The Magnificent Mulliners

Both branches of my family tree are heavily laden.  On my father’s side, my cousins have a remarkable ability to shoot out offspring from our youngest days up to the time when normal people would have assumed that the factory was well and truly closed.  The result is a large and merry horde that I adore.  What makes me pause is the knowledge that, numerous as we are, we represent only one offshoot of my great-grandfather’s family and, given that he was Irish, I am willing to bet a hefty sum that he was not an only child. 

My maternal side is, at first glance, small and compact by comparison.  This only applies to this side of the Atlantic.  Thirty years ago this past summer, my mother and I traveled to the land of her birth, whereupon I made the startling discovery that I am related to entire villages in Eastern Europe.  Over the year, my grandmother has told me snippets of tales concerning our family, some members long dead and buried.

These reminisces are to say that I completely understand where Mr. Mulliner is coming from when he launches into reveries about his related twigs.  Wodehouse does not do much character building of our intrepid narrator.  We know his favorite watering hole, we know that he disregards those around him when he wants to carry on.  That being said, the sheer number of Mulliner stories that exist in the Wodehouse cannon show a character who gets no end of a kick out of his family.  I don’t know much about the extended Wodehouse clan, but, knowing the realities of living abroad, far removed from your ancestors and related contemporaries, I do wonder how close he was able to be with them.  While I hate to lapse into psychological speculation, I do wonder how much the Mulliner tales reveal a yearning on Wodehouse’s part to be surrounded by a large and merry horde.  It is a natural instinct, especially when one is an ex-pat.  For as much as the said ex-pat probably adored his adopted country, there is almost always an innate yearning for a connection to those who know you and your family. 

Everything Old...

I do not understand the current hipster fascination with facial hair, especially mustaches.  This is probably one of many signs that I am on the precipice of fogey-dom.  It is not something that particularly worries me.  Then again, perhaps the very fact that I am reading the collected Wodehouse is a billboard pointing to the fact that I do not mingle well with the hip and with-it.

 

What further perplexes me is not that mustaches adorn the upper lips of select gentlemen, but that they have made their way onto an alarming array of goods including, but not limited to, necklaces, automobiles, t-shirts, and pacifiers.*  There must be some humor that I’m failing to grasp, much like my inability to enjoy The Flight of the Conchords as much as everyone seemed to.

It would seem that, once again, I have a comrade-in-arms in Wodehouse.  One of the stories in “Lord Emsworth and Others” features a mustache growing contest between two local worthies.  At the height of the action one of them is shaved off in the dead of night.  When the denuded victim of the prank appears the next day, everyone is delighted by his appearance and remarks how much better he looks. 

Mustaches in Wodehouse seem to be reserved for the older set.  I remember at one point that Bertie attempted to grow one, but was ultimately convinced by Jeeves to part with it.  One gets the sense that they are vestiges of the Victorian age, something that is not embodied in the frothiness of Bertie and his gang.  A man with a mustache in Wodehouse is a figure of fun, although perhaps not meant in the same way that it is today, since I cannot imagine one of Wodehouse’s characters in skinny jeans and a knit beanie. 

*I do stand firm in my belief that the former UK PM John Major would have benefited from a mustache.  It might have lent him an air of panache that his administration sorely lacked.

Lord Who?

Not much is seen of Lord Bosham, Lord Emsworth’s heir in the Blandings Castle series.  I have a persistent feeling that, although he is referred to in a number of the stories, he does not make an appearance until this month’s selection “Uncle Fred in the Springtime.”*  Lord Bosham’s younger brother keeps popping up like a cork in the earlier books until he is married off to an American dog biscuit heiress.  Despite being dispatched overseas, Freddie does reappear on occasion.  One gets the feeling that Wodehouse rather liked writing about him.

This feeling cannot be applied to the older brother, I’m afraid.  Whereas Freddie is a catalyst of many plots, and certainly he causes his father much angst pre-marriage as it seems children must, the same does not apply to Bosham.  This distinct feeling that I took away from this month’s selection is that Wodehouse could not find a definite role for him.  Early on in the book, he is a questioner who assists with plot exposition.  Later, in the madcap conclusion, he is the straight man who is removed from the scene as everyone is taken up by the encircling lunacy. 

The other problem is that there is nothing distinct about his characterization.  The role of a young man trying to maintain order is already taken by the erstwhile ex-secretary, Baxter.  There is not much for Lord Bosham to do, which I suspect is a common feeling among heirs (would that one could get Prince Charles’ views on this.). 

So much of Wodehouse’s plots feel like a juggling act.  The majority of them are rather successful, hence his massive writing career.  Because of the success, one of the few times when one of the balls goes rolling away is notable.  Something tells me that the later Blandings books will not be Bosham-packed. 

*One should be warned that Overlook’s cover features a character in blackface.  In my late-pregnancy haze, I did not realize straightaway that I ought to have removed the slipcover whilst out and about in public with it.  I now realize why I got a few strange looks on the train. 

We are all governed by madmen

Among other things, Summer Lightning features the return of Lord Emsworth’s former secretary to the castle.  The efficient Baxter is probably one of the more sane individuals ever to inhabit Blandings Castle.  During his tenure, correspondences were dispatched in a timely manner and document signed, with the result that Lord Emsworth spent far too little time with his beloved prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings.  It is probably because of his even-tempered approach to Lord Emsworth’s business affairs that he is the only one to be out rightly accused of insanity.  His dismissal followed an episode when he was caught throwing flower pots at his employer’s window in the dead of night.  Unfortunately for Baxter, his activities following his return follow in a similar vein. 

The world of Wodehouse is ruled by those who might be called slightly unhinged.  Although stern types such as lord Emsworth’s sister of Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Agatha try to impose reason on their nearest and dearest, the truth is that they often fail in this quest.  While this might seem to be a comic inversion of the “real world,” the longer that I reside on this planet, the more I am convinced that it is only a slight exaggeration of our reality.  Spode might seem to be an amusing figure with his interest in lingerie, but were he to annex the Crimea, we might be singing a different tune.

While I was reading, I felt torn.  I was rooting, as always, for Baxter’s downfall.  At the same time, I had to admit to myself that, of all of Wodehouse’s characters, he might be the one who comes closest to me in personality.  It made me wonder if the same could be said of a number of people.  There are very few real life risk-takers in this world.  Most of us prefer to keep our heads down and get on with things.  According to Wodehouse, this approach to life results in ridicule and being kept from what one truly wants.  Better to be considered slightly eccentric than to be doomed to a life of efficient mediocrity.  After all, upright behavior can get you kicked out of the castle.

An Early Twentieth Century Version of The Daily Show

Something tells me that Overlook is nearing the end of its project to publish the entire Wodehouse oeuvre.  The press’s latest offering is, in reality, two versions of the same piece.  The first, published in 1909, is the account of an invasion of Britain by numerous foreign powers who are thwarted by the Boy Scouts.  Less a book and more a novella, I zipped through it in record time, assisted by the fact that the text was punctuated by a number of illustrations (deeply unusual for modern printings of The Master).

The second version was the account of an invasion of America by numerous foreign powers that is thwarted by, you guessed it, the Boy Scouts.  This version, which is more a long short story, was published in 1915.  The date made me pause.  Of course, the significance of the date did not escape me.  World War I proper was raging, but the US had yet to make its appearance.  This work is yet another piece of evidence against the argument that Wodehouse was not politically aware.  The US (as Britain was in the earlier work) was mocked in this story for its lassiez-faire attitude as its shores were being breached by the Germans and Japanese.  That the security of an entire nation rode on the small shoulders of Boy Scouts, albeit a group led by a rather formidable one in the shape of Clarence Chugwater, is high satire indeed.  Jon Stewart, eat your heart out.

I must admit that I didn’t quite know exactly what Wodehouse was satirizing in the earlier piece.  Obviously, Archduke Ferdinand was still alive and kicking at that point.  Perhaps there was a general sense that the British were becoming lax in their enforcement of law and order in the Empire.  Maybe the government was taking a more relaxed stance towards the nation’s defense.  Whatever the cause, there is a feeling that Wodehouse could sense that Something was afoot that would be of global significance, and chose to write about it, not just once, but twice.*

*There are other instances of Wodehouse recycling plots, although this was one of the first instances of Overlook putting them in the same volume.