Not George Washington ~or~ Shakespeare is Wrong*

This is an early-career Wodehouse, published as it was in 1907.  The slightly unusual thing about it is that it was written in collaboration with another author, Herbert Westbrook.  I have become grudgingly accepting of the fact that Wodehouse wrote non-fiction with others, never mind his music-theatrical productions which were always written with at least one other person.  Thinking about the machinations of the process bent my mind a little. 

My main confusion comes from wondering just how one goes about writing a book of fiction with someone else.  After one develops the plot, then what?  Is it like one of those games where one begins, hands off the work to the collaborator, who carries on, and so on and so forth until the thing is finished?  Is there a set word count, and how on earth did they manage that in a time before word processors?  Then there is always the question of voice.  How do you decide what the overall style will be?  How does editing work?  It all sounds like a massive experiment in not hurting someone’s feelings, which is simply exhausting.  Either that, or each author knows the other very well indeed and can anticipate how to cope with these issues, or simply avoid potential hot-potato topics. 

I am less confused about my feelings of our hero, James Orlebar Cloyster.  He’s a nitwit.  I take great satisfaction in knowing that it sounds as though Wodehouse rather felt the same way about him.  Now then, I don’t mean nitwit in the same way that Bertie Wooster might fairly be called one.  I can take tomes and tomes about Bertie, and I know that I would not be able to stomach another book about Mr. Cloyster. 

My main problem is that he becomes engaged to a nice young woman, goes off to the city to fund said union, becomes a success, regrets his engagement, becomes entangled with another woman, and decides he does love the first young lady only after she sends him a magnificent play that she has written to pawn off as one of his own.  I would put forth Mr. Cloyster’s actions in an argument against Shakespeare’s line “…Frailty, thy name is woman.”  Because indeed, it can go both ways.  While I comprehend that the authors are probably making fun of Mr. Cloyster, I cannot help but feel sorry for Margaret Goodwin, the future Mrs. Cloyster.  I cannot imagine that joining one’s life to an emotional weather vane would be much fun.

*Read February 2016