skygiants | (no subject)

It has taken me a long time to get around to writing up Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar books because I enjoy them so much and I know any attempt to describe what makes them so particularly enjoyable is going to fall totally flat. But here goes!

Hilary Tamar is a professor of law, whose former student, Timothy, shares chambers with several witty and over-educated young junior barristers who keep stumbling over crimes related to tax and murder which Professor Tamar is then obliged to solve for them. Sadly, none of these junior barristers show any kind of proper appreciation for Professor Tamar's efforts, which means that Professor Tamar is unfortunately forced to take on the additional task of explaining the brilliance that went into these deductions.

The cast includes:

Professor Hilary Tamar - wise in conservation of effort (lazy), keen of intellectual curiosity (nosy), an admirer of good food and attractive individuals of any gender (as the books are in first person, Professor Tamar's own gender goes entirely unremarked-upon throughout the series)
Selena Jardine - practical, efficient, looks like a self-satisfied cat
Michael Cantrip - alas, educated at Cambridge rather than Oxford, but un-selfconscious of the lack; cheerful, good-natured, moderately interested in sin
Desmond Ragwort - deplorably high-minded and much-pined over; utter lack of interest in sin of any kind
Julia Larwood - a walking screwball comedy; constantly in thrall to attractive male profiles yet somehow manages to be caught in a compromising position with at least one (1) lesbian per book
Timothy Shepherd - largely irrelevant

The books include:

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, in which Hilary & Co. read through Julia's correspondence from Venice and attempt to determine why she has been accused of murder when it seems far more likely that everyone on the tour has been wanting to murder her
The Shortest Way to Hades, in which there is inheritance drama and a great deal of scandal; Julia's gayest book
The Sirens Sang of Murder, in which Cantrip and Julia's attempt to Co-Write a Best-Seller about Attractive Young Lawyers is only minimally hindered by Cantrip getting involved in a murder plot in the channel islands
The Sybil in Her Grave, in which Julia's aunt is having a good-old fashioned country murder mystery which Hilary & Co. end up crashing; has the saddest end :(

Warning that a solid 50% of the books feature sad gay murder victims but, on the other hand, everything is very queer all the time so this doesn't hit as much as it might. Anyway, they are all very good and very funny and in closing I will leave you with one of my favorite passages, Selena and Julia Attend An Orgy:

“You will be interested to hear, Hilary, that [the drug] had a most remarkable effect — even on Selena after a very modest quantity. She cast off all conventional restraints and devoted herself without shame to the pleasure of the moment.“

I asked for particulars of this uncharacteristic conduct.

"She took from her handbag a paperback edition of Pride and Prejudice and sat on the sofa reading it, declining all offers of conversation.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lizbee

*points to icon*

I ADORE THESE BOOKS. I reread them the other year, when I started working for barristers, and they are reasonably true to life (in the sense that barristers are indeed eccentric, dramatic and very fond of wine).

Caudwell wrote under a pseudonym, and I can't remember what her real name was, but she was a pioneer for women in general, and pipe-smoking women in particular, at the Bar.

From:

sovay

Caudwell wrote under a pseudonym, and I can't remember what her real name was, but she was a pioneer for women in general, and pipe-smoking women in particular, at the Bar.

Sarah Cockburn. The rest of her immediate family were or are relatively famous journalists and her half-sister was married to Michael Flanders of Flanders and Swann, which is the point at which I decided her family tree was formally ridiculous. [edit] And her mother was part-inspiration for Sally Bowles. What the hell.

Edited Date: 2017-12-05 02:10 am (UTC)

From:

lizbee

That is so unspeakably extra. I love it.

From:

kore

I love the pipe-smoking! http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/06/nyregion/sarah-caudwell-60-lawyer-and-author-of-mystery-novels.html

I can't find it now but her London Times obit apparently said

....she also devoted her leisure to intrigues devoted to secure the admission of women to the Union, and supported her fellow students…when they dressed up as men to get into the debating chamber, from which women at that time were excluded. When the discriminatory rule was finally removed, Caudwell became one of the first women to make a speech as a member rather than as a guest.