LordPeter List Literary Contest

An off-list discussion of literary styles and writing between Rachel Levy and Marjorie Phelps led to this thought:

What would the Wimsey books sound like if they had been written by some other authors? Dorothy L. Sayers, if you recall, wrote the scene of the picnic on the beach and the investigation of the sands (Chap. 16 of Have His Carcase) so that "the conversation, such as it was, rather resembled the dialogue of a Russian tragedy."

Here are the "rules" of the contest:

1. Re-write the paragraph below (or a portion of it, if you prefer) in the style of any writer (English-language only, please) you like. Anyone from Beowulf through the latest new author will do. Well-known authors with well-known styles are best, since the point is to have the style recognized, but given the value of the prizes, we can't be picky..
2. The facts and events conveyed by the paragraph should be somewhere in the re-write. The re-written paragraph should be recognizable as having been taken from the original, but punctuation, vocabulary, etc., may be changed at will. If you prefer working from your text, the paragraph occurs in Chapter III, a bit more than half-way through.
3. Sign your name or nom or both, as you prefer. Do not use the name of the the author you are parodying anywhere.
4. The prize? The satisfaction of having written a parody of your favorite author within the strictures of Sayers' original so well that your fellow listmates can recognize your author.
5. As soon as a parody is posted, other listmembers are encouraged to name the "author." The parody writer will please "fess up" when someone's guessed correctly. That's the point -- to do it all recognizably.
6. If a parodied author hasn't been recognized by June 15 (when we start the short stories), it would be courteous of the writer to post a few sentences and the name of the author.

The more of you that participate, the more fun this will be, but it's only a game, folks, and well off-topic at that, so those who don't care to play can just read and enjoy and -- or even trash this post without reading it first.

Have fun!

Rachel Levy and Marjorie Phelps

THE TEXT:

She got up from the table and made her way into a kind of large lounge, where the middle space was cleared for dancing. A select orchestra occupied a platform at one end, and small tables were arranged all round the sides of the room, where visitors could drink coffee or liqueurs and watch the dancing. While she took her place and gave her order, the floor was occupied by a pair of obviously professional dancers, giving an exhibition waltz. The man was tall and fair, with sleek hair plastered closely to his head, and a queer, unhealthy face with a wide, melancholy mouth. The girl, in an exaggerated gown of petunia satin with an enormous bustle and a train, exhibited a mask of Victorian coyness as she revolved languidly in her partner's arms to the strains of the "Blue Danube." "Autres temps, autres moeurs," thought Harriet. She looked about the room. Long skirts and costumes of the 'seventies were in evidence - and even ostrich feathers and fans. Even the coyness had its imitators. But it was so obviously an imitation. The slender-seeming waists were made so, not by savage tight-lacing, but by sheer expensive dressmaking. To-morrow, on the tennis-court, the short, loose tunic-frock would reveal them as the waists of muscular young women of the day, despising all bonds. And the sidelong glances, the down-cast eyes, the mock-modesty - masks, only. If this was the "return to womanliness" hailed by the fashion-correspondents, it was to a quite different kind of womanliness - set on a basis of economic independence. Were men really stupid enough to believe that the good old day of submissive womanhood could be brought back by milliners' fashions? "Hardly," thought Harriet, "when they know perfectly well that one has only to remove the train and the bustle, get into a short skirt and walk off, with a job to do and money in one's pocket. Oh, well, it's a game, and presumably they all know the rules."