»The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

After reading Dorothy L. Sayers's The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, I picked up a copy of P. D. James's A Certain Justice.

Although half a century and two (one, chronologically, but two for all intents and purposes: in Sayers's mileu, the First War weighs heavily on the characters, many of whom are just returned) wars separate the two, I find James's vocabulary more confusing: peppered with words like obsessional and rambustious, she doesn't evoke an era so much as puzzle the reader. The characters in her book are more complex than Sayers's, although both contend with class issues, civil responsibility, and the changing face of England.

salim filed this under books at 14h45 Thursday, 02 February 2006 (link) (Yr two bits?)