January 16, 2005
WHO WOULD PREFER REALITY? (via Mike Daley):
The Whole Jolly Lot: In P.G. Wodehouse's World, Things Are Tiptop And Topsy-Turvy. Just Ask His Biographer. (Bob Thompson, January 11, 2005, Washington Post)
"There are very few compelling reasons to be glad that one was born in the twentieth century," New Yorker critic Anthony Lane has written, "and most of them are curative: heart transplants, the polio vaccine, the look on Grace Kelly's face. Then, there is Wodehouse."Born in 1881, in Guildford, England, the creator of Jeeves and Bertie turned out almost a hundred books before expiring on Long Island in 1975. Most are still in print.
To read the recently published "Wodehouse: A Life" and to chat over coffee and eggs Benedict with the biographer, McCrum, is to be reminded just how alternative the universe Wodehouse created really is. Set in gentlemen's clubs and on country estates, populated by innocents like Bertie and their ferocious female relatives, it doesn't even much resemble the genuine England of the Edwardian era, let alone the present day. Which leads one to wonder: Sure, a lot of people think he's funny -- but how does this antique blighter hold up so well in 2005?
One answer is the timeless characters he created. Nearly a century after they began to spring full-grown from Wodehouse's pen, Bertie, Jeeves, Aunt Agatha, Psmith and Lord Emsworth -- not to mention Augustus Pink-Snottle, or whatever the newt-fancier's name is -- appear to have at least a sporting chance of living forever.
Yet there's another essential aspect of Wodehouse that may help explain his continuing appeal. The man did his best to pretend that the 20th century never happened.
"He refuses -- he absolutely refuses -- to face reality," McCrum says. "Reality is bad."
Given the 20th century, who could blame him? Posted by Orrin Judd at January 16, 2005 12:00 AM
All of course contributes to why he happily did propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis during WWII. The bastard should have been hanged.
Posted by: Bart at January 16, 2005 8:21 AMPish posh. The broadcasts were harmless.
Posted by: oj at January 16, 2005 9:17 AMThere is a Jeeves story in which Jeeves is off by himself guest-butlering while Bertie, in reaction to the election of a socialist government after the war, is at a school to learn to "do" for himself. He is kicked out when the school learns that he was bribing the charwoman to sneak him in pre-darned socks.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 16, 2005 9:32 AMP.G. was an SF writer of alternate-universe stories.
One of those observations that makes you slap your
forehead and say, "Why didn't I see that?"
OJ,
He was no less harmful than Lord Haw Haw or Tokyo Rose and should have received similar treatment. The fact of the matter is that he gave aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime, and should have been treated accordingly. After he was unwelcome in Britain after the war, he should not have been allowed into the US, but should have been compelled to go to Argentina or Paraguay with the other Nazis.
Posted by: Bart at January 16, 2005 2:41 PMHe was much less harmful and nothing like them--we were lucky to get him.
Posted by: oj at January 16, 2005 5:16 PMSorry to say folks, but Wodehouse has never been, and will probably never be on my list of compelling reasons why I'm glad to have been born in the 20th Century.
Posted by: at January 16, 2005 10:35 PMHe was a great comic writer, and Bart is totally wrong: the broadcasts had no political content. Wodehouse was naive to make them, but he wasn't cheering on the bad guys like Haw Haw and the various Tokyo Roses. He was making innocuous fun of his internment, partly to allay worldwide fears for his safety.
How can anyone not love someone who could describe an athletic female character as having a laugh "like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge"?
Posted by: PapayaSF at January 17, 2005 12:26 AMPapaya,
If you do not understand the harm that was caused on the homefront by Wodehouse's apparent good treatment at the hands of the Nazis, especially its use as a means of reducing hostility towards the Nazis, I can't help you.
Posted by: Bart at January 17, 2005 9:34 AMThat's a truism.
Posted by: oj at January 17, 2005 11:45 AMBart: You are overreacting, like many in Britain at the time: simply "broadcasting from Berlin" was enough to inflame hatred, regardless of the content of the broadcasts. Was he naive? Sure. Wodehouse was never very political. But the broadcasts were used by the U.S. War Department as models of anti-Nazi propaganda, which should tell you something. MI5 said he was guilty of nothing more than foolishness, Orwell defended him, and no charges were brought. If that's "treason" to you, you have an oddly inclusive definition of the term.
OJ: What truism are you referring to?
Posted by: PapayaSF at January 18, 2005 2:01 AMThat he's beyond help. (Ours, that is.)
Posted by: joe shropshire at January 18, 2005 2:25 AMThat Bart is no help to anyone.
Posted by: oj at January 18, 2005 7:47 AMOJ:
Bart's helped infuse my prayer life with a heightened sense of urgency and focus.