An undiscovered gem of literary criticism for you, flist!

Lord Peter may be every woman's idea of the perfect man-- his lack of height, indeed, is his only drawback, if one does not prefer strong, silent men on principle-- and all women may secretly concede that they know of no man who could really love Harriet Vane. Nevertheless, men read the books too, and while, according to James Sandoe, "the Vane," as he calls her, makes many readers howl with rage, they don't stop reading on that account. . . . Suffice it to point out that if Miss Sayers was portraying herself in Harriet Vane (apart from the events of her early life, which is a different matter), she certainly went no distance at all to make the Vane attractive.

Heilbrun goes on to say that she wishes Harriet wouldn't join Peter at conventions, because it disrupts her ~*~experience~*~ and her ability to fantasize about him; also, Peter was totally lying when he said he loved-- wait, no, wrong fandom, sorry, moving on.

Wikipedia tells me that Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was a feminist academic and the first woman to gain tenure at Columbia University, which is pretty great, but this essay is the only thing I have to judge her opinions by. And my judgment is that she would not recognize a strong female character if that character hit her in the face with a cricket bat, and I will not be reading any of her fourteen mystery novels, thank you kindly.