Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers.
I've read it several times before and liked it. It's a really well-constructed whodunnit, and it introduces a lot of important, likeable characters in the series.
But I've become sensitized to the really offensive stereotypes, attitudes, and slurs that permeate the book. Period fiction is nearly always problematic in one way or another, and you have to just chalk it up to the "bad old days" and be thankful how much has changed.
But this was a *lot.* There are 2 victims, both Jewish. And it's England in the 1920's. It gets bad. Even the characters who are trying to be progressive say some really gross stuff.
Some critics believe Sayers was trying to do social commentary, and some of her letters indicate that she may have had that in mind, to a certain extent.
It didn't stop me finishing it, but the more I thought about it, the ickier it was. It's so disappointing when you look back at something that was really skillfully done, that you once enjoyed, and realize it's actually appalling.
Yeah, I was raised Jewish and that book really made me uncomfortable. I don't reread it, though I love the other books.
I mean, by today's standards, even "Gentleman's Agreement" is pretty awful. It's valuable as a historical document, because it addressed the real situation at the time. And it did help change people's thinking. But it doesn't work as entertainment anymore.
Whose Body, otoh, didn't help make anything better.
I'm not sure "Gentleman's Agreement" was ever meant as entertainment, per se. It was meant as a means of conveying a story that would help people understand what it meant to be Jewish in post WWII America. The discrimination depicted in that story was so subtle and sort of beneath the surface, and yet so accepted by society that it needed someone to point it out in a way that people could relate to.
There seems to still be quite a lot of that subtle discrimination that goes on today, so I'm not convinced that Gentleman's Agreement is that out of date, unfortunately.
I imagine that there are plenty of books being written today to raise social consciousness about current injustices, both fiction and nonfiction. I suppose the goal is always to get us to a time where we look back on those books and feel disgusted that such things could go on and no longer feel like reading such stories for recreation.
On the other hand I just finished reading The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (which is the reason I opened this thread) which is a fictional story of a Holocaust survivor, her granddaughter, and their relationship with a Nazi war criminal in modern day America (published in 2013).
The bulk of the story focuses on the grandmother's tale of survival and the Nazi's tale of atrocities he committed so although the story is set in contemporary times, it really is more of a story about what happened over 70 years ago.
I was coming here to say that I didn't like the book as I found the fictional depiction of true events to be too contrived and that if one wants to read about a survivor's experiences, there are much better nonfiction books available.
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