Tag Archives: P. G. Wodehouse

Fiction, Reviews

‘My Man Jeeves,’ by P. G. Wodehouse

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It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a chappie wish he’d got a soul or something…

I picked up this P. G. Wodehouse collection, My Man Jeeves, which proved to be a series of stories from the early stages of the Wooster/Jeeves saga. I tend to forget that Bertie Wooster first appeared to readers as an Englishman residing in America. His saga begins with the story “Extricating Young Gussie,” which does not appear in this collection, and for good reason. “Extricating Young Gussie” features Bertie and Jeeves, but the author had not yet had the Great Brainstorm. In that story, Bertie’s last name is unclear, and all Jeeves does is answer the door and take people’s coats. It’s so jarring to the unsuspecting reader that some Wodehouse fans consider it non-canonical – though this collection belies that. In it, Bertie refers a couple times to the fact that his current residence in New York City is due to the fact that his Aunt Agatha had sent him there on the Gussie mission – and since he failed to complete it to her satisfaction, he’s waiting for the heat to die down so he can go home. (When he says, “What I mean is, much as I like America, I didn’t want to have England barred to me for the rest of my natural…” I thought sadly of Wodehouse’s actual exile after World War II.)

The book’s title is slightly misleading, as some of the stories are in fact not about Bertie and Jeeves, but about Reggie Pepper, a sort of proto-Bertie. Like the Bertie of “Extricating Young Gussie,” Reggie lacks the blessing of an omniscient valet (though there’s a valet with feet of clay in one story), so his problems tend to be solved by some kind of deus ex machina. Wodehouse, of course, uses dei ex machina in the majority of his non-Jeeves stories, because they’re a silly device and suited to the idiom.

If you watched the excellent BBC Jeeves and Wooster TV series with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Frye, many of these stories will be familiar to you – they based a whole season on them, I think, though the TV writers made some judicious alterations.

In short, My Man Jeeves is very funny and entertaining, as you doubtless knew from the outset. If you’re an admirer of Billy Sunday, you might resent a disguised reference to him (under the name of Jimmy Mundy) in the last story — but he’s an instrument of happy story resolution, so I don’t see why you should.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Something New,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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One of the King Georges of England—I forget which—once said that a certain number of hours’ sleep each night—I cannot recall at the moment how many—made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory. Baxter agreed with him.

Not long ago I reviewed P.G. Wodehouse’s novel A Damsel in Distress, which I described (with my customary insight) as an embryonic work in which the attentive reader might discern elements that would eventually flower in his Blandings Castle series.

Something New (published in England, for peculiar reasons, as Something Fresh), is a 1915 publication which constitutes the next step in the process. Because this is in fact the first bona fide Blandings Castle book. Several familiar elements are here – the castle and estate themselves, of course. The dreamy, absentminded Clarence, Earl of Emsworth. The efficient Baxter, his private secretary. And the presence of imposters in the house.

But much remains only potential. Lord Emsworth, at this stage, is still enamored of his flower gardens – he has yet to discover the delights of pig-keeping. He is also obsessed with repainting his furniture, a trait bestowed on him, I suspect, solely to provide a plot point. The Efficient Baxter is a valued employee here, not the living torment he will later become to his employer, motivating Emsworth to fire him and hire a succession of other secretaries, all imposters. Instead of the earl’s sister Lady Constance, who bullies him and effectively runs the household in later stories, the only sister present in this book is Lady Ann Warblington, a retiring sort who is given little to do in the story.

That said, the plot is amusing enough for an early work. Ashe Marson, a struggling writer in London, falls in love with Joan Valentine, a former chorus girl and current magazine writer. By coincidence they learn (separately) that Lord Emsworth has “stolen” a priceless Egyptian scarab from the collection of the American millionaire J. Preston Peters (he in fact slipped it into his pocket absentmindedly, and then forgot about it). Mr. Peters offers a large reward for the scarab’s recovery, and the two young people both travel to Market Blandings, installing themselves as servants in the castle. Rivals at first, they later decide to go into partnership, as love blossoms.

There are several other plot lines, especially concerning Lord Emsworth’s son Freddie having gotten engaged to Mr. Peters’ daughter, though she is being pursued persistently by another young man who has loved her for many years (he’s staying at the castle too; I forget on what pretext). The high point of the story is a slapstick nighttime scene where Ashe, creeping out to burgle the scarab, collides with Baxter on the hall stairway, breaking furniture and rousing the whole household from their beds.

Another interesting feature of this book is the glimpse it gives us into “downstairs” life in a stately household. The author delights in describing the rigid class snobbery of the upper servants, and the strict protocol they observe in seating arrangements. This element is touched on in later stories, but I don’t think Wodehouse ever again spends so much time on it.

Something New is a very funny and likeable book. I laughed more than once. It only hints at the greatness to come, but it’s definitely worth reading for its own sake.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Cocktail Time,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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P.G. Wodehouse wrote five novels (as well as a timeless short story) about the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred. Cocktail Time is the third in the series, placing the sequence somewhat later in time than I expected. One always envisions Wodehouse stories taking place in the 1920s or ’30s, but references here to television and World War II being in the past alert us to the fact that this one was actually published in 1958.

Instead of a précis of the plot, I think it will be more efficient to describe the story geographically. Imagine Dovetail Hammer, Berkshire, the stately home of Johnny Pearce, one of Uncle Fred’s godsons. Johnny wants very much to get married, but he doesn’t feel he can afford it. He’s not very wealthy, and upkeep on the manor is high. On top of that, he feels obligaed to pension off his imperious childhood nurse, who’s gotten accustomed to thinking of herself as major domo of the estate. He can’t expect his new bride to deal with that.

One measure he’s taken to increase his income is to turn Hammer Lodge, a smaller dwelling on the estate, into a rental house. It is now being occupied by Sir Raymond “Beefy” Bastable, the eminent London barrister. Beefy’s great secret, known to few, is that he is the author of Cocktail Time, a scandalous bestselling novel about today’s dissipated young men. (He wrote the novel after having his hat knocked off by a Brazil nut shot from a catapult (slingshot) out of a window of the Drones Club, unaware that the actual shooter was not a dissipated young man, but Uncle Fred himself). Beefy has persuaded his worthless nephew, Cosmo Wisdom, to take public credit for authorship, in order to preserve his own reputation. However, he has taken the precaution of writing a letter establishing his own authorship, in case it should be necessary. And now that his agent has started talking about film rights, Beefy is reconsidering his claim – only the letter has been stolen.

This covers only the high points. There are several cases of sundered hearts in this tale, and Uncle Fred is always keen on uniting sundered hearts, as part of his general life project of “spreading sweetness and light.” His usual method of spreading s. and l. is by telling bald-faced, shameless lies, gently shepherding the unhappy couples into proximity, and arranging for them to acquire sufficient resources to set up housekeeping. A novelty in this story is that several of the sundered couples consist of middle-aged people.

Lots of fun. Cocktail Time is about mid-level on the Wodehouse scale, which exists on an infinitely higher plane than any other humorist’s work. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Damsel in Distress,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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George began to sit up and take notice. A cloud seemed to have cleared from his brain. He found himself looking on his fellow-diners as individuals rather than as a confused mass. The prophet Daniel, after the initial embarrassment of finding himself in the society of the lions had passed away, must have experienced a somewhat similar sensation.

I posted a song from the Fred Astaire musical, “A Damsel in Distress,” a few days ago, mentioning that the film was based on a novel by P.G. Wodehouse. I hope to view the movie as soon as I can, but I wanted to read the book first, as it’s one I’d missed so far.

A Damsel in Distress was published in 1919, which puts it fairly early in the Master’s career. It’s highly interesting as representative of a key moment in his artistic development. He hasn’t yet made the decision to slip the narrow bonds of earth and sail into comic fantasy, but it definitely shows signs of things to come.

Lady Maude Marsh is the daughter of the Earl of Marshmoreton. She has fallen in love with an American, but her imperious aunt, Lady Caroline, who effectively runs the family estate, has utterly forbidden it. Maude manages to slip away to London one day, but is horrified to sight her status-conscious brother Percy approaching up the street. So she quickly jumps into a cab with a young man, imploring him to hide her. With perfect aplomb, the young man, an American musical comedy composer named George Bevan, conceals her, managing to knock Percy’s silk hat off in the bargain. Maude is very appreciative, but leaves George (who has fallen in love with her on the spot) with no information on her identity.

Nevertheless, George manages to discover who she is. He makes his way to the neighborhood of her home, and sets about insinuating himself into brother Percy’s birthday party. And it goes on from there.

A Damsel in Distress is full of Wodehouse themes in embryo. Maude’s father Lord Marshmoreton is a dreamy man, devoted to his flower gardens, oppressed by his sister. Obviously we have here Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle in embryo – but Lord Marshmoreton is more realistic. He is not an amiable idiot, but simply a highly suppressed man.

George poses as a waiter to get into Percy’s party. This is another standard Wodehousian device, but George is not as blatant an imposter as the imposters to come, and he gets out of the false position as quickly as he can.

In other words, Wodehouse hasn’t found his full powers yet. It hasn’t occurred to him to cut his ties to realistic psychology and turn his characters into cartoon figures. He has not yet found the courage to fly – but that doesn’t mean A Damsel in Distress isn’t a very enjoyable comic novel in its own right. If Wodehouse had ended his career in 1919, the book might still be remembered as a fine, funny romance.

I liked it a lot.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Uncle Fred in the Springtime,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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The Duke shot back in his chair, and his moustache, foaming upwards as if a gale had struck it, broke like a wave on the stern and rockbound coast of the Dunstable nose. A lesser moustache, under the impact of that quick, agonized explosion of breath, would have worked loose at the roots.

I recently reviewed P. G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Dynamite, which I enjoyed immensely. So I was happy to see Uncle Fred in the Springtime show up on sale soon after, and I snapped it up. I knew I’d read it before, and had been somewhat disappointed. I consider the classic short story, “Uncle Fred Flits By,” the funniest story ever written, and I felt (this was many years ago) that “Springtime” was just a little below the Plimsoll line. Perhaps, I thought, a re-reading would show me the error of my judgment.

Alas, no. I won’t say Uncle Fred in the Springtime is a bad book (a bad Wodehouse book is an oxymoron), but I still felt just a tad disappointed, like a lion in the Coliseum (as Wodehouse might have put it) sitting down to devour his daily Christian, and suspecting that someone has substituted a Gnostic in heavy French sauce.

The plot is the sort of thing you’d expect, and features the added pleasure of taking us to the familiar precincts of Blandings Castle, where the wooly-headed Earl of Emsworth desires nothing more than a quiet life in contemplation of his prize fat pig, the Duchess of Blandings. But he’s bedeviled by a neighbor, the Duke of Dunstable, a choleric and officious busybody who’s convinced the earl’s pig fixation is unhealthy, and who demands that Emsworth give it (the pig, that is) to him.

Meanwhile, Uncle Fred, himself an earl, is concerned about the fortunes of Miss Polly Pott, daughter of his friend Claude “Mustard” Pott, a former bookie and confidence man. Polly wants to marry a poet who’s looking for 250 pounds to enable him to purchase an onion soup bar in London. Uncle Fred, who is kept on an allowance by his wife, is hunting for a way to find her the money. This leads, through complex narrative paths and byways, to Uncle Fred and his nephew Pongo traveling to Blandings Castle, where Fred, as is his custom, takes up residence under an assumed identity, in this case that of the esteemed brain disease specialist Sir Roderick Glossop. The theft of the pig becomes a central theme.

My problem with this story – and it may just be me – is partly that it contains about one more main character than I can easily keep straight in my head. Also, though it’s always a delight to watch Uncle Fred lie with a straight face when caught in a previous lie, this time out I thought his prevarications sometimes a little thin. I had trouble believing anyone would fall for some of them, in spite of the old man’s charm.

Nevertheless, it’s Wodehouse, so it’s fun to read. Recommended, but a little less than other books from the Master.

Fiction, Music, Uncategorized

‘A Foggy Day in London Town’

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Tonight, not a hymn, but “A Foggy Day in London Town,” a show tune loosely connected to the sainted P. G. Wodehouse.

“Damsels in Distress” is a 1937 Fred Astaire vehicle, co-starring Joan Fontaine. This was the first movie Astaire made after his partnership with Ginger Rogers broke up, and the project was complicated by the distressing discovery that Miss Fontaine couldn’t dance. Oops. (I find it hard to understand how anyone, even a very pretty young woman, could make it in the theater/movie world without learning to dance a little. Maybe she just wasn’t up to Astaire’s standard. That I call highly plausible.)

The film’s story, in any case, is based on a 1919 novel of Wodehouse’s, incorporating his personal experience in Broadway theater. Sadly, he didn’t do any lyrics for this show.

The movie, I’m sorry to report, did not do well, despite the presence of a young couple of comedians who called themselves George Burns and Gracie Allen. But its reputation seems to have grown with time.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it. I need to check it out.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Uncle Dynamite,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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If you call at a country house where you are not known and try to get the butler to let you come in and search the premises for photographs of his employer’s nephew, you will generally find this butler chilly in his manner, and Coggs, the major-domo of Ickenham Hall, had been rather chiller than the average. He was a large, stout, moon-faced man with an eye like that of a codfish, and throughout the proceedings he had kept his eye glued on Sir Aylmer’s, as if peering into his soul. And anyone who has ever had his soul peered into by a codfish will testify how extremely unpleasant such an ordeal is.

Among all the priceless works of P.G. Wodehouse, my favorite individual piece is (I’m sure I’ve told you this before) is the short story, “Uncle Fred Flits By.”  But Uncle Fred, the Earl of Ickenham, the living embodiment of aplomb, a man of good nature but utterly without shame, also stars in a few novels. One of those is Uncle Dynamite, and I think it’s one of the Master’s best. I’m not sure if I’ve read it before; I know I got a kick out of it now.

The plot of Uncle Dynamite is difficult to describe, because it’s one of Wodehouse’s most complex tales. I shall merely note that fact and describe a couple of the main story lines.

Uncle Fred’s long-suffering nephew Pongo Twistleton is in love with a girl name Elsie Bean, of whom Uncle Fred approves. But their engagement has been broken, and now Pongo is engaged to Hermione, a beautiful novelist who wishes him to go to her father’s country estate and judge the babies at the Bonnie Baby Contest at the approaching church féte. This is, of course, a prospect to make Pongo tremble and reach for a sustaining drink – except that he’s pretending to be a teetotaler, to please her. Uncle Fred, who finds himself temporarily at liberty because his wife has gone on holiday, offers to come along and substitute for him. Hermione’s father immediately suspects that Pongo is an imposter. Meanwhile, Elsie Bean (the former fiancée), who is a sculptor, has hidden some jewels inside one of her clay busts so that a friend can smuggle them into America and avoid tariffs. But that bust finds its way into Hermione’s home, and somebody will have to burgle it…

You get the gist.

Uncle Dynamite was a pure delight. I chuckled all through. It has my highly prized recommendation.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Code of the Woosters,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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I stared at the young pill, appalled at her moral code, if you could call it that. You know, the more I see of women, the more I think that there ought to be a law. Something has got to be done about this sex, or the whole fabric of Society will collapse, and then what silly asses we shall all look.

The first Jeeves and Wooster book I ever bought was The Code of the Woosters. That was about 50 years ago. I recall pausing a moment, in the B. Dalton’s aisle, to wonder whether I’d like the book. I was young then, I need hardly say, and knew nothing.

The Code of the Woosters is Wodehouse (as he himself might have put it) at his fruitiest. It’s such a tightly plotted farce that I, for one, was forced to pause my reading every few pages, just to get my breath back.

The plot, even in a broad sketch, requires some setting up. So curl up on the nearest chesterfield and pour yourself a restorative libation.

The tale begins with Bertie Wooster getting a call from his Aunt Dahlia, asking him (for once) to do what seems to be a fairly simple task. He is to go to a particular antique shop and sneer at a silver cow-creamer. Her husband, Tom Travers, a silver collector. yearns to buy that creamer. Aunt Dahlia hopes Bertie’s scorn will demoralize the shopkeeper, who will then knock down the price for Uncle Tom. Then she can touch him for a loan for the insolvent magazine she publishes.

The upshot is, of course, disastrous. On arriving, Bertie finds Sir Watkyn Basset, a retired judge, already at the shop. Sir Watkyn is Uncle Tom’s rival, also coveting the cow-creamer. He and Bertie are acquainted, as Sir Watkyn once fined him for stealing a policeman’s helmet on Boat Race Night. Accompanying Sir Watkyn is the gorilla-like Roderick Spode, leader of an English Fascist party. Caught unprepared, Bertie ends up stumbling over a cat in a manner that convinces Sir Watkyn that he’s attempting to steal the creamer.

Back in his flat, Bertie gets a telegram from his fatuous friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, who wants him to come to the country estate where he’s staying. The estate just happens to belong to Sir Watkyn, as Gussie is engaged to Sir Watkyn’s daughter Madeline. Except that Madeline, Gussie reports, has broken the engagement off, This horrifies Bertie, since Madeline has conceived the erroneous idea that Bertie is in love with her, and threatens to marry him if it doesn’t work out with Gussie.

Then there’s a visit from Aunt Dahlia, who reports that Sir Watkyn has now acquired the cow-creamer. So she needs Bertie to go to the same estate and steal the thing. If he refuses, she’ll bar his access to the cooking of Anatole, her incomparable French chef.

Clear so far?

After that it gets complicated.

Oh yes, I need to remember Stephanie “Stiffy” Byng, Sir Watkyn’s niece, who is also on site. She is engaged to an old friend of Bertie’s, whom she is pressuring to steal (recurring theme here) the local constable’s police helmet.

It’s all hilarious. Brilliant. Incomparable.

Most highly recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Very Good, Jeeves,’ by P. G. Wodehouse

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He was fat then, and day by day in every way has been getting fatter ever since, till now tailors measure him just for the sake of the exercise.

It’s kind of a waste of time to review a P. G. Wodehouse book. The intelligent consumer knows the quality of the product. But it’s possible some reader (for some incomprehensible reason) has resisted the delights of “Plum’s” work to date, so here goes.

Very Good, Jeeves!, a story collection, is obviously a Jeeves and Wooster book, so there’s no mystery about what we’re getting. Idle London clubman Bertie Wooster – or one of his equally dimwitted friends – gets into some kind of ridiculous trouble. In the end, they turn to Bertie’s valet (not butler), Jeeves, of whom Bertie testifies: “There are no limits to Jeeves’s brain-power. He virtually lives on fish.”

The basic scenario is consistent (we’d be disappointed if it weren’t) but there are minor variations from story to story – sometimes Bertie turns to Jeeves at the very beginning, but unforeseen complications stretch the problem out. Sometimes Bertie delays resorting to Jeeves because some coldness has arisen between the two of them, over a disagreement about socks or golf attire or something. Once Jeeves is absent on holiday, and on another occasion Bertie’s imperious Aunt Agatha refuses to ask help from a mere servant.

But in the end Jeeves comes through, and the sun shines once again on the Edenic world of Wodehouse.

There are plenty of familiar characters in this collection – Bingo Little, Tuppy Glossop, and – most dramatically – Bobbie Wickham, the beautiful, red-haired, walking attractive nuisance.

Also, I noted, with interest, that at one point Bertie describes a portrait of himself as featuring a monocle. Bertie used to be portrayed with monocles in illustrations all the time, but I don’t recall actually finding one in a story before (there are probably others I’ve overlooked, though).

I think several of the stories in Very Good, Jeeves were actually new to me, which was delightful. The ones I’d read before were also delightful, though, so I had a thoroughly good time.

Authors, Goofing

‘Wodehouse Playhouse’

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I did a search on YouTube for a BBC comedy program I remember from the 1970s, “Wodehouse Playhouse.” I caught a couple episodes back in the day, on PBS, and I remembered it as somewhat low-budget, but energetic and fun.

I tried this once a couple years ago and only found one episode, which I duly posted on this blog. But now I find that the whole thing is available. The first episode is above.

(There’s another version on YouTube, and it may be better, as it won’t let me post it here. If the quality of this one disappoints, you might search for that other.)