|
NOTE; THIS ENTRY IS STILL A ROUGH DRAFT
NEEDS RE-WRITE AND ADDITION OF CARTOONS
|
Critics said P G Wodehouse, poor chap, never
grew up - and look what happened to him. He slaved all his life at a
Monument typewriter, turning out songs and musical comedy scripts and
about 100 books, and he produced lines from a hang-over-hurt Bertie
Wooster such as: “Jeeves. . .make a noise like an egg, and beat it.”
Poor chap, before he turned 90 he was more famous - and better read - than all other humorous writers - let alone novelists and poets and "bestselling" authors of his century. |
Pelham Grenville "Plum" Wodehouse
|
Wodehouse worked so hard that, at one time as a theatre critic for Vanity
Fair, he had to use five different non de plumes when reviewing all of
New York's shows for the magazine. At times he acted as its entire
staff and, when no other writers were available, he even had to review one
of his own plays. This occurred
because, at the same time as being a one-man Arts Editorial department, he
was also writing musical comedy for Broadway and composing his light short
stories. That's not funny.
Yet, despite his industrious conscientiousness, his
contemporaries condemned him for not worrying enough; for not taking
himself seriously.
Wodehouse refused to face reality - or so the critics said during most
of his prolific 90 years. Later, after worrying about it most seriously
for a long time, the critics changed their minds. Malcolm Muggeridge
summed it up best: "Yet, after all. . .there are different sorts
of reality. Can we be so sure, for instance, that Hitler's ranting
and Churchill's rhetoric and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms will seem more real
to posterity than Jeeves and Bertie Wooster? I rather doubt
it."
When Wodehouse died, posterity was hailing him as one of the most
accomplished writers of the English language, beyond Forester, Hemingway,
Steinbeck, Faulkner, Golding and all other modern literary figures. But as
Wodehouse might have said, "what does posterity know?"What he himself knew was that - despite stupidly broadcasting a breezy message on Nazi Germany's radio before the war, and being condemned for it - he still sold a millions of his books in the UK, America, France, Scandinavia, Germany - indeed everywhere in the world..
"Plum" Wodehouse was a deliberate anachronism. So were his stories, books, plays and
characters. I mean, who would believe
a perfect butler such as Jeeves could exist in the 1920s – and who of the
rapidly impoverished peers of the land could afford him – certainly not the
workless wonders of the Drones Club. All P.G.’s people and plots were
deliberately over-written as anachronisms, which – like musical comedy – were
not to be taken seriously. That was his
whole point, wasn’t it? And those critics who sneer at his work for
being ‘immature’ or ‘silly’ are very naïve indeed.
As a writer he was a giant; a heavyweight to
beat all heavyweights in any ring for the past 100 years.
That is not
my judgement – though I concur with it absolutely. It is the judgement of
critics and writers such as Hillair Belloc, Malcolm Muggeridge and many more.
Consider these descriptive gems of character and situation:
He looked
like a bishop who had just discovered Schism and Doubt among the minor clergy
|
He was a
big chap, with a small moustache
and the sort of eye that can open an
oyster at
sixty paces. |
|
He was
quaking like a jelly in a high wind (young nephew encountering his formidable
aunt)
Her laugh
was like cavalry clattering over a tin bridge (another horsey auntie)
Bravest man I ever met. Has any other man ever tipped a maitre d nothing bigger than an aspirin?.
Here is P G Wodehouse's ending to his Preface to
"The Clicking of Cuthbert," written in his usual unorthodox style of introduction.
POSTSCRIPT.-In the
second chapter I allude to Stout Cortez staring at the Pacific. Shortly after
the appearance of this narrative in serial form in America, I received an
anonymous letter containing the words, "You big stiff, it wasn't Cortez,
it was Balboa." This, I believe, is historically accurate. On the other
hand, if Cortez was good enough for Keats, he is good enough for me. Besides,
even if it was Balboa, the Pacific was open for being stared at about
that time, and I see no reason why Cortez should not have had a look at it as
well.
And his Preface to Summer
Lightning
"A word about the
title. It is related of Thackeray that, hitting upon "Vanity Fair"
after retiring to rest one night, he leaped out of bed and ran seven times
round the room, shouting at the top of his voice. Oddly enough, I behaved in
exactly the same way when I thought of Summer Lightning. I recognised it
immediately as the ideal title for a novel. My exuberance has been a little
diminished since by the discovery that I am not the only one who thinks highly
of it. Already I have been informed that two novels with the same name have
been published in England, and my agent in America cables to say that three
have recently been placed on the market in the United States. As my story has
appeared in serial form under its present label, it is too late to alter it
now. I can only express the modest hope that this story will be considered
worthy of inclusion in the list of the Hundred Best Books Called Summer
Lightning.
I should include a para from Benny
Green’s biog.
|
