors and laugh at myself. Re-reading the book this morning I came across this passage and laughed again.

At least I never rang my bell back at the flat to let my husband know I was back safely--though I might have, if I'd thought of it.

[ladysnowangel]

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

[the-final-sentence]

Nine Tailors Make a Man.

Dorothy L. Sayers, from The Nine Tailors

[garaks-padded-bra]

based off an intelligent exchange @tazaryoot and I had

[danshive]

Worf Insists Garak is Just a Tailor

"I admit he has many talents, but he is little more than a sad, bored little tailor with too much time on his hands, and little regard for the rule of law."

"He does, in his own way, have a sense of honor. He, at the very least, has a strong sense of duty to his people. As should any citizen. It does not prove he was spy."

"I grow weary of this. Look at my suit. This is the work of a true tailor. The stitching is… Immaculate. It is not the work of someone pretending to be a tailor."

"That aside, you must agree, this is an excellent suit? It has… a warrior's elegance."

[writergeekrhw]

i don't want to nitpick about the Universal Translator since as you said, it's basically pixie dust, but why does Garak know Klingon if presumably he'd have a Universal Translator? would he have not had one when the OO stationed there? do OO operatives have to actually learn all the languages - so can he speak Federation Standard? since you wrote a lot of Garak episodes I wonder if you'd thought about this

I'm pretty sure Garak knows a lot of languages including Klingon and Fed Standard and can speak them without the Universal Translator because he trained for that sort of thing in... ummm... tailor school. You never know when your Universal Translator might fail in the middle of a crucial inseam measurement.

[rueroyale]

From The Nine Tailors, this stream of consciousness passage, annotated:

"And people may say what they like," thought Wimsey again, "about the services of the Church of England, but there was genius in the choosing of these psalms. 'That I may be certified how long I have to live'--what a terrifying prayer! Lord, let me never be certified of anything of the kind. 'A stranger with Thee and a sojourner'--that's a fact, God knows.... 'Thou hast set our misdeeds before Thee' ... very likely, and why should I, Peter Wimsey, busy myself with digging them up? I haven't got so very much to boast about myself, if it comes to that.... Oh, well!... 'world without end, Amen.' Now the lesson. I suppose we sit down for this--I'm not very well up in the book of the words.... Yes.... This is the place where the friends and relations usually begin to cry--but there's nobody here to do it--not a friend, nor a----How do I know that? I don't know it. Where's the man or woman who would have recognised that face, if the murderer hadn't taken all those pains to disfigure it?... That red-haired kid must be Hilary Thorpe ... decent of her to come ... interesting type ... I can see her making a bit of a splash in five years' time.... 'I have fought with beasts at Ephesus' ... what on earth has that got to do with it?... 'raised a spiritual body'--what does old Donne say? 'God knows in what part of the world every grain of every man's dust lies.... He whispers, he hisses, he beckons for the bodies of his saints' ... do all these people believe that? Do I? Does anybody? We all take it pretty placidly, don't we? 'In a flash, at a trumpet crash, this Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond is--immortal diamond.' Did the old boys who made that amazing roof believe? Or did they just make those wide wings and adoring hands for fun, because they liked the pattern? At any rate, they made them look as though they believed something, and that's where they have us beat. What next? Oh, yes, out again to the grave, of course. Hymn 373 ... there must be some touch of imagination in the good Mr. Russell to have suggested this, though he looks as if he thought of nothing but having tinned salmon to his tea.... 'Man that is born of a woman ...' not very much further to go now; we're coming into the straight.... 'Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts....' I knew it, I knew it! Will Thoday's going to faint.... No, he's got hold of himself again. I shall have to have a word with that gentleman before long ... 'for any pains of death, to fall from Thee.' Damn it! that goes home. Why? Mere splendour of rhythm, I expect--there are plenty of worse pains.... 'Our dear brother here departed' ... brother ... we're all dear when we're dead, even if beforehand somebody hated us enough to tie us up and ... Great Scott, yes! What about that rope?"

Annotations

Psalms 39.

5 Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live.

…

14 For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

15 O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence, and be no more seen.

Psalm 90:8 KJV

Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

1 Corinthians 15:32 KJV

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.

1 Corinthians 15:44 KJV

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.

Donne’s Sermon LXXXI

One humour of our dead body produces worms, and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour, and then all dies, and all dries, and moulders into dust, and that dust is blown into the river, and that puddled water tumbled into the sea, and that ebbs and flows in infinite revolutions, and still, still God knows in what cabinet every seed-pearl lies, in what part of the world every grain of every man's dust lies; and sibilat populum suum, (as his prophet speaks in another case) he whispers, he hisses, he beckons for the bodies of his saints, and in the twinkling of an eye, that body that was scattered over all the elements, is sat down at[ the right hand of God, in a glorious resurrection.

That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Flesh fade, and mortal trash

Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash:

In a flash, at a trumpet crash,

I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

Is immortal diamond.

Job.14

1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

Book of Common Prayer

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;

Shut not thy merciful ears unto our pray'rs;

But spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty.

O holy and most merciful Saviour,

Thou most worthy Judge eternal,

Suffer us not at our last hour,

For any pains of death to fall away from Thee.

[talkingpiffle]

is anyone else tempted to try to pick out some of the change-ringing from the nine tailors on the tumblr bells or is it just me

[skyriderwednesday]

Names that really aren't common enough for an author to use twice for unrelated characters:

Jabez (Doyle, in 'The Red-Headed League' and 'The Three Students')

Gotobed (Sayers, in 'Unnatural Death' and 'The Nine Tailors')

[holishkes]

From Star Trek Monthly magazine, June 1998: Andrew Robinson as Garak in DS9 Season 5 Episode 8, ‘Things Past’

[beauxjangles]

happy pride