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The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

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Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#21

Post by egypturnash »

I have fond memories of reading his stories of rich imbeciles wittering about and having their asses repeatedly saved by their silently obedient and scarily smart butlers, but I am not sure I could read them now without the same uncanny change in how I view the "tinny/woody" Python sketch: all these total dumbfucks going on about the most inane thing possible -- while a whole set of servants stand behind them, waiting to serve whatever inane whim they may have.

It does help that it is immensely clear that you are supposed to see Bertie as an idiot, but...

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#22

Post by neonate »

klenwell wrote: post #18

There was also an interesting New Yorker article on Wodehouse recently about his experience as a Nazi captive: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/wartime-for-wo... I never picked Wodehouse for a prisoner of war. But I guess he handled it with characteristic aplomb. That article inspired me to search for the Fry and Laurie series. It's not being streamed on any of the popular platforms but I did find some d…

As the New Yorker article explains, he also did propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis while there, and while this caused a scandal in Britain that persisted after the war, it surprisingly (by today's unforgiving standards) never ruined his reputation. It seems that most people who have looked into it concluded that he was genuinely trying to cheer people up and was naive about the consequences. Orwell, whose judgment seems to have been as sound as anyone's, defended Wodehouse: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel....

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#23

Post by golem14 »

eeh wrote: post #13
raffraffraff wrote: post #7

Reset my password after a long time lurking just to say: the BBC radio plays of Jeeves & Wooster, with Richard Briers playing the role of Bertie Wooster, are the best way to experience these stories. Fabulous acting. Far, far better than the Hugh & Laurie series from the 90s. The heavily adapted BBC TV series Blandings is also hilarious.

Which story do you recommend first?

My personal favorites are the audiobook "Blandings Castle" narrated by James Saxon, and "Jeeves in the Morning" narrated by Jonathan Cecil.

Excellent for long trips driving a car.

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#25

Post by dang »

neonate wrote: post #22
klenwell wrote: post #18

There was also an interesting New Yorker article on Wodehouse recently about his experience as a Nazi captive: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/wartime-for-wo... I never picked Wodehouse for a prisoner of war. But I guess he handled it with characteristic aplomb. That article inspired me to search for the Fry and Laurie series. It's not being streamed on any of the popular platforms but I did find some d…

As the New Yorker article explains, he also did propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis while there, and while this caused a scandal in Britain that persisted after the war, it surprisingly (by today's unforgiving standards) never ruined his reputation. It seems that most people who have looked into it concluded that he was genuinely trying to cheer people up and was naive about the consequences. Orwell, whose judgment s…

That Orwell article is brilliant from start to finish ("there are other culprits who are nearer home and better worth chasing"). We think of Orwell as a political and moral writer more than an arty one (and he famously wrote about how he sacrificed his art to politics), but this is among other things a fantastic piece of literary criticism. Examples:

How closely Wodehouse sticks to conventional morality can be seen from the fact that nowhere in his books is there anything in the nature of a sex joke. This is an enormous sacrifice for a farcical writer to make.

Just as an intelligent Catholic is able to see that the blasphemies of Baudelaire or James Joyce are not seriously damaging to the Catholic faith, so an English reader can see that in creating such characters as Hildebrand Spencer Poyns de Burgh John Hanneyside Coombe-Crombie, 12th Earl of Dreever, Wodehouse is not really attacking the social hierarchy.

It is nonsense to talk of ‘Fascist tendencies’ in his books. There are no post-1918 tendencies at all.

Orwell obviously knows Wodehouse inside-out, right back to obscure early books, which must mean that he was a fan. Why read them otherwise?

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#26

Post by dhosek »

robotmay wrote: post #6

I love the 90s TV series with Fry and Laurie (as in the article image), but I've sadly never managed to get into the books as I have an extreme dislike of books written in the first person. There are a lot of good books I've missed out on because of this. My desire to try and get into the Wodehouse books is pretty high, though, so perhaps another attempt is warranted.

Ah, but first person offers so many wonderful opportunities for wit and voice that are impossible in third, and Wodehouse takes great advantage of that, with Bertie Wooster as the narrator of most of the stories (I can't remember if it's a single story or a whole book that are narrated by Jeeves) and providing a wonderful example of unreliable narration. I wish I'd remembered that when I was looking for good unreliable narrators for a craft piece I wrote during my MFA.

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#27

Post by klenwell »

dang wrote: post #25
neonate wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the New Yorker article explains, he also did propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis while there, and while this caused a scandal in Britain that persisted after the war, it surprisingly (by today's unforgiving standards) never ruined his reputation. It seems that most people who have looked into it concluded that he was genuinely trying to cheer people up and was naive about the consequences. Orwell, whose judgment s…

That Orwell article is brilliant from start to finish ("there are other culprits who are nearer home and better worth chasing"). We think of Orwell as a political and moral writer more than an arty one (and he famously wrote about how he sacrificed his art to politics), but this is among other things a fantastic piece of literary criticism. Examples: How closely Wodehouse sticks to conventional morality can be seen f…

I guess you could call Orwell's essay an exoneration but it is, to my reading, no defense. It strikes me as sharply political and moral. And, I agree, scintillating literary criticism.

Your excerpts go to the heart of the argument. If Orwell thinks it's nonsense to call Wodehouse a fascist, it's not because Wodehouse was necessarily above fascism. It's because he was too silly and stupid ("the events of 1941 do not convict Wodehouse of anything worse than stupidity") to even perceive it, a literal schoolboy:

As I have tried to show, his moral outlook has remained that of a public-school boy, and according to the public-school code, treachery in time of war is the most unforgivable of all the sins.

I don't know that this was fair to Wodehouse. The New Yorker article seems to take a more charitable view:

His resilient happiness, to me, remains heroic, and more essentially who he was.

My dad and I were struggling to explain the phrase "damn with faint praise" to a young relative a while back. This essay wouldn't have helped our cause because, well, it's loaded. But it is a master class in the concept.

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#28

Post by pvg »

dang wrote: post #25
neonate wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the New Yorker article explains, he also did propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis while there, and while this caused a scandal in Britain that persisted after the war, it surprisingly (by today's unforgiving standards) never ruined his reputation. It seems that most people who have looked into it concluded that he was genuinely trying to cheer people up and was naive about the consequences. Orwell, whose judgment s…

That Orwell article is brilliant from start to finish ("there are other culprits who are nearer home and better worth chasing"). We think of Orwell as a political and moral writer more than an arty one (and he famously wrote about how he sacrificed his art to politics), but this is among other things a fantastic piece of literary criticism. Examples: How closely Wodehouse sticks to conventional morality can be seen f…

which must mean that he was a fan

I heard an interview with an Orwell biographer recently and he made a similar argument about Orwell and Twain - which is a little different than the impression one might get from a casual reading of The Licensed Jester

Re: The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse

#29

Post by aptwebapps »

robotmay wrote: post #6

I love the 90s TV series with Fry and Laurie (as in the article image), but I've sadly never managed to get into the books as I have an extreme dislike of books written in the first person. There are a lot of good books I've missed out on because of this. My desire to try and get into the Wodehouse books is pretty high, though, so perhaps another attempt is warranted.

The Jeeves and Wooster stories are all (or almost all) in the first person, but most of the his other novels are not. Look for some of the Blandings Castle books.
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