Memories of pigs, four-eyed secretaries, fat farms and dog races
“Nostalgia’s just the longing for a time you know you can survive.”
- from The Well-Appointed Room by Richard Greenberg
It’s weird to start a post on Wodehouse on that sentimental note. But Greenberg succinctly sums up what I suspect is the most important reason I continue to read PGW. I owe my introduction to PGW 
to a friend of my dad’s. This friend is apparently a great fan, and my father remembered the author and got me The Head of Kays . I must have been oh, 10 or 11 then. I was quite livid with my father for buying me a book which featured neither Tin Tin nor Asterix, and worse, was apparently all about boys and cricket. I refused to read the book for I don’t know how long. In those days, I actually used to read everything I bought, or could lay my hands on. Frequently, I actually ran out of books to read.[1] On one such occassion, I finally gave up my pride and truly gave Kennedy and Fenn a chance.
Kays isn’t particulary funny. But having changed schools often myself, I completely related to Kennedy who finds himself in a new house. The book that made me a life-long fan was Leave it to Psmith , another gift from my dad. A serendipitous gift because it features Blandings Castle AND Psmith… I’ve never cared much for Jeeves (whom I consider to be the meanest character PGW ever created). Had I started with one of the Jeeves books, I doubt I’d have carried on with Wodehouse.
I’m not even going to attempt going over Wodehouse’s style. Entire forests must’ve been mown down for the topic. Instead am just going to indulge in nostalgia, and say why Wodehouse is special to me…
- I remember reading somewhere that people who read do so in order to feel like they belong - borrowing Wodehouse from the Madras British Council library made me feel like I was part of a club - PGW books from the BC always had a lot of notes on the margins, lines underlined, references to other books where the same characters were featured, lines that some previous reader had felt were “the best!”. Now, almost all of my friends read. But growing up, I didn’t really have anyone I could discuss books with (my dad’s participation was limited to footing the bill for my expensive hobby.) The doodles and underlines and notes on PGW books were the closest thing I had to a conversation…
- The suspicion with which my mom’s always regarded PGW. Apparently, the sight of her one and only spending holidays cooped up with a book, and periodically letting out maniacal howls of laughter while clutching tummy and rolling on the floor wasn’t my mom’s idea of “normal” behaviour. I’d try to explain the joke to her, but you know how PGW is. My mom would only get even more convinced that her child was apparently daft as well as crazy - why else would anyone laugh at the idea of a fat pig being stolen, or a secretary in lemon pajamas? When the Stephen Fry / Hugh Laurie Jeeves shows were broadcast on televsion, I believe I made my mom watch them. She’s never taken to PGW for some reason, and my forcing it down her throat didn’t help. Something changed in my mom’s opinion of me after she saw my tear streaked face as I read that last chapter in Leave it to Psmith - where Freddy Threepwood puts his leg through a rotting floor. I’ve done and read lots of things things that perplexed and continue to disturb my mom since then, but I’d like to think that that was the first.
In a fit of nostaligia, I watched the Fry-Laurie Jeeves series last week. It’s just not the same. 
Laurie and Fry are still great (although Laurie wears too much make-up *shudder*), but the aunts are no longer menacing. In my memory, I’d also confused the actor who plays Steggles as being Gussie Fink-Nottle. Aunt Agatha looks just like Aunt Dahlia and Bingo Little & Tuppy Glossop feel more like a couple of extras rather than being the jolly chaps they’re in the books.
I no longer howl with laughter when reading Wodehouse. But I still read him whenever I want to escape to a world where the worst thing that can happen is that an aunt might want you to steal a cow-creamer, and the most intelligence you need to possess is to not give your real name to the judge post boat-race night.
[1] Those were golden days, when one didn’t carry all the world’s guilt at not reading one or another book from a backlog longer than I care to make metaphorical jokes about. My mom told me that if I wish for many things in life, I’d be sent back at the end of this one so I could live out all my wishes. That was meant as a warning against wishing for too much, I think. Personally am not sure any number of lifetimes will get me through my reading back log.
Comments (16 comments)
Ah, PGW! Some of his one line “zingers” spoken mostly through Jeeves always reminds me of old distant aunts in my family. In tamil we might say “slaadai”. Its sad you don’t like Jeeves.
d.n.a. / March 31st, 2006, 7:21 pm / #
If I had to pick a “superman” type character (the hero who always saves the day no matter how sticky things get), I’ve always preferred Gally, Uncle Fred and just about everyone else compared to Jeeves. I don’t think I ever forgave Jeeves for botching the budding romance between Bertie and Bobbie Wickham.
DoZ / March 31st, 2006, 7:27 pm / #
[...] DoZ gets nostalgic about pigs, four-eyed secretaries, fat farms and dog races. [...]
DesiPundit » PGW / March 31st, 2006, 8:31 pm / #
Plus, Jeeves would always always always connive with the aunts and friends to ’solve’ the problem and usually made poor Bertie look like an even bigger numnut than he already was. I know that was kind of the point of the book and that’s what made them fun, but still POOR BERTIE.
shoefiend / April 1st, 2006, 4:48 am / #
yeah I just reading Code of the Woosters last week, and stiff upper lip the week before and the man never fails to crack me up!
nicely written!
shub / April 1st, 2006, 7:07 am / #
Where PGW, there Ravages. Doz (heck, what on good earth is your name) seriously, this is a good post. Heck, I will even pardon your dismissing Jeeves off so lightly and cruelly for writing this post up.
Have you read Adventures of Sally? Sam the Sudden? Piccadilly Jim? The Old Reliable? Good stuff. I rate OR and StS better than Blandings and or Bertie.
C
Ravages / April 1st, 2006, 7:51 am / #
Now I seriously think, it is a gender thing, based on anecdotal evidences and some friends opinion! Guys like Jeeves because he does not get emotional and approaches situations with almost cold logic, while girls dislike Jeeves because he down looks upon people who get emotionl and all wrapped up! There is something to it, I guess….
d.n.a. / April 1st, 2006, 12:13 pm / #
Well, Leave it to Psmith is a masterpiece in execution -every batsman has an innings where everything just goes fine and he is in the zone - L it to P was PGW’s zone, I believe. Speaking of which, a close second must be Psmith Journalist. Psmith is such a riot, isnt he?
The amazing beauty about Plum’s Psmith and Ickenham books is that there is not a page where the action dulls - so you have everything - plot thickenings, LOL passages, sheer incomparable similes.
The third Psmith book Psmith in City was a beauty as well - I cannot forget the scuffle Psmith and Jackson get into post-the-sunday-evening-park lecture. With the ruffians chasing them, there is a line that goes
“..X met Psmith’s upper-cut in full force. He spun and sat down and took no further part in the proceedings.”
Such an innocous line when quoted out of context but raised such hell - I just couldnt control belly laughing. Read it in context and you would get a full-blown slapstick moment, which is elaborately achieved in movies with contorted faces and flying people. No movie slapstick, including Charlie Chaplin, could match that moment. Man, Slapstick in a written word. That’s the power of wodehouse
raj / April 3rd, 2006, 8:50 am / #
The thing that’s always amazed me about Wodehouse is how consistently good he is. I mean okay, so there were a few of the school stories that I didn’t think that much of. And I have my favourites (DoZ: I like Jeeves, but agree that nothing compares to the sheer brilliance of Leave it to Psmith). But on the whole, I’d say Wodehouse’s entire work was one high, high plateau of laugh-out loud brilliance. Can I really bring myself to pick Lord Emsworth over Bertie? Or Psmith over Ukridge? Or choose between Totleigh Towers and Mulliner’s Pub? And what about all the one-off novels - Small Bachelor, Luck of the Bodkins (and yes, Ravages: Old Reliable)? What about all the golf stories?
I could argue endlessly about the merits of one vs. the other in that list (and obviously I know which ones I would pick) - the point is that the difference doesn’t matter - at least not to me. Even the Wodehouse novels / stories that I care for least have the ability to make me laugh out loud, even when I’m reading them for the third / fourth time. That’s genius.
Falstaff / April 3rd, 2006, 8:04 pm / #
Shoefiend: My sentiments exactly! Poor Bertie, always poor Bertie - remember the time when evil Jeeves makes darling Bertie cycle down in the rain to get the keys to Brinkley Manor? Or makes him give up his silly smoking jacket?
Shub: Thank you.
Ravages: Thank you. Love the Adventures of Sally. Don’t recall ever reading Sam the Sudden, and will definitely look for it on my next visit to the library
D.n.a: Hmmm… interesting point, you have there…I have nothing against logic - but what’s the harm in sugar coating it a bit like Uncle Fred & Gally Threepwood do?
Raj: I love all the Psmith stories, including the one where he tries to be a banker (or was it Mike?) About that line “He spun and sat down and took no further part in the proceedings.” It is the very best of verbal slapstick, but it evokes such an image in your head doesn’t it? The very formality of the tone in such an utterly silly situation makes it oh so delicious.
Falstaff: As always, you take the words right out of my mouth. I used to think that Wodehouse wouldn’t be as funny the fourth or fifth time around, but that’s not true, at all. You just notice one more nuance to the language or realize something even more ludicurous about the whole thing that you just can’t help laugh out loud, each time, every time. I remember re-reading that incident with Hugo Carmody and the burgler (the burgler’s made to exercise by a completely sozzled Hugo) - it had me in splits all over again.
DoZ / April 5th, 2006, 12:34 am / #
doz, yes it does. Thats why Plum is a master. Lest newbies think that PGW is all about slapstick, please. His repertoire includes all possible strands of humour. I cannot explain it. I quoted this because verbal slapstick is something I havent encountered in any other author.
doz, both Mike and Psmith try to be bankers, though Psmith claims that his primary motive is to teach the bank chairman Bickersdyke a lesson for being arrogant and rude to him during a holiday.
Leave it to Psmith: Ofcourse the peak is the Flowerpot incident. And the master that he is, he sets up the incident through the absent-minded eyes and ears of Lord Emsworth - it is this uncanny knack to set-up comic set-pieces that differentiates PGW, I think. Just imagine if the flower pot incident had been narrated from the angle of Baxter, or even Psmith. I feel it wouldnt have evoked the same LOL as it does with Lord Emsworth.
Another aspect of PGW is his deadly ability to describe the mind of animals - the very premise adds to the fun.
Did you know that he used to work hard to get the final draft of his novels, often pasting several versions on his wall before polishing and choosing the final one?
raj / April 5th, 2006, 5:38 am / #
@Falstaff: YAy! Another OR fan.
@Doz: Sam the Sudden was my first Plum. I then went on to all of Bertie and then settled on Psmith and dabbled often with Uncle fred and Blandings. I wrote a long time back on Plum very often.
@Falstaff (again): Golf - Woohoo! The heart of the goof and the Clicking of Cuthbert - what brilliant pieces of writing. Brilliance.
@Doz: Thanks for this post. seriously.
Ravages / April 5th, 2006, 10:39 am / #
Raj: Ah, the flower pot incident. You’re so right… Had it happened to anyone other than Lord E, it might not have been so funny. That line “Say it with flower pots!” My kingdom for that line…
It’s wonderful to share the obsession with so many of you.
And I didn’t know about the pasting on the wall bit - I did know that what PGW makes appear so effortless wasn’t in fact so easily achieved, and that he ran through several drafts. No matter how great all of his creations are, Blandings Castle & its cast will remain my absolute favorites. How can one NOT love Lord E & Freddie & his dog biscuits & Constance & her Schoonmaker & of course, Gally & oh well, the entire lot of them, really… including efficient Baxter…
Ravages: Thank you
DoZ / April 5th, 2006, 11:15 am / #
Psmith rocks. Truly rocks. and I feel Psmith novels are relatively underrated.
DoZ,
cool posts man!
Zero / April 7th, 2006, 1:27 am / #
Zero: Thank you. Psmith is certainly very special.
DoZ / April 7th, 2006, 10:35 am / #
I agree with you about the TV series, Doz. Fry and Laurie do about as good as job as you could hope for. But nearly all of the other characters are poorly conceived. Aunt Dahlia, who is tremendous fun in the books, is a starchy old stick in the series. And nowhere near fat enough, either: you can’t imagine her wearing an armchair around the hips. What also struck me, is how drab it looked on the screen. It lacked any visual style. The backdrops were tired and lacklustre, and the sky was perpetually cloudy. The sunny charm of Wodehouse’s prose should have been translated into a bold and colourful design. Instead, it seems they just drove to the nearest available village, on the cloudiest day of the year, to shoot the episodes.
But the books never fade, do they?
oldbillie / April 20th, 2006, 12:51 pm / #
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