Murder Must Advertise

My Favorite Books

leeduigon(patty)December 11, 2022

Friends of Freddy - Friends of Freddy

Of course, if I were to list all my favorite books, we’d be here all day and I’d still be far from being finished. So I’m going to name only a few of them. And why not? Books make great Christmas presents (hint, hint).

*Freddy and the Ignormus, by Walter R. Brooks. This is my favorite Freddy book, and its theme couldn’t be more timely. It’s all about being afraid of something that isn’t real! If that doesn’t sum up 2022 in seven words, I don’t know what could.

*Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers. This intimate peek into the advertising business is just endlessly fascinating! You almost forget there’s a murder to be solved, you get so wrapped up in slogans, jingles, etc.

*The Chessmen of Mars, my all-time favorite Edgar Rice Burroughs book–even more than Tarzan of the Apes. All that need be said is that “This book puts you there”–“there” being a Martian backwater where the game of chess is life and death. Really, if you’ve never met Ghek the Kaldane, you’ve really missed something.

*Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton, exposes the destructive hubris that underlays our worldly business and scientific triumphs. Talk about building foundations on sand! Ours are built atop a sinkhole.

And is it really necessary for me even to mention Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia?

All these books are, in their own way, parables. Maybe the authors didn’t know that they were writing parables–but that only makes their achievement more impressive.

This Book’s a Winner

leeduigon(patty)July 11, 2020

Murder Must Advertise (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Book 10) by [Dorothy L. Sayers]

One of the things keeping me out of the booby hatch lately is a crackerjack mystery novel, Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers. I’m re-reading it and I don’t want it to end.

Lord Peter Wimsey gets called in to solve a murder at an advertising agency, where he goes undercover as a copy-writer. Dorothy Sayers worked for several years as an advertising copy-writer, and she knows all the ins and outs of the business. In fact, her depiction of the agency is so fascinating, you almost don’t care about the murder.

Just to show you what the author knows, Ms. Sayers considered this one of her least best books, didn’t like it much. She never realized what a terrific book it was!

I’d like to say more, but again the computer’s giving me fits and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to post this or not. Suffice it to say that this is one of my all-time favorite mysteries–and it does a superb job of taking your mind off whatever’s bugging you.

Are We Being ‘Engineered’?

leeduigon(patty)May 25, 2020

“You are getting sleepy, sleepy…. sleepy…”

Here’s an essay (later a book) that I’d never heard of till today: The Engineering of Consent by Edward Bernays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engineering_of_Consent). It was published as an essay in 1947, expanded into a book in 1955, and its author has been credited with founding the public relations industry.

He’s also been credited with being the source of the notion that our society can be controlled by experts and elites using “scientific principles” to get people to support ideas and programs and buy stuff. Sort of hypnotizing the public. Big Brother as Svengali.

Why did anyone listen to Bernays? Well, in 1928 he created a highly successful campaign to win society’s approval of women smoking. Prior to that, women smoked, but it was looked down upon as rather too raffish for good taste. Bernays’ public relations campaign mainstreamed it. (Gee, Lord Peter Wimsey was involved in just such a campaign in Murder Must Advertise. As an advertising professional, author Dorothy L. Sayers was surely familiar with Bernays’ campaign: betcha anything it served her as a model).

Can “they” really “engineer” our consent? Certainly they think they can. Heck, obviously they think they can! Watch them get you to try to love the quarantine. Watch them try to get you to blame it on Trump. Look at the PR campaigns for “gay marriage” and “transgender.” They’ve been busy, busy, busy!

But who are “they”?

I don’t think I really need to tell you, do I?

Book Review: ‘Murder Must Advertise’

leeduigon(patty)April 21, 2020

This is as good a time as any to catch up on one’s reading. And if you like murder mysteries, you’ll probably love Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers, featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. He goes undercover in an advertising agency, posing as a junior copywriter as he tries to solve the crime.

To show you how much writers know, Dorothy Sayers considered this gem “not one of my better efforts.” We beg to differ.

The only problem with this story is that the background setting, the advertising agency, is more fascinating than the murder. I kept finding myself forgetting there was a murder to be solved, I was so intrigued by the actions and interactions in the agency. Sayers actually worked for an advertising agency for almost ten years, so she was writing about something she knew intimately. All these captivating characters! I could hardly wait to see what each of them would do next.

Advertising copywriters try to persuade people to buy things they may not really want, and do things that they may not want to do. Sort of like politics. How they go about it is an absorbing study in itself. It was so interesting, I didn’t want the book to end. Murder, schmurder–how do you get people to buy and smoke those not-really-all-that-good cigarettes?

I do love a good detective story, and the Wimsey series is classic, top of the line. As an interesting side note, Margery Allingham created her own aristocratic detective, Albert Campion, as a parody of Wimsey. Her books turned out to be so popular that they kept her busy writing them for many years. I like them almost as much as I like the Wimseys.

Books like these make time pass unnoticed, and pleasurably. It’s why they’re still popular today. If you need a nice distraction, you can’t do better than Murder Must Advertise.