A Wodehouse by Any Other Name

February’s Wodehouse selection, Company for Henry, is a solid enough book.  Not one in the superior rank, but amusing enough to keep me from drifting off into slumber on the morning train.  The plot is not as tight as other efforts, in fact, I detected a sort of late-career malaise had crept in, as though Plum dashed this off to pay a tax bill.

What caught my eye about the book is that it is one of the many Wodehouse novels that has both a US and UK title.  On this side of the pond, it appeared on the shelves as The Purloined Paperweight, while in Blighty it was Company for Henry.  The other noticeable tid-bit is its publication date: 1967.  To my ears. The Purloined Paperweight sounds vaguely old-fashioned.  Even though it was almost 50 years ago, I can imagine it sounding just as square to the habitués of the swinging 1960s.  The title sounds as though it should be headlining a short story written by an early 20^th century Conan Doyle poseur.  I spent the better part of last week, that is, when I was not saving my cats from my toddler’s Reign of Terror, wondering about the publishing house’s intent.  Did they want to appeal to an older crowd, who might have been waxing nostalgic about the good old days whilst being confronted by miniskirts and hippies?  Or was their intention to launch an ironic advertising campaign, akin to today’s hipsters embracing facial hair that not long ago would have condemned them to the lunatic fringe?  So many questions, particularly when Company for Henry works better as a description for a book.*

The vogue for different titles in the US and UK seems to have diminished considerably in recent times.**  Perhaps it can be attributed to the sheer number of British imports that are flooding into this country.  Dr. Who just would not be the same if it was called something like The Adventures of the Tardis.  The internet has also helped to close a number of cultural gaps: I was well and truly spoiled for the most recent series of Downton Abbey, which is admittedly handy because the little television-viewing time I have had seems to be disappearing at an alarming rate (no bad thing that).  Perhaps the next sign of cultural proximity will come when books originally written in different languages will have directly translated titles, meaning that instead of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo history will remember Men Who Hate Women.  Somehow, though, I think that it will take a little while before the American market is quite so progressive.

*It must be said that Company for Henry strikes me as being the title of a folk-song that would be on the B-side of a Kinks single. 

**The most recent example I have seen is the British spy series, which over here is called MI5 and was originally entitled Spooks.  I can envision many a face at PBS blanching upon encountering that potential PC nightmare.