The Magnificent Mulliners

Both branches of my family tree are heavily laden.  On my father’s side, my cousins have a remarkable ability to shoot out offspring from our youngest days up to the time when normal people would have assumed that the factory was well and truly closed.  The result is a large and merry horde that I adore.  What makes me pause is the knowledge that, numerous as we are, we represent only one offshoot of my great-grandfather’s family and, given that he was Irish, I am willing to bet a hefty sum that he was not an only child. 

My maternal side is, at first glance, small and compact by comparison.  This only applies to this side of the Atlantic.  Thirty years ago this past summer, my mother and I traveled to the land of her birth, whereupon I made the startling discovery that I am related to entire villages in Eastern Europe.  Over the year, my grandmother has told me snippets of tales concerning our family, some members long dead and buried.

These reminisces are to say that I completely understand where Mr. Mulliner is coming from when he launches into reveries about his related twigs.  Wodehouse does not do much character building of our intrepid narrator.  We know his favorite watering hole, we know that he disregards those around him when he wants to carry on.  That being said, the sheer number of Mulliner stories that exist in the Wodehouse cannon show a character who gets no end of a kick out of his family.  I don’t know much about the extended Wodehouse clan, but, knowing the realities of living abroad, far removed from your ancestors and related contemporaries, I do wonder how close he was able to be with them.  While I hate to lapse into psychological speculation, I do wonder how much the Mulliner tales reveal a yearning on Wodehouse’s part to be surrounded by a large and merry horde.  It is a natural instinct, especially when one is an ex-pat.  For as much as the said ex-pat probably adored his adopted country, there is almost always an innate yearning for a connection to those who know you and your family. 

Everything Old...

I do not understand the current hipster fascination with facial hair, especially mustaches.  This is probably one of many signs that I am on the precipice of fogey-dom.  It is not something that particularly worries me.  Then again, perhaps the very fact that I am reading the collected Wodehouse is a billboard pointing to the fact that I do not mingle well with the hip and with-it.

 

What further perplexes me is not that mustaches adorn the upper lips of select gentlemen, but that they have made their way onto an alarming array of goods including, but not limited to, necklaces, automobiles, t-shirts, and pacifiers.*  There must be some humor that I’m failing to grasp, much like my inability to enjoy The Flight of the Conchords as much as everyone seemed to.

It would seem that, once again, I have a comrade-in-arms in Wodehouse.  One of the stories in “Lord Emsworth and Others” features a mustache growing contest between two local worthies.  At the height of the action one of them is shaved off in the dead of night.  When the denuded victim of the prank appears the next day, everyone is delighted by his appearance and remarks how much better he looks. 

Mustaches in Wodehouse seem to be reserved for the older set.  I remember at one point that Bertie attempted to grow one, but was ultimately convinced by Jeeves to part with it.  One gets the sense that they are vestiges of the Victorian age, something that is not embodied in the frothiness of Bertie and his gang.  A man with a mustache in Wodehouse is a figure of fun, although perhaps not meant in the same way that it is today, since I cannot imagine one of Wodehouse’s characters in skinny jeans and a knit beanie. 

*I do stand firm in my belief that the former UK PM John Major would have benefited from a mustache.  It might have lent him an air of panache that his administration sorely lacked.

Lord Who?

Not much is seen of Lord Bosham, Lord Emsworth’s heir in the Blandings Castle series.  I have a persistent feeling that, although he is referred to in a number of the stories, he does not make an appearance until this month’s selection “Uncle Fred in the Springtime.”*  Lord Bosham’s younger brother keeps popping up like a cork in the earlier books until he is married off to an American dog biscuit heiress.  Despite being dispatched overseas, Freddie does reappear on occasion.  One gets the feeling that Wodehouse rather liked writing about him.

This feeling cannot be applied to the older brother, I’m afraid.  Whereas Freddie is a catalyst of many plots, and certainly he causes his father much angst pre-marriage as it seems children must, the same does not apply to Bosham.  This distinct feeling that I took away from this month’s selection is that Wodehouse could not find a definite role for him.  Early on in the book, he is a questioner who assists with plot exposition.  Later, in the madcap conclusion, he is the straight man who is removed from the scene as everyone is taken up by the encircling lunacy. 

The other problem is that there is nothing distinct about his characterization.  The role of a young man trying to maintain order is already taken by the erstwhile ex-secretary, Baxter.  There is not much for Lord Bosham to do, which I suspect is a common feeling among heirs (would that one could get Prince Charles’ views on this.). 

So much of Wodehouse’s plots feel like a juggling act.  The majority of them are rather successful, hence his massive writing career.  Because of the success, one of the few times when one of the balls goes rolling away is notable.  Something tells me that the later Blandings books will not be Bosham-packed. 

*One should be warned that Overlook’s cover features a character in blackface.  In my late-pregnancy haze, I did not realize straightaway that I ought to have removed the slipcover whilst out and about in public with it.  I now realize why I got a few strange looks on the train.