Humane Doppelgangers ~or~ The Clicking of Cuthbert*

There are going to be a lot of “last time”s coming up in the next nine months of this project.  The obvious one will be the last Wodehouse book that I read, which, if everything goes well, will be next April.**  This month, I think, marks my last encounter with a golf-based Wodehouse book.  I will admit that I groaned a little when I saw what title was awaiting me on my bookshelf.  Golf, as I have discussed earlier, is not my game.  Reading about golf, even if the author is one of my particular favorites, I place on the same level as watching golf matches with my father: I enjoy the company immensely even if the subject matter is not completely gripping. 

When I was thinking about this post, I was struck by the thought that, unless there is a golf tale lurking among the pages of the last nine books, this will also probably be my last encounter with the Oldest Member.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the character, the Oldest Member is a man who is a denizen of the clubhouse of his golf club, too old to play, yet too enamored of the game to be separated from its atmosphere.  His primary purpose is to cheer up the younger generation with tales illustrating the morsels of wisdom that he imparts on the populace.  The problem is that you can always see the young person wince with boredom. 

There are many occasions in life when I have felt like the Oldest Member, particularly as I get older and have to give context to the young when I talk about the olden days, aka The Regan Era (and, even more worryingly because it makes me feel that much more ancient, The Clinton Era or The Elder Bush Moment).  That thought made me realize that I have written about identifying with other Wodehouse characters at different times in this blog, leading me to think that I might have hit upon one of the essentials about the enduring popularity of these books.  The thing about Wodehouse’s characters is that, despite their outward absurdities, there is always a kernel of humanity that the reader can latch on to.  Then, despite the fact that these people live in a world we cannot hope to inhabit, they become familiar.  I know for a fact that I often miss hearing from Jeeves, even though I have never met him.  Hardly a ground-breaking thought, I know, but something to consider when you think about what makes an enduring classic.

The good thing about this book is that it was a group of short stories.  Perhaps Plum knew that a sustained tale about golf would be unbearable, and that a group of his previously published works would be the way forward.  So, given that, I will leave you with some short thoughts of my own:

-There are a couple of references to the Writer’s Lot.  The first feels as though Plum was allowing himself a Cathartic Experience about the reputation of the English writer: “ ‘Nonsense, who wants an English writer to be English?  You’ve got to be Russian or Spanish or something to be a real success’ “(p. 18).

-Then Wodehouse gets his own back in via the words of a revered Russian novelist who is enlightening a literary society: “ ‘No novelists anywhere any good except me.  P. G. Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad.  Not good, but not bad.’ “ (p. 26).

-There was a reference to someone being a blot on the landscape on page 28.  Being a fan of the Tom Sharpe novel of the same title, I wondered about the origin of the phrase.  My first thought was Shakespeare.  This was the wrong answer, as the correct one is that it is from a 1912 letter by T.E. Lawrence, or so the internet told me after an exhaustive search that lasted all of five minutes.  Now I know.  Now I also know that Wodehouse might have read Lawrence, although I always have wondered about people who published their letters.  I suppose that a blogger should not be throwing stones at a glass house though.

-There is a motif about men using golf games to decide who would be the won to win the attentions of the women desired by both.  What amused me was not the hunt, but the fact that Wodehouse was able to use so many variations on this theme.  Given the rest of his work this should not surprise me, but it is still remarkable and perhaps one of his greatest talents.  Also, Tiger Woods might have avoided many personal problems if he had simply resorted to solving them via a golf duel.

-I need to learn what a niblick is.

-Carrying on from last months’ selection, there were a couple of more variations of the phrase “regrettable incident.” The first was a close cousin: “…I could see that on the whole they regarded me as one of those things which should not happen.’ “ (p. 123)  Here it is again: “To such a man women are merciless, and it speedily became an article of faith with the feminine population of the locality that Ramsden Waters an unfortunate incident and did not belong.’” (p. 183)

*Read July 2016

**Providing that the world does not end before then.  Given the global feeling of instability that has reached a crescendo over the past year, I’d currently lay even odds of me being around to finish this.  Sorry for the gloom; I’m afflicted by a cold that has knocked both me and my husband sideways and I tend to get a bit morose when I’m not feeling at my best.