When I was writing my thoughts about A Gentleman of Leisure,
I noted that there was a general lack of typical Wodehouseian turn of
phrases. To be honest, when I was in
media res with that book, I was not thinking to myself, “This is sorely lacking
in witticisms.” It was more like, “This
book is lacking something. I don’t know
quite what it is…” It should be noted
that by the time I get to read on the train in the mornings, I have only had
one cup of coffee. My mind is not at its
keenest.
One of the things that has been made apparent to me during the
course of this exercise of reading the entirety of Wodehouse is that not
everyone is familiar with his work.
There are those who have seen the televised versions of the stories, and
even a smaller circle who have read one or two books. So, to give you an idea of what I’m yammering
on about, I earmarked a couple of examples:
“Reggie’s was a troubled spirit these days. He was in love, and he had developed a bad
slice with his mid-iron. He was
practically a soul in torment.”
What is typically wonderful about the preceding quotation is
its mixture of the sublime, that is, romantic love, with the mundane, which is
golf.* Then we have this little gem:
“He was, for a young man, extraordinarily obese. Already a second edition of his chin had been
published, and the perfectly-cut morning coat which encased his upper section
bulged out in an opulent semi-circle.”
Having a second edition of a chin is something that I wish I
had written. Interestingly enough, the
description of this man’s weight has a significant bearing on the book’s
plot. It’s a nice technique to keep the
subject of obesity fresh in the reader’s mind.
So, while there is a lot of zippy dialogue in a Wodehouse
text, what I find myself cherishing more are the wry observations that come
outside of the spoken word. I’ve
realized that I don’t have many more opportunities to read these lines; by my
count, I have only 23 more Wodehouse books in the Overlook imprint to go. Four of them are non-fiction, so I have no
idea what they might be like. There is
the final Jeeves and Wooster book in that lot (I might have two left, I have
yet to make a thorough inventory) and, of course, the last Blandings book. In fact, Wodehouse was working on “Sunset at
Blandings,” at the time of his death. It
is unfinished, and I am interested to see the witticisms are fully developed in
a text that was not completely polished.
*I realize that some people equate golf with sublimity, but
I am not in that camp. The fewer things
I swing in the air, the safer the world is.
I know enough golfers who feel as though it trumps just about
everything, and comes a very close second to love. Maybe these people have a different reading
of this selection.
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