Galahad at Blandings ~or~ Uncoiling the Spring*

The nice thing about taking a chronological approach to this last leg of my Reading Wodehouse challenge is that I am finishing up with some strong examples of a master still in possession of his talents.  I don’t believe that Overlook published the books in order by publication year, although they very sweetly held off on publishing Sunset at Blandings, the unfinished book that awaits me in April, to the very end.  Who knows why.  Certainly I know very little about the publishing world.**  Perhaps it was a rights issues, occupying a team of copyright lawyers for months on end.  Perhaps someone just wanted to get his or her favorite ones out first, and then felt a twinge of remorse looking at the other, neglected titles.  Perhaps they were led by the data analytics that seems to lead a great many people these days, to varying effects.***  Who knows, the publication order might have just as easily been determined by throwing a dart at a list.

The book is a masterclass in plotting and the result is so skillful that I deeply wish I had a Galahad Threepwood in my life.  There really is not much else that I can say about this book except that if one is in need of a mental diversion, and after the past few months I think this applies to anyone, regardless of what side of the political divide you fall on, this is just the ticket.  It seems that when Wodehouse himself was in need of a diversion when he wrote the book.  It was published in 1964 and refers to the 1929 stock market crash as if it was a recent event.  It’s not often that we get such an exact historical marker for a book, and indeed, I have seen some of the later titles adapt to modern times by having the leads be stewardesses instead of private secretaries.  This makes me wonder if Plum needed an out as well.  Modern life, even fifty years ago, can be too much. 

*Read January 2017

**The little I do know of it is via an old friend of mine who is a literary agent.  The life is not as glamorous as one might think.  Her old office was plagued by a race of super mice who took no notice of the mind-scrambling sonic traps that were scattered around the place.  She also works all the hours God sends and has told me stories of deeply uncivilized behavior.  Never mind the fact that everyone is running about gleefully proclaiming that print is dead.  It’s enough to make one consider establishing a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for the Literary Field. 

***Off-topic maybe, but this calls to mind the recent reboot by Netflix of the Gilmore Girls series.  The stories chronicling the decision to commission these episodes stated that the executives were impressed by how many people were still watching it on the service.  They then took the Give the People What They Want approach (often a mistake and possibly an explanation for the deluge of superhero movies drowning our local multiplexes).  My suspicion is that it paid off dividends for the company, although I was annoyed by a great deal of the story.  Sometimes, just because you can do something does not mean that it will be executed wonderfully, and I believe that the creative duo responsible for the show ultimately did their creation a disservice.  Artistic vision often needs to be tempered; just look at what the sonnet format did with Shakespeare’s brilliance.  I do hope that the producers of Will and Grace are listening somewhere, because I have Grave Concerns about that endeavor, which was nicely wrapped up years ago. 

Ice in the Bedroom ~or~ Bad Timing*

As I’ve written earlier, some of Plum’s earlier novels made me queasy.  While reading these tales of schoolboy derring-do, I could not help but remember that due to their likely birthdates that the chances were high that they would become cannon-fodder during World War I.  Of course, these are fictional character we’re talking about, but I cannot help but think that Wodehouse had to base them on some of his own school chums.  In a way, these books are memorials of the boys who later sacrificed themselves to preserve our way of life. 

There was a similar feeling that came over me while I was reading this month’s selection.  Past of the plot involves the main character Freddie Widgeon trying to raise the funds to buy into a coffee plantation in Kenya.  That bothered me a little, and I’ve only just now worked out why that is.  My first thought was to remember that recently** there had been occasions in Africa when white landowners were required to hand back their property to the government.  This did not happen in Kenya, but of course in Zimbabwe. 

My second thought was to remember that a lot has happened on the African continent in terms of nation building in the past century, so I did a bit or research on what had been going on in Kenya.  It turns out that the country won its independence from the UK in 1963.  A quick glance at the publication information of Ice in the Bedroom informed me that it was presented to the reading public in 1961, a mere two years before the country where Freddie immigrated to changed dramatically.

What happened to Freddie Widgeon and his coffee plantation?  Did all of his dreams vanish in the tide of UK citizens who left Kenya following independence?  Did he stay on?  What of any mini-Widgeons who might have been born of his marriage to his beloved Sally?  These questions can never be answered because Freddie has never drawn breath.  Still, it is difficult for me to read these stories and not think about the people who did try and make a go in the coffee world just before the country fundamentally changes.  In my own life I have had what could be deemed poor timing with how international events intersected with my plans, so perhaps I feel something of a kinship for these seemingly-doomed characters.

*Read December 2016

**Right, so it began in 2008 and some might not consider that to be recent.  Please bear with me, because my mind works a little different when processing time.  Anything under a decade happened virtually yesterday to me.  Decades are required to have passed before I even start considering that something happened a while back.  I blame this on being a trained medieval historian and that time in my life when mental leaps of a century or so were commonplace in the grey goo that is my brain. 

Performing Flea ~or~ Plummy Letters*

Admission: I was not best pleased when I peered at my bookshelf and saw that the book I was slated to read this month was a dreaded piece of non-fiction.  Moreover, it was a book of letters that was edited not by Wodehouse, but by William Townend, a writer and one of Plum’s friends from his school days.  The only consoling thought was that this was the last of the Wodehouse non-fictions, a genre that the sensitive blog reader will note causes me much consternation. 

All turned out well though because the letters were nice and breezy.  It should, however, be understood that I would have been more enthusiastic if I had been reading a Jeeves book, or roaming around Blandings Castle with its Empress.  That being said, it was a hoot to read about Wodehouse’s encounters with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A.A. Milne, and H.G. Wells.  I also enjoyed reading his reaction to George Orwell’s defense of his actions during the war.**  There were some instances of name-dropping that induced eye-rolling*** because they referred to people I don’t know, but even this was addressed in the final letter.  Townend sent Plum the manuscript of the book and asked for his opinion.  Plum wrote back that he was surprised by the number of names of long-forgotten and/or dead people that appeared.  Good on him, I say.

The very thought of a friend publishing one’s letter is an odd one.  How on earth did Townend broach the subject?  Was he a money-grubbing desperate author who wanted to cash in on his long-standing relationship with his famous friend?  Was he trying to rehabilitate Wodehouse’s reputation?  Was he trying to drum up interest in his own books (many of the letters contain writing advice from Wodehouse)?  Was it a mixture of all or some of the above?  It would seem that we will never know for certain, or some learned friend of mine will enlighten me soon.  What did come out was that Plum had a generous nature, and perhaps this extended to agreeing to publish the letters.  Also, Townend added some nice annotations which added to the pleasure of reading the letters.  Sadly, nothing could have made me enjoy Plum’s internment diary, which gave a glimpse into the misery and drudgery that was World War II.****

Enough pondering.  Here are some of the little gems that were tucked into the letters:

“You have your heroes struggling against Life and Fate, and what they want are stories about men struggling with octopuses and pirates.” (p. 41)

The bit on his visit to Hearst Castle on pp. 76 and 77 were interesting, especially since I visited the site as a child.  I knew that Plum was acquainted with Marion Davies, and this confirmed my suspicion that he met Hearst himself.

On p. 228 he referred to being in one’s forties as young, which is something I need to remember going forward.

Finally, on p. 241 he talked about feeling like a fraud in spite of all his success.  I only remark upon it because I heard a similar feeling expressed among my friends in graduate school.  Since then, I find myself wondering how many people feel fraudulent in spite of their achievements.  I often feel as though I’ve made a hash of my own life, but that’s not comparable to say, Barak Obama looking at himself at the mirror wondering how all of this could have happened. 

*Read November 2016

**This is a topic on which I have held forth ad nauseum and will put on permanent hold for the well-being of all.

***This will come as no surprise to my long-suffering husband, who holds firm to the belief that I roll my eyes on average once every thirty minutes. 

****Not that he was poorly treated, but, if this internment was considered plush, I only shudder to think what the concentration camps were like.