The Real P.G. Wodehouse

The great myth about P.G. Wodehouse, until he died at 93 in 1975, was that his characters had only the vaguest connection with reality. They were solely the fruit of one man's fantasies, nurtured over decades while living abroad, it was claimed. 'Wodehousean' has come to imply a world of idle Etonians little touched by the Fall of Man, while 'Bertie Woosterish' is an insult employed by the Left against anyone it wants to tar as an ally of the House of Lords.


Colonel Norman Murphy started investigating the matter more than a generation ago, and these two stout volumes contain some of the most dedicated sleuthing in the history of literary detective work.


[. . .]


He shows how Wodehouse's first major creation, the scapegrace Ukridge, was an amalgam of three early friends. While Jeeves's name was taken from a Warwickshire cricketer, his erudition coincided with that of a butler called Robinson who, asked about the sex life of the African spider, explained that she bestowed her favours on her male counterpart then had him for lunch.

A Wodehouse Handbook: The World and Words of P. G. Wodehouse by N.P.T. Murphy reviewed by David Twiston-Davies.


Earlier posts on Wodehouse:
A nugget - Hitler at the Crossroads - from a Mulliner story, Buried Treasure.
Another nugget - On Those who Read Thrillers - from the short story, The Crime Wave at Blandings.
A post: The Alternate Universe of P.G. Wodehouse.
And a post on Writing Dedications that quotes Wodehouse's classic from The Heart of a Goof.

Writing Dedications

Edward Docx on writing the toughest part of a novel: The Dedication.

[. . .] To whom, then? And how do you say it? It’s an almost impossible choice for, aside from the chosen one, every person you hold dear is going to be disappointed. Put it another way: writing a dedication to a novel is a bit like composing an email to your closest friends and family, explaining that you don’t like them as much as you have been pretending, hitting “send all” and cc-ing the rest of the world. Where to start? [. . .]

The piece lists quite a few dedications but strangely omits the Wodehouse classic from The Heart of a Goof:

To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.

And it makes no mention of this singular dedication by Tom Holt to his mother from Here Comes the Sun.

Ink Scrawl Nugget 9

Hitler at the Crossroads:

The situation in Germany had come up for discussion in the bar parlour of the Angler's Rest, and it was generally agreed that Hitler was standing at the crossroads and would soon be compelled to do something definite. His present policy, said a Whisky and Splash, was mere shilly-shallying.


"He'll have to let it grow or shave it off," said the Whisky and Splash. "He can't go on sitting on the fence like this. Either a man has a moustache or he has not. There can be no middle course."

P.G Wodehouse begins a Mulliner story, Buried Treasure.

From Lord Emsworth and Others, a collection of short stories by P.G. Wodehouse.

Other Wodehouse nuggets here, here, and here.

Also, a post on Wodehouse: The Alternate Universe of P.G. Wodehouse.

technorati tag(s): P.G. Wodehouse, Literature, Humor

Ink Scrawl Nugget 8

On Those who Read Thrillers:

The day on which Lawlessness reared it ugly head at Blandings Castle was one of singular beauty. The sun shone down from a sky of cornflower blue, and what one would really like would be to describe in leisurely detail the ancient battlements, the smooth green lawns, the rolling parkland, the majestic trees, the well-bred bees and the gentlemanly birds on which it shone.


But those who read thrillers are an impatient race. They chafe at scenic rhapsodies and want to get on to the rough stuff. When, they ask, did the dirty work start? Who were mixed up in it? Was there blood, and if so, how much? And - most particularly - where was everybody and what was everybody doing at whatever time it was? The chronicler who wishes to grip must supply this information at the earliest possible moment.
[. . .]

P.G Wodehouse tees off yet another Blandings story, The Crime Wave at Blandings, in his inimitable style.

From Lord Emsworth and Others, a collection of short stories by P.G. Wodehouse.

Other Wodehouse nuggets here and here.

Also, a post on Wodehouse: The Alternate Universe of P.G. Wodehouse.

technorati tag(s): P.G. Wodehouse, Literature, Humor

The Alternate Universe of P.G. Wodehouse

Some of my fond memories are of reading P. G. Wodehouse on my commute in Mumbai's crowded local trains during my college years. The minute I opened a Wodehouse book I would be entranced. Fellow commuters would look at me wonderingly as I laughed out loud or watch in amusement my struggles to contain my guffaws. Often I used to look up from the book after reading a particularly hilarious passage, grinning like an idiot to see questioning looks on the faces of the people around me.

That was some years ago and, to tell the truth, that idiotic grin still persists each time I savor a Wodehouse. How can you resist laughing out loud when you read the passage in which Gussie Fink-Nottle, awards prizes to the pupils at Market Snodsbury Grammar School steeped to the gills with orange juice laced with alcohol.

And how can you resist grinning that idiotic grin again when you come across passages like this (one of my favorites from The Inimitable Jeeves that I happened to read again in an H2G2 entry):

After breakfast I lit a cigarette and went to the open window to inspect the day. It certainly was one of the best and brightest.

"Jeeves," I said.

"Sir?" said Jeeves. He had been clearing away the breakfast things, but at the sound of the young master's voice cheesed it courteously.

"You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning."

"Decidedly, sir."

"Spring and all that."

"Yes, sir."

"In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove."

"So I have been informed, sir."

"Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg. I'm going into the Park to do pastoral dances."

Why did I remember Wodehouse again? I was exploring Jabberwock when I came across this link to an excellent piece in the Washington Post on the alternate universe created by P G Wodehouse. Reading it was a revelation -- it pointed out how the ideal utopian universe created by Wodehouse contrasted with his own life. Wodehouse ignored the real life altogether in his works. "The man did his best to pretend that the 20th century never happened, " says his biographer Robert McCrum "He refuses -- he absolutely refuses -- to face reality. Reality is bad."

And Wodehouse succeeded in doing that despite many difficulties. On his childhood, the Washington post piece has this to say: "Plum's mother and father were 'at best remote, at worst utterly foreign.' "

And of his experiences during the Second World War: He "neglected to get out of the way of the German army, winding up in a series of internment camps." A camp commander asked him to do some radio broadcasts and he agreed. "The broadcasts were light, humorous and politically tone-deaf. They put him so deep in the gumbo that he never fully emerged."
And for once he faced reality squarely. "I haven't a twinge of self-pity," he wrote a friend. "I made an ass of myself, and must pay the penalty."

It is amazing that after the war Wodehouse (now settled in the USA) continued working away at what he did best producing classic Wodehousian comedy without giving a damn to the outside world.

"There are two ways of writing," said Wodehouse. One of these is writing "a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether . . ."

He remained true to this precept till he passed away on the Valentine's Day of 1975.

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Some of Wodehouse's works are in the public domain. You can download some of his works by clicking here and here. Click here to read another of his works.

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