Mulliner Nights ~or~ Sustainable Literature*

Given that Plum wrote over 90 books, it is probably no huge shock to reveal that there are a good many repeated tropes.  His skill lies in making them seem new, or, at the very least, not unwelcome.  So we have Mulliner Nights, with Mr. Mulliner taking over numerous conversations to regale the assembled masses with tales of his family. 

There are not many writers who get away with this successfully.  My all-time favorite comic strip is Bloom County.  For Christmas a couple of years ago, my husband got me the collected strip** and I spent a couple of years reading them on and off just before bed.  Because I had read (and re-read, countless times) one of the earlier collections, a number of the strips were familiar to me.***  This year I received the collected works of Bloom County’s predecessor, Academia Waltz.  While I had always heard about it, the editions were rare and I never made the effort to acquire one.  My guess is that the company who came out with the Bloom County strip did a bumper crop of business and took a chance on the earlier lot. 

I did not know quite what to expect.  Knowing that this was Berkely Breathed’s early work, his juvenilia if you will, I decided to brace myself for some truly sophomoric humor and almost nothing that would remind me of Bloom County.  Early on, I encountered Steve Dallas and prepared to meet other Bloom County residents.  What I was not prepared for was the fact that a remarkable proportion of Academia Waltz was reprinted under the Bloom County moniker.  It felt as though when the cartoonist had an off day, he would dip into the well of his past, change a few characters, and call it a day.

Part of me was horrified by this revelation.  The practical side was of me admired the fact that he was not bound by any sort of copyright laws.  I am still intrigued that what does not bother me about Wodehouse raised some questions with Breathed.  Perhaps the lesson here is that we should not expect too much originality from our comic authors (or all authors, which would explain the 1,001 re-imaginations of Jane Austen’s works).  Given the choice between no new offerings and the old stuff in new wrapping, I would take the latter, for Wodehouse, anyway. 

*Read October 2016

**The main Bloom Country only; I am not a fan of Outland and was only moderately interested in Opus.  I am, however, enchanted by his daily strip on Facebook because I think that world works best when everyone is included, creating an unholy balance that some writer can only dream of.

***There are a number of phrases form Bloom County that have made their way into my vocabulary.  The most notable addition is “higgledy-piggedly” which, in our current political climate, is more useful than one would first think.

Barmy in Wonderland ~or~ Wit and Brevity*

This is yet another of the Wodehouse efforts that began life as a play.  I feel that I have read enough of them to definitively say that I don’t like them as much as the books and short stories that did not begin their lives flooded in limelight.  My problem might be that I simply do not like the feeling that bits of exploratory text have been shoe-horned in.  It does not feel effortless, and the thing about Wodehouse is that his writing should be very much like a meringue**: light and effortless, because any hint of over-beating would leave you with a tough, inedible lump.  We’re far from inedible lump territory with Barmy, but everything is relative.

Even with a mediocre Wodehouse, the good news is that it is soon over.  I wish I could say the same about the latest book that was inflected upon me by the well-meaning ladies in my book club.  My book club history has been relatively successful as there are maybe only two books I’ve been compelled to finish that have not been to my taste.  In fact, it is thanks to a now defunct club that I encountered one of my favorite books.***  But back to this literary monstrosity.  What troubles me the most is  that quite a few people world-wide are fans of the book, The Night Circus.  In fact, some of my nearest and dearest adore it.  For the life of me, I could not admit to similar feelings and still be able to look at myself in the mirror. 

The subject matter, time period, etc., are all things that would normally intrigue me  But if there is one thing that will raise my ire, it is someone who, not content with telling the reader something in a particular way, goes on and basically spends sentence upon sentence repeating the same thought.  I’m not a patient person, and much less a patient reader.  Perhaps this is yet another reason why I chose Plum.  For good or for bad, everything is over within 300 pages and off you pop.  Very thoughtful.

*Read September 2016

**The more appropriate analogy might be a soufflé, but, to my culinary horror, I don’t believe that I’ve ever had one.  I’ve a doctor’s appointment looming, and if on the off chance I discover that my world is about to come to a crashing end, I will make up for that deficiency post haste.  Actually, I should probably do it regardless, but there is something that tells me that minding two small children and being concerned about egg whites does not mix. 

***The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters for the curious. 

Hot Water ~or~ Hot Toddy*

There is no doubt in my mind that this book shows Wodehouse at his most nimble.  It is a rush of things- from people being mischievous, to assumed identities, to jaunts across the Channel, to theft- that made my head spin in a delightful manner that was not unlike having a glass of champagne.  If someone was to ask me to recommend my favorite non-Jeeves and Wooster , non-Blandings Castle Wodehouse, it would be this one.  As a stand alone book, it is deeply satisfying without the crutch o previous knowledge of the characters, etc.  It is not often that one encounters such a level of satisfying entertainment.  The last time I had this feeling was watching the season 6 finale of Game of Thrones, but, in order to earn that, I had to cope with five seasons of violence and degradation, with just enough amusing characters and intrigue to keep me going.  Wodehouse asked much less of his readers, bless him.

Speaking of champers, there was an interesting dose of temperance-talk in this one.  One of the characters is an American senator who is publicly against alcohol, although he quaffs it merrily in his private life.  This left me to wonder if Wodehouse noticed any difference between the US and the UK at the time concerning drinking.  The book was published in 1932 and prohibition was not repealed until the following year.  To say that the US had a disjointed drinking culture at the time must have been an understatement, especially if the portrait of the Senator bore any resemblance to reality.  It reminds me of politicians who make a big thing about their family values and are subsequently revealed to have been chasing their intern around the office or some such thing. 

The entire encounter hinted at the difference in attitudes towards drinking that prevail on the different sides of the Atlantic. Maybe it is because of our past, but there seems to be such an extreme reaction to it in the US, from nothing to the Mad Men era of the five-martini lunch, to now when it seems to depend very much on circumstances.  There is an entire sociological thesis buried here, I’m certain, but I’m trying not to write one.  Instead, I am going to wander down memory lane a little.  We do not have pubs over here in the truest sense.  Just last night, I was thinking about the number of pubs I would walk past in my daily life when I resided in England.  A good number of them would have been a fine place to take kids to for a casual meal.  We don’t have that in the US, at least not where I live.  They are more bars, and children are not allowed in.  This is not to say that I am dying to take my kids into a bar, what with their lurid environments, sticky floors, and the vague smell of the previous night lingering in the air.  But I do wish we had a comfortable casual place to be, and it would not hurt if it was a vaguely historic building instead of something awful festooned with cartoon characters.  One can dream.**

*Read August 2016

**One of my favorite pubs is in the North, just outside of Leeds.  I was introduced to it by a medievalist called Simon Yarrow (now an eminent presence on the academic scene at the University of Birmingham) when a group of us were there for a conference.  The pub had been around for centuries, so long that it had functioning priest holes that were used to hide the Catholic clergy during the Protestant reformation. The pub was beautifully nestled into the countryside, and I will never forget the evening that I had there.  In fact, my mind sometimes wanders there when I am in need of a nice memory.