What ho!
I was wondering at what age everyone here began reading (and loving) Wodehouse?
Everyone I know personally who is a fan began reading him as a child. I started at 8 years old.
I would be grateful for as many answers as possible! I'm thinking of ways to increase readership, and your answers would be very helpful!
I love Wodehouse, but did not start reading him until in my mid 20's.
...age 15, when I first discovered P.G. Wodehouse. My Dad returned home from a library sale with two moth-eaten old books, "Thank You, Jeeves" and "Laughing Gas", respectively. "You might like these," he said, tossing them in my lap. "Very amusing, I think you'll find them."
I wasn't so sure. I studied the one on top, the one with "Jeeves" in the title. Externally it wasn't much to write home about. A worn and dog-eared copy. Kinda like something the cat might have discovered in Tutenkhamen's tomb. But to humor the old blood relation I went through the motions. I opened to page one...read a few lines...fell madly, hopelessly in love...and the rest is history!
Now, years later, I own well over 100 copies of the Master's books, the contents of which have seeped deep into my psyche. I mean to say, what? I have sported on the green of Valley Fields and played tennis with Rodney Spelvin. I have visited Blandings Castle many times----always under false colors---and listened to my host rhapsodize about his prize sow. I have hobnobbed with Eggs, Beans and Crumpets in the Drones smoking room. I have been hoodwinked by Ukridge and charmed by Psmith. I have even blackmailed the bigwigs at Perfecto-Zizzbaum in Hollywood, wanting them to make me the next Minna Nordstrom. And whenever the slings and arrows of o. f. threaten to get me down, I have Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo as a magic restorative.
But the place that is nearest my heart, the place to which I return many a time and oft---as the fellow said--- is 3a Berkeley Mansions, London W.1. I rate the Jeeves series as Wodehouse's highest achievement. Yet what can a girl do? After each visit I must (regretfully) tear myself away from the charming Bertie Wooster because, much as I love him, he isn't the marrying kind. And really, it seems okay to leave him in such good and capable hands---viz. Jeeves's. I only hope that if there's a heaven---and assuming that there is, and that I check in there some day---I'll find waiting for me MORE, hitherto unheard-of and unread,Jeeves books to enjoy!:
I was a fan of the BBC television series "Wooster and Jeeves" as a teenager. But I only got around to actually reading Wodehouse a couple of years ago.
I think the BBC version was excellent, but as is the case with any movie/tv program based on books, condensed and otherwise "adapted".
I really thought Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry were superb on the program though.
*edit* oops , I did go a bit offtiopic...sorry about that.
I live in Shropshire ,Wodehouses' Sinister County. Not far from Blandford Castle (site of).
I didnt realise this till my children started listening to WodehouseTapes .
Before that I thought Bertie Wooster was something my bachelor silly *** Uncle enjoyed.
Yes I listen too,but can't bear the books.Yes ,parts of Shropshire are similar and I do know lots of twits like Wooster and co. I fear my eldest son is one .
He's a Lifeguard {army officer ,not swimming saviour} I also have an Aunt Dahlia.I think we may be some sort of a throwback.
The great thing about Wodehouse is that, despite all his "escapism" and deliberately cliched characters, he does manage at times to (weirdly) mirror reality. Yes, there ARE "Bertie Wooster" types and "Aunt Dahlia types" and (I would suspect) even "Jeeves" types alive in present-day England. Because human nature is still human nature, what? And when it came to the "psychology of the individual," PGW really knew his stuff!
I started reading Wodehouse when I was about 18. My brother got out an audio of Right Ho! Jeeves, and that was it.. I was hooked. I also have read a Blandings book... but it was Right Ho! Jeeves that did it for me.
As fans of PGW, we're in very good company. Others on the list include:
Douglas Adams, Evelyn Waugh, Hillaire Belloc, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, Alistair Cook, Isaac Asimov, Peter Cannon, the Queen Mother (!), and a host of others!
That's funny; I just got into him yesterday. I am 18 and am close to finishing Right Ho, Jeeves. I cannot put the thing down. I expect I'll be reading him for the rest of my life. It really seems amusing that this story which, on the surface, is not about anything terribly important - indeed seems not to be about any one thing - still tricks me into being genuinely concerned about Tuppy and Angela's wrecked engagement, etc. Excellent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrs Dickens
In our town, we have two public libraries, and one day when I decided the visit the one furthest from me, I came across 'Leave it to Psmith', and I was immediately charmed by Wodehouse. I was about 16 or 17, and I had the very good luck to find 'The Heart of a Goof' in the other library just recently. It's rare that I find authors whose works are so effortless to read. I can't enthuse enough how much I have enjoyed reading Wodehouse.
I've put age 13-14, which is about right though I can't remember exactly. My first book - perhaps uniquely among Wodehouse fans? - was Psmith Journalist. My father was a big Wodehouse enthusiast, starting from the day his English teacher read The Clicking of Cuthbert to his class. They don't seem to make English teachers like that any more.
I don't know the relevance of age with reading Wodehouse, but I bought my first Wodehouse's this year and have not yet able to read it. I'm 25. :)
I went on holiday with a school friend and her parents, and they were into Wodehouse, so I got into Wodehouse. Age 11. But I'd still pick up a book today and enjoy it just as much. The Blandings Castle series was my favourite with the pig farming Earl of Emsworth and his precious pig, was her name Duchess? :)
I am 18 going on 19 in August I only started reading it this year. When boredom strikes grab a good book, or in any case one that looks good and find out if it is. http://photobucket.com/albums/v504/l...anas/th_35.gif
I've never read any of his books :(
our stupid library has only one of his books, although he seems to be rather famous :confused:
are they worth buying?
could someone give a short description/summary of the Jeeves books?
Sleepy, you don't need to buy the books unless you want to. This site here has several texts of Wodehouse books already, additionally you can download quite a few for free from Project Gutenberg. Good for when you can't be online.
Lit Net's listing of P. G. Wodehouse texts online is here.
Scroll down the page a bit and you will find downloadable Wodehouse books here: Project Gutenberg.
I don't know if you will enjoy them or not...I think they are hilarious. Jeeves and Wooster are my favorites, but there are others (Wodehouse was pretty prolific) and they are also enjoyable. The humor tends to be either kind of goofy, or just very dry and witty. Very gentle...nobody is hurt (except their pride and even that isn't permanent) and I don't know....very much a reflection of a different time.
Back when I was 27, I co-read Full Moon with my then-new, now-ex husband whilst we were on our honeymoon. He was reading the book initially, but kept reading the hysterical bits to me. It got to the point that it was just easier to read the thing together. Actually, even once we made a stop at Blackwell's to stock up on Wodehouse, we still ended up reading each other the hysterical bits.
thanks Kathy :) i'll check them out when I've got some time on my handsQuote:
Originally Posted by kathycf
My brother's are quite a bit older than I am so I was reading whatever books they read and so I was 10 when I first read wodehouse and like Mrs.Dickens I loved Right Ho! Jeeves too.
I've never read his books. There's lots of others to read before I waste my time on a man with his views. Ah ha - political bias ennison. Indeed yes.
I think I first read Wodehouse in my early teens. However, not the Jeeves and Wooster books. The first two I read, and I recall them quite clearly now, were rarer offerings about schoolboy capers, The Pothunters and Mike at Wrykyn.
The name Jeeves was known to me years earlier as a very sedate young model of rectitude earned the monicker "Jeeves" from the chaps at school (I think it also had something to do with the black, long-tailed coat he was never seen without.) Don't think I read the Jeeves books until I was 15-ish.
At 65 years of age, with a doctoral degree, I humbly submit I find myself bewildered. Seeing your age ranges for beginners, my question is: how could anyone under 18 understand Wodehouse? I am struggling with Quick Service, my first Wodehouse novel, reading as slowly as I can. What am I doing that makes Wodehouse so difficult? Once in a while, yes, I get a great laugh out of it. (British humor is not impossible to master.) But I suspect I am missing 90% of the meaning. Is it illusionary to hope for an interpretational key to Wodehouse? Is there some special approach that will dispel the cloud of unknowing here? I really want to get into Wodehouse. He is bringing an untold joy into my life.
Truthlover,
I sympathise with your plight but I imagine that what you are missing in Wodehouse is the sheer, utter Englishness of the novels. Unless you have been brought up in a country which is founded on an aristocracy rather than a meritocracy, it might be difficult to empathise fully with the idiosyncrasies that Wodehouse captured so hilariously.
An interesting thing about Wodehouse is that, although he was the quintessential English gentleman, he spent some time during the 1920s in America working with George Gershwin and Jerome Kern on musicals. Some of his funniest books are set in the USA of that time and he sends up the Americans as hilariously as he does his fellow countrymen. I count Laughing Gas among the funniest books I have read.
I had the inestimable pleasure of going to Hanley Castle Grammar School on which Market Snodsbury Grammar (of Gussie Finknottle fame) was based, so obviously there was a certain bias to Wodehouse. I suspect that I had a copy of What Ho Jeeves thrust in to my hand within 5 minutes of getting there, ergo a tender 11, in baggy grey short trousers, baggy grey socks, baggy grey shirt, baggy grey jumper and baggy grey body. Oh, and spots. At least the blazer was a bright colour, green, with a huge Pelican on the breast pocket. Believe it or not, I still have the Old School Tie, which no longer goes round my Old School Neck, it having expanded somewhat in the last 44 years. My only claim to fame - sad, innit!
That's no small claim to fame. Gussie Finknottle is one of my favourite Wodehouse characters, although his propensity for keeping newts in his bath
was one of his less endearing traits. If you go to the LitNet Photo Directory and click on Dr. Hill, you will see his living image. The picture suddenly leaps into view so be prepared.
This may sound sad, but I first learnt about P. G. Wodehouse from a 1970s British TV programme 'Wodehouse Playhouse' which at the time I thought superb.
Sometime? He died an American citizen and lived the US all the time after World War Two.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
There are few novels without Americans.
Doesn't sound at all sad to me, mate. I first got to know Wodehouse through the earlier World of Wooster series with Ian Carmichael as Bertie and Dennis Price as Jeeves, Eleanor Summerfield as Dahlia, Fabia Drake as Agatha and Derek Nimmo as Bingo. The fact I can remember all these forgotten luvvies shows it made an impression, and I bought a whole lot of Wooster books with covers from the series.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebas. Melmoth
However I don't think I really appreciated Wodehouse at that stage. It was later I came to notice the extraordinary prose style ("He looked as though he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist.")
I don't think films versions can do him justice at all.
Yes, but prior to that he lived in France at le Touquet before it was overrun by the German army and he was interned in Germany for the duration of the war.Quote:
Originally Posted by ruggerlad
He went back to the USA because he was persona non grata in England, having made a broadcast for the Germans saying that he was being well treated.
I don't recall Americans featuring greatly in his books, although Laughing Gas is one that comes to mind.
The World of Wooster series was closer to the spirit of the novels than the later Fry and Laurie productions, which were too slick for my liking. Stephen Fry came across as supercilious; something that Dennis Price scrupulously avoided.Quote:
Originally Posted by ruggerlad
On making enquiries about the possibility of issuing the World of Wooster on DVD, I discovered that some idiot at the BBC had deleted all of the programmes with exception of the opening titles which can be accessed on Youtube.
Ian Carmichael singing the theme tune (What in the world would I do, Jeeves? was wonderful, and presumably has been saved for posterity.
Americans? Lord Emsworth's nephews and neices are always marrying Americans. The lovely Sue Brown is part American, IIRC. The Luck of the Bodkins is set on a transatlantic liner with American characters. Dyspeptic American business men with bossy wives are as frequent as aunts. And that's only from memory.
Lord Emsworth’s sister the formidable Lady Constance marries American millionaire, Joe Schoonmaker. Sue Brown has visited Blandings pretending to be his daughter Myra – she has an American accent in any case.
Bertie escapes Aunt Agatha in Carry On Jeeves to New York, which is the scene of some short stories, including The Aunt and the Sluggard, which the World of Wooster re-set in London rather than New York.
In Thank You Jeeves, central characters are Bertie’s old flame Pauline Stoker and her father, the inevitably dyspeptic American millionaire, J Washburn Stoker.
Outside the Blandings and Jeeves stories, Americans are probably even more frequent. The Little Nugget is an American child. The Coming of Bill is wholly American. Mr Mulliner tells stories about Hollywood. Monty Bodkin has to work as Hollywood script writer. And so on...
After the BBC series of last winter, I've finally got round to the first Blandings story. Enjoying it so far. Great writing.
Wodehouse is one of the truly great humorists in all literature. I can say that safely with having read but a tiny fraction of the world's literature but having read a large part of his prolific output. He was a writer who left the world a happier place because of his existence; no small feat when one considers that tragedy seems to feature more readily than comedy in literary output. Which brings me to a problem I have wrestled with concerning a lugubrious cop in one Wodehouse novel set in New York.
As far as I recall, the cop writes gloom and doom poetry and would be at home in the LitNet poetry sub-forums but, try as I might, I haven't been able to track him down. If anyone knows in which book this character features, I would be grateful for the information.
I think I've actually read all of Wodehouse's output but I can't remember this particular character. The one that springs immediately to mind is Ralston McTod, supposedly a famous Canadian metaphysical poet, although the only line of his poetry that anyone ever gets to hear is, "across the pale parabola of joy..." This as in Leave it to Psmith. This tale also has a Miss Peavy, who is not only a crook's partner, but also a poet.
I started reading Wodehouse when I was about 10.
I once toyed with the idea of posting a poem on the personal poem forum entitled 'Across the Pale Parabola of Joy' but I realised there were too many Wodehouse fans to get away with it. I'm beginning to think that the New York policeman might have been from one of Art Buchwald's stories that I was reading around the same time I was ploughing through PGW.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkman
Emil, it's definitely a P G Wodehouse. I remember the aspiring poet/policeman so well, though I read it years and years ago. I'll try googling it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
EDIT: It is called The Small Bachelor. It's set in New York during the time of prohibition, so it must be really funny. Should definitely read again. :)
That's marvellous, you are obviously more adroit at using Google than I. The name of the book certainly rings a bell and it really is funny. It came to mind through reading some poems by a Litnet member (who must perforce remain anonymous) that bear a remarkable similarity to those described by Wodehouse in his story.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
Checking out The Small Bachelor I came across this quote:
"Well, anyway, we walked around for a while, looking at the animals, and suddenly he asked me to marry him outside the cage of the Siberian yak". "No sir exclaimed Sigsbee H with a sudden strange firmness, the indulgent father who for once in his life asserts himself. "When you get married, you'll get married in St Thomas's like any other nice girl".
I must read it again.