Wodehouse: Wonderful poetic lunacy

[Mary Sue]

I'm been reading Wodehouse since I was 15 and while I love nearly all his stuff, I find the Jeeves/Wooster cycle to be his finest achievement. The Jeeves books are ALL top-notch and oojah-cum-spiff, particularly those published between 1930 and 1949. VERY GOOD, JEEVES is one solid belly laugh, with all those vintage stories about Bertie Wooster's various antics: puncturing the hot-water bottle, sliding down water-pipes to escape an irate Aunt Agatha, etc. etc. And THANK YOU, JEEVES---- the first PGW that I ever read, a real classic, vintage stuff about our bumbling hero trying (unsuccessfully) to survive all sorts of ghastly vicissitudes without his smarter servant. And RIGHT HO, JEEVES, with that freak Gussie presenting the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School...and THHE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS, best parody of a whodunit that I've ever read...and JOY IN THE MORNING, with all those crazy botched quotations, 'fretful porpentine' and so forth... and let's not forget THE MATING SEASON, which is simply an old-fashioned musical comedy without the music!
Great stuff, all of it.
As for the Blandings books, all the titles are good, but I would especially recommend LEAVE IT TO PSMITH, SUMMER LIGHTNING, and UNCLE FRED IN THE SPRINGTIME. And then there's that wonderful stand-alone book, LAUGHING GAS, which I love. It's PG's one foray into science fiction.

[kathycf]

Hi Mary Sue, welcome to the Forum. I love those books you mentioned too, Wodehouse is great. I have enjoyed 99.9 percent of everything he has written, but I must agree that Jeeves and Wooster are the best. I laugh at all of Bertie's romantic scrapes, he seems to get engaged just about every book to one domineering female after another.

[Mary Sue]

Hi, Fellow Insomniac!
How true. Bertie Wooster is a great literary creation. And I love the subtext, that he's not really as stupid as he pretends. Seems to me that he's often PLAYING dumb, to avoid responsibility. So his "mentally negligible" pose is, at least in part, a survival mechanism. Because God forbid that the young blighter should ever have to grow up! Adulthood would mean, ultimately, his marriage, i.e. "the fate worse than death," to some fearful female. Honoria Glossop or Florence Craye or Madeline Bassett. And the wife, whichever one he got, would be sure to bedevil him. She'd make him quit the Drones Club, give up cocktails, etc. etc. But wait, there'd be even worse to come. Once entrapped, he'd soon be hearing the patter of little feet about the home....and in Wodehouse, ALL babies look like Edward G. Robinson! Enough said. You get the psychology of the individual. Far better that Bertie should be caught with 23 cats in his bedroom, damned as a blithering idiot and written off by all and sundry. The less that's expected of him, the less he has to do. Or learn or mature into. Or even worry about. And with Jeeves to protect him, to keep him mentally fixated at about age 15, he has the good life. No goals other than saying "Oh!" and meaning it to sting.
Besides, he's far too brilliant a storyteller to be really stupid, don't ya think?
The Jeeves/Wooster books are a LOT deeper than you might think. Read between the lines. Not on a par with Shakespeare, perhaps, but still...

[kathycf]

Originally Posted by Mary Sue

Hi, Fellow Insomniac!

and fellow New Englander, too I see...

Originally Posted by Mary Sue

How true. Bertie Wooster is a great literary creation. And I love the subtext, that he's not really as stupid as he pretends. Seems to me that he's often PLAYING dumb, to avoid responsibility.

I often thought Bertie, while not the sharpest tool in the shed, isn't as dumb as he pretends as well. I think he often gets into situations that are not of his own choosing because he is too kind hearted or too "gentlemanly" to refuse a request or otherwise say "no!" Then there is, as you say, that whole avoiding responsibility issue as well...

Originally Posted by Mary Sue

Not on a par with Shakespeare, perhaps, but still...

Well, maybe not, but it is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Wodehouse has a great style and command of the language, and I certainly have gotten more enjoyment from reading him than Shakespeare. Not to say that Shakespeare is lousy, that would be akin to heresy on a literature forum...