The Wodehouse Code

I know that I’ve read The Code of the Woosters at least on two other occasions.  It is a delightful book, and I can think of no better way to begin the summer season then by considering the theft of a silver cow creamer.  Of course, it is not technically summer yet,* I think, but we’ve relaxed the dress code at work, so it might as well be.  During my eight-year mission to read the collected Wodehouse, I have unofficially decided to reserve Jeeves and Wooster books for the summer.  My uncle, the one who shares my Wodehouse obsession,** only reads Wodehouse during the summer, because he feels as though the novel’s lighthearted qualities can only be fully appreciated during the season of heat and lassitude (and, given that we live in New England, absurd levels of humidity). 

I understand this urge to associate books with different seasons.  Recently, I finished Wolf Hall.  It is an admirable book, and has nabbed noteworthy prizes, but somehow I wish that I had read it during the winter.  Maybe because the Tudor period coincided with a miniature Ice Age I always think of that time as a chilly one.  At any rate, now is the season when I have traditionally taken up books that are light in nature.  That might be a little different this year, because I have, at long last, come to the decision that I really ought to read the Game of Thrones series.  Goodness knows there is little happiness in those books; the only ones who seem to get a kick out of life are the sadistic characters.  That being said, I have seen the three seasons of the HBO production of the show, and I think my long-suffering boyfriend might well and truly burst if he has to keep certain plot developments to himself for very much longer. 

This is not a decision that I have made rashly.  Each of those five tomes is a door-stopper, and what with my laundry list of responsibilities, my reading time is not as plentiful as I would like it to be.  Still, I do not let long works put me off; I did read 1Q84 this year, and that book clocked in at over 900 pages.  The decision to read another Murakami book came easily.  He is, after all, one of my favorite writers, and I never regret time spent with him.  There are some books that I flatly refuse to read.  The most notable is the Twilight series, mostly because I cannot buy into the notion of sparkly vampires.  When it comes to choosing my reading material, I lean toward authors I know, non-fiction works on topics that interest me (mostly biographies of the oddballs who spice up history), and books that I feel will have some lasting importance.  I also belong to a book club, which has induced me to read things, like Gone Girl, that I might not have picked up on my own.  I did, however, refuse to endorse reading a Sweet Valley High books as our summer selection. 

One of the things that I like about Wodehouse is that he is still being read, despite his tone, which is very much a product of the early 20^th century.  The endorsement of a century of readers makes me feel comfortable with devoting years of my life to him.  As much as I would like to say that I simply don’t care what other people think, the truth of the matter is that I do.  And while Plum probably does not have as many readers as George R.R. Martin these days, there is something about having the approving heft of the ages behind me.

*Please note that I write this in mid-June, during was very chilly spring.  My bleeding heart shrub loved it, and is now wilting in sweltering heat.

**I have six uncles, two of whom are no longer with us, and two great-uncles, both of whom are reportedly hovering at Death’s door, however, that news is from my Slavic grandmother, and we Slavs are never truly happy unless our lives are somehow tinged with misery.  As I far I know, only one parental brother has succumbed to Plum’s siren call, although who knows; perhaps those who are on the other side take tea with the master on a regular basis.

Historical Dissonance

Bachelors Anonymous features people concerned with custom made suits and threats of breach of promise cases.  There are Hollywood movie czars and other elements that featured prominently in earlier novels.  The kicker is that the book was written in 1973, hardly a time when young people were concerned with procuring suits from Saville Row.  There could be an argument made that Wodehouse was going for a timeless feeling to his setting, but there were just enough elements present that argue that he was intentionally going for a later period.  One of the most poignant was his description of the heroine’s living quarters in a massive house in Notting Hill.  In earlier Wodehouse books, those houses would have held one family and their considerable staff.  Now, however, he notes that no one has the wherewithal to maintain such a residence, so it is chopped up into a number of rooms and the occupants share communal kitchens and living spaces.  Bertie Wooster would have been appalled. 

It was odd for me reading that novel, mostly because it was published just before my birth.  It’s hard to know if it was normal for breach of promise cases to be threatened; certainly, they do not play a role in modern romances in the UK.  The world of Bachelors Anonymous feels a little foreign, although I constantly have to remind myself that I did not have things such as the internet and mobile phones, and hummus was a hippy food when I was a girl.  One of the few television programs I watch regularly is Mad Men, and I constantly remind myself that the real counterparts to the characters portrayed are most likely still with us, that is, providing that they have not succumbed to lung cancer or cirrhosis.  The past is always with us; goodness knows that I am probably an antiquated fossil in the minds of today’s bright young things. 

While the past is always with us, I was musing the other day about how the points of reference I had when I was younger were slipping away.  What brought this home most to me was a conversation I had with my boyfriend, who referenced a report on NPR which stated that approximately 900 World War II veterans were dying each day.  When I was small, it was normal to encounter World War I vets, and now they are almost an extinct species.  An adult survivor of the concentration camps visited my elementary school; now in interviews I more frequently hear from either the children of those who were liberated from that living nightmare, or those who now, very old, were children at that time.  My son’s historical points of reference will be very different; perhaps his old dusty war will be Vietnam, or Desert Storm.  The former, although concluded when I was growing up, was a recent memory and the latter had a profound effect on me during high school. 

All of which leads me back to contemplating Wodehouse in the years before his death.  He was a living legend, although one best known for writing about a time and a society long since passed.  I cannot fathom what it must have been like for someone who lived through both world wars coping with disco balls, Andy Warhol, and Watergate.  A book of Plum’s letters recently came out, and I hope that there are some from his later years as I am interested to see how he reacted to things as he aged.  Did he embrace the changes, or, as I suspect from reading Bachelors Anonymous, did he try to maintain his grip on things by trying to impose elements of a time long gone in the created worlds of his fiction?