Sunday, Bloody Sunday ~or~ My Tussles with the Globe

There is almost always something in The Boston Sunday Globe that irks me.  Usually, it is to be found in The Globe Magazine, which is terribly Boston-centric and apologetically upscale.  I say apologetically because every now and again it makes an attempt at being budget-conscious in its offerings and shopping guides, which makes me roll my eyes.  If you’re going to be upscale, embrace it and move on.  Even though I’ll probably never be able to afford a million-dollar renovation on a house, it is nice to see one in pictures, because that’s probably as close as I’ll ever come.  As a subscriber to Vogue, I am more than comfortable with the thought of an aspirational publication and never feel as though I’m being talked down to, which can happen with the Globe.

I do not mean to single out the Globe.  The London Sunday Times appears to have a mandate that no issue can be published without at least one anti-American statement.  At least their lifestyle magazine is a better read, and does not, to the best of my knowledge, have a “Coupling” section where people discuss the intimate details of their relationships.  These essays always make me wonder how the author’s friends and family feel about knowing the little intimate details of their lives.  It is akin to having a Brahmin version of the Kardashian family on display.

There I was a couple of Sundays ago with an unexpected free hour on my hands because my son decided to become a marathon napper.  I sat down with the paper and reached the Ideas section.  There was an interview with Mindy Kaling, a Massachusetts native who is a writer for The Office and has recently published a book.  Miss Kaling is one of my favorite on-line personalities, and I read her book with great interest.  Perhaps my standards are too high, but I thought that this was a rather quick effort.  She, and Tina Fey for that matter, is more than capable of writing something with a bit more heft to it.  Anyway, one thing that really got me to thinking was that she said that she has never laughed out loud while reading.

Initially, I did not think much about this comment and focused my attention on the offerings of the Globe North section.  The next day, I was reading the story of Jeeves first coming into Bertie Wooster’s life and found myself laughing out loud (see, there is indeed a Wodehouse connection).  When I stopped to consider the comment, I found that I do laugh frequently when I read, probably to the consternation of my fellow commuter rail passengers as that is when I do most of my reading.  Some passages in David Sedaris have almost had me weeping, as well as some bits in the Series of Unfortunate Events (the earlier books are brilliant pieces of satire).  Am I alone in this?  Is there perhaps something wrong with me?  All I do know is that I feel sorry for Miss Kaling.  Most of these laughs have really been good for me, a spiritual palate cleanser.

The second thing that annoyed me was, inevitably, this week’s Coupling essay.  Please don’t ask me why I persist in reading something that fills me with bile ninety percent of the time.  This week’s offering was by a man who is a writer and married to another writer.  The couple both work from home and have small children.  Basically, the essay was an attempt by the man to assuage the lingering feelings of guilt he had for letting his wife assume most of the child care, at the expense of her writing career.  He justified the decision by stating that he earns more than his wife.  Well, he would, wouldn’t he, as he can write and publish and she is relegated to writing at night.  I don‘t know about her, but the last thing I want to do after putting my cherub to bed is to pullout the laptop.  Most nights, my mind is dribbling out of my ear and it is all I can do to take up my crochet needle.  He harped on the fact that she was a novelist, as if that entire group was doomed to poverty.  Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to see Stephen King or Nora Roberts in the bread line anytime soon, although I do realize that not all novelists are rolling in the proverbial hay.  My largest complaint was that I felt that this man was trying to make me absolve him from guilt, and I am not about to let him off the hook.  Let that be a lesson to you, Coupling authors.  Don’t try to use your audience to settle a score in your marriage.

The third thing?  Devra First spoke poorly about Turkish Delight, saying that it was disappointing.  I don’t know what Turkish Delight Ms. First has been eating, but it certainly leaves a sweeter taste in my mouth than many of the things she has praised to the skies.  It is one of my most favorite things in the world, and my dear English chum always brings me some when she visits.  In fact, I have a box waiting for me in my pantry that I suspect I am reserving for Valentine’s Day when I shall be in need of a pick-me-up.  I admit that I almost attacked it to assuage the disgruntlement I felt about the Globe, but my son woke up and demanded my attention.  I only thought about the paper one more time that day, which was when I was placing it in the recycling bag with more glee than usual.

Plot Twists ~or~ Thoughts on Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets and Other Matters

When I think about Wodehouse’s work, a few images come to mind: Jeeves coolly and brilliantly elucidating a solution to Bertie’s problems; Lord Emswoth sighing contentedly over his prize pig, the Empress of Blandings; and aunts imposing their will on unsuspecting victims.  All of these lead me to think about how quickly plots can change with the arrival of one telegram, phone call, or burglar creeping in the night.  The few people who do not look at me like a deranged lunatic when I talk about Wodehouse (actually, there is only one, my fantastic Uncle Joe.  The rest of my family is fairly patient with me, although they have been probably worn down by years of coping with my numerous quirks.) often remark on the fantastic plots.  For a while, I would agree with them.  Life always seems to bounce along, and I never gave a thought to how the plot of a life can change drastically in minutes.

This changed a few weeks ago, when there was a massive rain storm in my neck of the woods and my son’s daycare was flooded.  This was followed by the equally horrifying news that the center would be closed for two and a half weeks.  Suddenly, I went from a mother who happily deposited her offspring securely in the same place everyday and then dashed off to the city to a Sherpa.  You see, the most logical place to send him was a branch of the daycare center that just happens to be located across the street from my office.  I went from being a single commuter to having a plus one.  The littlest commuter had a grand time as he enjoyed being cooed over by a new cohort of adults.  Meanwhile, bags hung off of every available limb.  My handbag, the bag for my pumping equipment, my lunch, and a bag of my son’s things, not to mention the occasional appearance of an umbrella .  One day, as I was pushing the stroller while my child was chewing on his French giraffe in the midst of a downpour, laden with luggage and the aforementioned umbrella, I thought that Wodehouse would have had a field day with this, except there would need to be a valet or wager involved somewhere. 

Good old Plum would have also enjoyed witnessing the events surrounding the planning of my mother’s surprise 60th birthday.  This followed a more traditional Wodehouse theme, as the entire thing was spring upon me by my de facto aunt, my mother’s charmingly unhinged best friend.  Aunts are major catalysts in Wodehouse stories.*  Instead of pinching a silver creamer shaped as a cow, my aunt-inspired mission included a photo shoot with my son and long, involved discussions about whether it was better to arrange the salads before or after we reached the party venue.  Like Bertie, I realized that the only way I was going to survive was to say yes to everything, and then ignore the plans which were preposterous, such as her suggestion that we reenact the finale from Chicago for the entertainment section of the evening.

What does this have to do with the inestimable Eggs, Beans and Crumpets?  Admittedly, not a whole lot.  It is a nice collection of short stories, many of which involve one of my favorite tertiary Wodehouse characters, Bingo Little.  He has a nice marriage humming along with an author, Rosie M. Banks, and manages to get himself into numerous scrapes.  While reading it, I remarked to myself on how a lot of these plots can be a bit bizarre, until I took a good long look at my life and recognized that it too is replete with elements of the absurd.  For every call from Aunt Agatha that has sent shock waves through Bertie‘s life, I have had requests to join committees and, lest I forget, my impending divorce was triggered by a telephone.  Life has its own bizarre designs, and it is far better to turn them into plots for a mad-cap story rather than dwelling over their more serious implications.


*It is one of my deepest regrets that it looks as though I shall never be a full-fledged aunt.  I am an only child, and am in the process of undoing the union that has made me a step-aunt by marriage to people who are only a couple of years younger.  My step-niece has also made me a great step-aunt, but that does not have the same ring to it somehow. 

Creative Immortality ~or~ More Musings on The Golden Bat

Looking at the publication date of The Golden Bat reinforced the fact that Wodehouse was a product of the late Victorian/Edwardian age, albeit one who lived well beyond the demise of both monarchs.  The man was publishing books in 1904, which is now well over a hundred years ago.  This comes as a shock to me.  I still consider Kurt Cobain’s death to be a recent event, and 9/11 happened only last week, didn’t it?  Never mind that, when I was younger, it was not unusual to have veterans of World War I pottering about, and now they’re almost all on another field of battle.

I often wonder if Wodehouse thought that his books would still be published and read so long after they were written.  He died in 1975, almost forty years ago, and, not only are all of his books still in print, but they bring out swanky new editions that are featured in au courant design magazines.  Moreover, their humor still endures, which I find remarkable.  Maybe in large part that is because there are not many pop culture references, which lends to the so-called timeless air of the novels and stories.  I read Tina Fey’s memoirs a couple of weeks ago, and I find myself wondering if 30 Rock will still be considered funny in the next century.  Fey’s humor relies a lot on witty observations of current situations, so I’m not convinced that it will endure.  Who can say though.  Maybe it will be like Shakespeare, and the episodes will come with long footnotes explaining the ironic use of language.  Goodness knows, I’m a sucker for a good footnote.

I have almost no doubt that good old P.G. would be tickled pink knowing that his books are still read.  Isn’t that what all writers and other artists dream of, that, not only will their work be shared during their lifetime, but will outlive them?  One my favorite recent episodes of Dr. Who involved The Doctor taking Vincent Van Gogh into the present to show him that people considered him to be a master and appreciate his paintings.  I always loose it when I see the touching last scene, as the incomparable Bill Nighy, playing an art historian, explains to Van Gogh the precise nature of his legacy (not knowing that he was speaking to the artist himself).  To be fair, even the Van Gogh character cries, so it is a weep-fest on both sides of the screen.  It is the base human need to share that still compels people to tell stories and express, having an audience. 

I’ve been struggling with the need of having an audience recently.  Over the past ten years, I have written a couple of novels and a pile of short stories that I have no doubt will languish in unpublished obscurity.  At the moment, I am in the process of trying to determine if I should pack it in and give up on fiction writing or carry on.  I go back and forth on the merits of writing for my own sake versus doing something more productive with my time.  Part of my compromise was starting this blog, which, while not fiction, still keeps me writing, which I am determined to do regardless of the form it takes.  Fortunately for the world at large, Wodehouse had success relatively early on in his writing career, meaning that he did not quit. 

The Golden Bat Review

September’s Wodehouse selection was The Golden Bat, which is set in an English private school.  First published in 1904, it is one of Wodehouse’s earlier novels.  To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about reading this one.  A few months earlier, I had read The Pothunters, another private school tale (it is about a missing athletic trophy, not illicit substances.  Wodehouse is nearly free of any references to illegal behavior, the main exception being violation of prohibition.  From what I know about that era, it sounds as though everyone except the most virtuous violated that one.).  The problem with The Pothunters is that pages and pages of short, snappy dialogue go by, and one generally does not have a clue about who is speaking.  The vast swathes of rapid-fire speech zip by, and by the end, even though I knew there was an entire troupe of young men amongst the ranks, it could just as easily have been one boy having an extended monologue. 

I chose The Golden Bat for September because I had indulged myself by reading Very Good Jeeves in August.  The latter is a collection of some of the best Jeeves and Wooster stories, and, since August is my birthday month, I decided to treat myself.  Being the good New Englander that I am, I had to make up for the pleasure by taking on a book that was not leaping of the shelf at me.  Indeed, The Golden Bat had been sitting there ever since my experience with the pothunters, taunting me, as if it knew that I might be disappointed or annoyed by it, and still it did not mind, because it knew that, in order to achieve my goal, I had to read it.

I should not have been so concerned, as I enjoyed The Golden Bat more than I thought I would.  It is still an early novel, with perhaps one more description of rugby matches than was absolutely necessary, but the characters of the school boys are distinguishable from one another.  Wodehouse seems to have some obsession with the prevailing early 20^th century stereotype that the Irish were all mischievous trouble-makers, which later calmed down in later works into continuous references to Pat and Mike jokes.  That being said, at least these high-spirited lads were also smart and very kind-hearted.  What I liked most about the story was that the boys all had the earnestness of teen-aged boys, as though every last thing is vitally important and that the choice of deciding who was going to represent the school at a rugby match against their dreaded rival was going to change the course of their lives.  It made me laugh and then made me feel very old as I remember feeling the same way a couple of decades ago.  What chilled me even more was remembering that, since the book was written in 1904, World War I was looming in the near-distance, and it was likely that most of the characters would have fought and a good number killed.  Then I needed to remind myself that these were characters in a book, not real people, but I took my motherly concern as a sign that Pelham had done a good job making me care about them.

Stay Classy, Pt. 3

Last entry on my musings about class, I promise.  I wanted to add that being an American placed me on the periphery of the entire struggle.  Part of it was that I was from an alien culture, so all bets of having common experiences went out the window.  It was for the best that I was in an educational setting, as they tend to be more liberal in the mixing of the classes.  People are more free to try things out; for instance, a young man whose family owned most of Devon became very keen on woodworking while up at uni. 

It did help that I come from New England and that I did not take to yelling at people across the street.  People were more assured that I was not some wild yahoo from New York or California.  My accent was also less harsh and became more Anglicized the longer I was there.  Added to that, I attended a conservative women’s college, so there were rumblings of pedigree in my background.  Of course, if one scratched behind the surface, one would find out immediately that I am the daughter of an immigrant mother and working-class father.  I tended to confuse a lot of people who bothered to ask anything more about me than what I was studying.

Do we have classes on this side of the pond?  Of course we do.  I maintain that it is only natural, although I think that given the complex nature of the American population, and the sheer size of the country, there are more categories.  Certainly, there is old money and new money, but even within those groups are regional divides that even our internet age has not surmounted.  How was the money earned?  Real estate, hedge funds, Farmville?  East coast money or West coast?  The US’s population is about ten times as large as the UK’s and, I think, because of that we have more options for social groups.  One thing that is the same in both countries is that the rich are increasing their wealth and the rest of us, well, it’s a bit bleak.

Stay Classy, Pt. 2

An English friend of mine once defined the British class system to me early on during my extended stay in England.  She said that one needed to possess two out of the following three qualities: beauty, brains, and breeding.  An American will quickly notice that money does not feature.  Certainly, money can help, but it is not a defining factor.  The top example of this is the former Catherine Middleton.  Her family had the money to buy her the best education they could.  These schools exposed her to the right element, and she was able to learn about the upper classes by moving among them and used her natural intelligence to assimilate.  In fact, I think that at this stage of her marriage, she is unquestionably more savvy than her late mother-in-law.  She also has the right type of beauty, not too aggressive.  I don’t think anyone would argue that Kate Moss ought to worry about being supplanted.  She has the look that fits in with the class that she wanted to join. 


The one thing that Cathy Cambridge did not have was breeding.  As the daughter of an airline pilot and a flight attendant, she was teased mercilessly in the tabloid press.  Even some of Will’s own coterie thought her background was a detriment.  However, she persevered, and is now married to the second in line to the British throne.  For comparison’s sake, one can look at the daughter of the head of Formula One, Petra Ecclestone.  She certainly has money; she recently bought Candi Spelling’s mansion (the one with the fabled rooms devoted to gift-wrapping) and has an equally sumptuous pad in London.  Despite her wealth, and the impeccable grooming that her money gives her, she is not a member of the upper class.  She is simply too gauche, too showy, which might be why she has a residence on this side of the pond, as she will fit right in. 

I think that the class system is probably driven by the all too human need to feel connected to one’s compatriots.  During a trip to Normandy that was organized by my supervisor, I got a chance to see this play out.  On one of the interminable coach rides from a mysterious Romanesque church located in the middle of nowhere to the Bayeux Tapestry, I overheard a conservation.  It was between one young man from my college who was extremely well-connected.  He was talking with a young woman from another college, and I could hear them dancing around one another.  What caught my attention was that this was not one of those pre-shag chats, the stakes were much higher, although the urgency was somewhat diminished.  They were talking about the schools they had attended, the people they knew in common, and places around London that they had frequented.  The entire thing had the same feel as two dogs sniffing one another.  It struck me then that the class system, instead of merely being an elitist conspiracy, also had a practical element.  For the most part, people simply get on better with those from similar backgrounds.  This revelation is not a radical thing, but perhaps makes the class system less mysterious.

Stay Classy, pt. 1

Perhaps the one element of Wodehouse’s work that makes it feel unreal is that a majority of the stories involve the British (mostly English) upper classes.  Few readers, whether contemporaries to the publication dates or modern, are a part of that very small gentrified class.  The concept of not having to work because one’s life is supported by an enormous trust or family inheritance is alien to a greater part of the world.  Yet, it is something that I would argue that everyone has dreamed about at least once in their life, if not on a daily basis, especially, oh say, the day that the mortgage is due. 

By giving his main characters freedom from work, it opens up their time to other pursuits.  Even if they have no formal occupation, there is always the family land to maintain, or, in the case of one Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, the need to cut a dash about town and appease his tribe of aunts.  Not having formal occupations allows for some of the action of the most screwball plots, because who has time to plot the purloining of a silver cow-shaped creamer if your nine to five is spent pushing papers?

Of course, reflecting the concerns of the late twenties and early thirties (and our own times), a good many plots are involved with members of the upper classes losing their money and being forced into reduced circumstances, dreaming of retaining their faded glory.  This is a central plot point in Sam the Sudden, where our heroine becomes impoverished following the death of her parents.  In the end, she meets a man who is fabulously wealthy and all is right once more.  The feeling is that the upper classes ought to stay there, in a fixed orbit.  This holds true even for the gentry who have been improvised by the inheritance taxes that were introduced in the early part of the twentieth century.  While they might be forced to lease their grand estates, the notion that they ought to seek gainful employment simply does not occur to them.  They sit there, in moldering houses with closed wings, and the impression given is that this is what they should be doing.

This is not to say that the Wodehouse’s upper classes are sealed off from the rest of the country.  Part of the spark behind the action is the interplay between the working, or criminal, classes and the toffs.  One need only look at the dependence of Wooster on Jeeves to know that Wodehouse did not think that one’s birth automatically made one a superior human being.  Jeeves is most certainly from working-class origins, yet his brain is truly first-rate.  The class system well and truly exists in Wodehouse, but he most certainly does not worship it. 

More on the class system in part two.