#but my guess is that the christian philosemitism came first | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

o-uncle-newt · 3 months ago

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I just got a bit more time in my schedule and I'm hoping to get started on a Sayers-and-Jews reading list, if anyone has any suggestions! I just really feel like I've never seen anyone talk about how WEIRD the apparent received wisdom is of "Sayers was in a relationship with a completely secular Jew who tried to convince her to have premarital sex she was religiously uncomfortable with, which NATURALLY made her start writing about Jews, but a totally different kind of basically fetishized ultra-conservative type than Cournos was." There are clearly missing links there- not an obvious or intuitive connection at all- and I have my own ideas of what they are and am so curious if it's already been written about.

#dorothy l sayers #lord peter wimsey #whose body #i think the main connecting factor is religious conservatism #and sayers displaying a kind of christian philosemitism that is genuinely fascinating #an idealization of jews as an almost purer throwback #backward and benighted (bc no jesus) but also in some ways uncorrupted by “modernity” for some reason #in terms of how she'd get it from cournos #he DID have some interesting ideas about jews and christians #(wrote an article about how jews should be more into jesus)#but my guess is that the christian philosemitism came first #and the connective tissue is her encountering a jew who didn't fit that kind of odd religious ideal of them #and then deciding to construct a bunch that do #idk #it's the only thing that makes sense to me #that scene in busman's honeymoon where peter asks the repo man what he thinks of christian home life and the repo man says “not much”...#imo that says a LOT #i should say that it can't be overstated how almost fetishistic and full of artistic license her portrayal of jews is #the jews she knew irl were largely secular so where did she get this nonsense #she has to have known that jews didn't do ARRANGED MARRIAGES FROM BIRTH like she depicts in piscatorial face of the stolen stomach #so like something is going on #to be clear #and this is part of what's weird #i don't mean “conservative” or “traditional” in a religious sense in the way that old fashioned caricatures often use #but instead conservative morally #which is if anything weirder and just makes it feel even more like sayers is juxtaposing some idealized morality and conservatism onto jews

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