Ringing the Changes

Dorothy L. Sayers’s mystery novels were once thought of as “literary” detective stories, as opposed, I suppose, to the – what? flaccid pulp? – of Agatha Christie’s offerings. I happen to like both authors quite a lot, although I can see why Sayers was once thought to be artistically better than Christie. The very qualities that earned her this reputation are probably responsible for her books appealing less (and to fewer) today than her counterpart’s, but if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably up for it. If you haven’t tried these out, start with Murder Must Advertise, and then, if you’re still happy, proceed right to The Nine Tailors.

The Nine Tailors! Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! If you didn’t know anything about change ringing before, you will by the time you’re finished with the book. But look up some articles while you’re reading the novel, and dig even deeper. (Here’s a good place to start.) Listen to some change ringing on Youtube. The topic is fascinating in itself, provides a pervasive atmosphere of activity and terminology throughout the book, and plays an important role in the solution of the mystery.

What is it, you ask? In short, change ringing is a practice of tolling a given set of bells one at a time over and over but changing the order each time. For instance, in a Plain Bob, a set of six bells would begin by ringing in order: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6. The line is then divided into three pairs, which change places: 2 - 1 - 4 - 3 - 6 - 5. Now the end bells retain their rhythmic placement while the four inner bells swap in pairs: 2 - 4 - 1 - 6 - 3 - 5. And so it goes. A complete peal, which takes several hours (more or less, depending on the number of bells involved), gets around to the performance of every ordered permutation. If you had heard this description before knowing it takes place in a mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers, would you have guessed that such a mathematical practice was English? But if I told you that the methods for changing the order of the bells have such quaint names as Steadman’s Triples and Kent Treble Bob Major, would you have guessed any country other than England?

The performances require stamina, athleticism, and mental focus. Imagine going to a cold, windy bell tower and pulling on a rope that controls a massively heavy bell for nine, fifteen, perhaps twenty hours, all the time paying attention to the pattern and keeping track of when to dodge and when to hunt! The herculean feat is made possible by alternates who are ready to sub in when it’s time for a refreshment break and by a leader who helps by shouting the changes like a caller in a square-dance (another artistic form involving the reordering of the participants). The adjustment of the timing that makes the permutations come about is made possible by the method of swinging the bell all the way to its vertical position, where it hovers like a gymnast doing a handstand on the top of the high bar until called to descend and toll again.

I offer a couple of caveats before you go wading into The Nine Tailors and wonder why you let this weird blog writer lead you into a morass. First, it’s long. Mystery novels work best in about 250 pages: enough to hide the connections of the pertinent details but few enough that the reader doesn’t forget those details by day 6 of reading. The Nine Tailors comes in at around 400. Second, Sayers’s language (especially her slang) is just different enough from ours to make descriptions of some key events obscure. I’ve read the book twice, and both times I got bogged down on page 1 trying to figure out how Lord Peter’s car got bogged down in a ditch. The situation isn’t relevant to the mystery other than as a means of getting Lord Peter delayed long enough to get involved in the local intrigue. But let me help potential readers out by suggesting that “the road cresting the dyke” should be interpreted as “the road that ran along the crest of the dyke.” I’ll also point out that a “lag” is a convict and that it’s best just to assume that someone asking for “Paul who is a tailor” could be remembered as and taken as someone asking for Paul Taylor. (Perhaps the book was so long that even Sayers forgot her own details.)

At one point while reading the book, I was looking up what some other people thought about it and found that Upton Sinclair considered it one of four “essential” detective stories. Also on his list was Dickens’s Bleak House, which, it just so happens, was on my plan as the book to start on the day after I finished The Nine Tailors! So I’m reading half of all essential detective novels in one month. That’s an accomplishment almost as impressive as ringing a full peal of Bristol Surprise Major.