Athletic Pursuits

I am not an eager reader of books involving athletic pursuits.*  Unlike most of the populace, the Qudditch scenes in the Harry Potter books were not my favorite.  I have to admit that, unlike many other literary sporting scenes, there was often some plot exposition in them.  I feel the same about battle scenes.  Many is the time that military historians have bored the socks off of me with descriptions of troop movements and the like.  I find myself caring less about where a certain battalion went and more about what the ultimate outcome was.  This is one of the reasons why I like the Game of Thrones.  The few battle scenes are from the point of view of one character, which is quite helpful.  More often than not, you hear about the outcome of a certain battle that had been set up, rather than tediously reliving every swish of every sword.

One of the things that I had to come to terms with in my pursuit of reading all of Wodehouse is that quite a few books involve cricket, rugby, and/or golf.  Boxing and horse racing have also been pertinent to some plots, though to a lesser degree.  Mercifully, I know the basic rules of cricket and rugby, and I also know that rugby at the time was referred to as football (given that the Brits now call soccer football, it can all become quite confusing).  In fact, I’m really pleased that if these are the sports I must contend with, at least I’m reading about something I know.  The same cannot be said about American football.  I’ve spent years trying to get my head around the concept of a down, and it’s only just now seeming as though I might begin to understand. 

Mike at Wyrken, which was September’s Wodehouse, starts out with a cricket-mad family.  It only gets worse from there, as the entire book hinges around important school-related cricket matches.  The accounts of wickets falling are mercifully short, because, let me tell you, we’re dealing with a sport that involves tea breaks, so we’re not talking about events that are action-packed.  Cricket is a languid, meditative sport, and I think even Wodehouse wanted to skip to the end.

This book is the first in the Psmith series (I know nothing about the titular character).  The odd thing is that, from what I could tell, Psmith does not make an appearance.  The original book was split into two, this one and Mike and Psmith, which is now winging its way to me courtesy of Amazon.  My intention is to read the entire series now, although I have to double-check that Overlook has published them all.  Hopefully, not all of them will involve cricket, although I did notice that one of the later books featured a boxing match on the cover, so I’m not out of the woods yet. 

*It’s probably not surprising that I don’t spend my free time sitting around watching sports.  In my defense, I do enjoy a good game, but there has to be something on the line, such as an historic win, to grab my attention.  For instance, I found the Patriot‘s 2001 season to be particularly epic, almost operatic in its drama, and I did keep tabs on the young Tom Brady that year.  That being said, I must admit that I heard about the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2005 on the news that night as I was drifting off to sleep (I used to sleep with my radio on, but that’s another story.  I blame Stephen King.).

Fifty Shades of Jeeves

The last Jeeves and Wooster novel of the summer, Ring for Jeeves, did not involve the latter character at all.  In light of The Servant Shortage following the Second World War, Bertie has decided to take a course to learn how to fend for himself should the unimaginable happen and he is bereft of any sort of household help.  Jeeves agrees to act as valet for William Belfry, ninth Earl of Rowcester, a younger friend of Wooster and henceforth called Bill.  What most impressed me about this novel is that we are shown another side of the gentleman’s gentleman.  Since Bill is among the increasing population of house-rich and money poor gentility, the two embark on a gambling syndicate that is mostly successful (a great deal of the novel deals with the one notable failure).  Part of this plan involves the dignified Jeeves dressing up in an outfit that involves a rather loud suit and false whiskers.  We have seen Jeeves dress up before, but the description of the costume he dons for this endeavor almost beggars belief.  One gets the impression that he rather enjoys the subterfuge and living life by his wits.  Seeing Jeeves in this manner made me wonder if he was beginning to find life with Bertie to be a little too comfortable.  After all, he is always trying to get his employer to travel, be it on a round the world cruise or a junket to New York.  There is an adventurous streak in Jeeves that cannot be ignored

It was also interesting to view Jeeves through the eyes of another master.  While Bill Rowcester obviously enjoys he fruits of Jeeves’ brain, especially when it comes to rescuing him from his financial woes, there are times when he finds the valet to be a little tedious.  The instances when Jeeves quotes from literature are presented as tedious moments, not a breathless example of the man’s superior brain as is so often the case when he is with Bertie.  Rowcester always bids Jeeves to hurry up with his point, and not to linger with some literary exposition.  Bertie never does this.  He usually makes a favorable remark after Jeeves presents a quotation, or follows it up with some of his own experiences with the literary figure in question.  Through Bill’s eyes, Jeeves comes off as ever so slightly ponderous.

There is, of course, a change in how Bertie himself views Jeeves in the novels.  Early on, the lay about has only buckets of admiration for his valet; he hangs upon every word and is utterly reliant on him.  This changes in the later novels.  Hang lived around d Jeeves for a while Bertie becomes a bit more confident in his own abilities.  He dissuades his friends form consulting Jeeves convinced that he can also present a clever way out of a seemingly hopeless predicament.  Of course, these plans fail miserably and Bertie is forced to turn to Jeeves.  Between these two older men, there is a sense of respect that is not as present between Bill and Jeeves.  As this book was written in 1953, it is yet another reminder that the world is slowly changing, even in the rarefied Wodehouseian universe. 

The Master and the Bard

There came a point during my reading of Joy in the Morning when I really thought that Wodehouse was pulling my leg.  The speed with which engagements were created and then broken, then mended, only the be split assumer again, is simply astounding.  As a reader, I was constantly left wondering if the plot machinations would end in such a way that things would end as they started; with two couples happily betrothed, and with our hero Bertie devoid of any obligation to don the sponge bag trousers* and present himself at a church.

It then struck me that this was not the first time that I was presented with multiple romantic situations gone higgledy-piggedly.  Many many many years ago, when I was young and dinosaurs were known to roam the neighborhoods, I was Helena in my high school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Granted, fairies have not been known to drug any Wodehouse characters (although Jeeves has slipped a mickey or two when the situation calls), but the romantic alacrity is comparable.  In fact, that thread runs through a great many of the Bard’s works, and not simply the comedies.  Indeed, Romeo, at the beginning of that teenaged tragedy, was enamored of the fair Rosalind, not Juliet.  The trope probably even predates Shakespeare, who was a great hoarder of plots and is unlikely to have been the literary progenitor of the implausibly fast and complicated romance. 

Marching through history, I note that the trope continued on through the works of Austen.  I am not terribly au fait with contemporary popular so-called women’s literature, but I would suspect that it persists up until this day.**  I believe that there is something about the human psyche that yearns for sudden complete love and adoration, because goodness knows that’s much easier than trawling around the likes of Match.com looking for your dream-rabbit.  Humans also possess the ability to mock their deepest desires, hence the fact that sudden romance and its perils are often the subject of mockery.  As a species, we have an awfully cruel streak when it comes to bare emotion. 

Wodehouse himself acknowledged that silliness of it all in this book, as he said on page 152: “You can’t go by what a girl says, when she’s giving you the devil for making a chump out of yourself.  It’s like Shakespeare.  Sounds well, but does not mean anything.” Or, in the words of Puck, “What fools these mortals be!”

*Short of perusing the internet (which is a tedious proposition on the commuter rail.  There is an internet connection, and in times of desperation I have accessed it, but it keeps insisting on either being slow or nonexistent.) I have no idea what sponge bag trousers are, or how they came to have that name.  I can only assume they are the trousers that are properly donned with a morning coat. 

**Granted, there are a couple of hundred years between now and the Georgian period.  My defense is that, as a trained historian, the time span is a mere eye-blink in the annals of mankind. 

The Wodehouse Code

I know that I’ve read The Code of the Woosters at least on two other occasions.  It is a delightful book, and I can think of no better way to begin the summer season then by considering the theft of a silver cow creamer.  Of course, it is not technically summer yet,* I think, but we’ve relaxed the dress code at work, so it might as well be.  During my eight-year mission to read the collected Wodehouse, I have unofficially decided to reserve Jeeves and Wooster books for the summer.  My uncle, the one who shares my Wodehouse obsession,** only reads Wodehouse during the summer, because he feels as though the novel’s lighthearted qualities can only be fully appreciated during the season of heat and lassitude (and, given that we live in New England, absurd levels of humidity). 

I understand this urge to associate books with different seasons.  Recently, I finished Wolf Hall.  It is an admirable book, and has nabbed noteworthy prizes, but somehow I wish that I had read it during the winter.  Maybe because the Tudor period coincided with a miniature Ice Age I always think of that time as a chilly one.  At any rate, now is the season when I have traditionally taken up books that are light in nature.  That might be a little different this year, because I have, at long last, come to the decision that I really ought to read the Game of Thrones series.  Goodness knows there is little happiness in those books; the only ones who seem to get a kick out of life are the sadistic characters.  That being said, I have seen the three seasons of the HBO production of the show, and I think my long-suffering boyfriend might well and truly burst if he has to keep certain plot developments to himself for very much longer. 

This is not a decision that I have made rashly.  Each of those five tomes is a door-stopper, and what with my laundry list of responsibilities, my reading time is not as plentiful as I would like it to be.  Still, I do not let long works put me off; I did read 1Q84 this year, and that book clocked in at over 900 pages.  The decision to read another Murakami book came easily.  He is, after all, one of my favorite writers, and I never regret time spent with him.  There are some books that I flatly refuse to read.  The most notable is the Twilight series, mostly because I cannot buy into the notion of sparkly vampires.  When it comes to choosing my reading material, I lean toward authors I know, non-fiction works on topics that interest me (mostly biographies of the oddballs who spice up history), and books that I feel will have some lasting importance.  I also belong to a book club, which has induced me to read things, like Gone Girl, that I might not have picked up on my own.  I did, however, refuse to endorse reading a Sweet Valley High books as our summer selection. 

One of the things that I like about Wodehouse is that he is still being read, despite his tone, which is very much a product of the early 20^th century.  The endorsement of a century of readers makes me feel comfortable with devoting years of my life to him.  As much as I would like to say that I simply don’t care what other people think, the truth of the matter is that I do.  And while Plum probably does not have as many readers as George R.R. Martin these days, there is something about having the approving heft of the ages behind me.

*Please note that I write this in mid-June, during was very chilly spring.  My bleeding heart shrub loved it, and is now wilting in sweltering heat.

**I have six uncles, two of whom are no longer with us, and two great-uncles, both of whom are reportedly hovering at Death’s door, however, that news is from my Slavic grandmother, and we Slavs are never truly happy unless our lives are somehow tinged with misery.  As I far I know, only one parental brother has succumbed to Plum’s siren call, although who knows; perhaps those who are on the other side take tea with the master on a regular basis.

Historical Dissonance

Bachelors Anonymous features people concerned with custom made suits and threats of breach of promise cases.  There are Hollywood movie czars and other elements that featured prominently in earlier novels.  The kicker is that the book was written in 1973, hardly a time when young people were concerned with procuring suits from Saville Row.  There could be an argument made that Wodehouse was going for a timeless feeling to his setting, but there were just enough elements present that argue that he was intentionally going for a later period.  One of the most poignant was his description of the heroine’s living quarters in a massive house in Notting Hill.  In earlier Wodehouse books, those houses would have held one family and their considerable staff.  Now, however, he notes that no one has the wherewithal to maintain such a residence, so it is chopped up into a number of rooms and the occupants share communal kitchens and living spaces.  Bertie Wooster would have been appalled. 

It was odd for me reading that novel, mostly because it was published just before my birth.  It’s hard to know if it was normal for breach of promise cases to be threatened; certainly, they do not play a role in modern romances in the UK.  The world of Bachelors Anonymous feels a little foreign, although I constantly have to remind myself that I did not have things such as the internet and mobile phones, and hummus was a hippy food when I was a girl.  One of the few television programs I watch regularly is Mad Men, and I constantly remind myself that the real counterparts to the characters portrayed are most likely still with us, that is, providing that they have not succumbed to lung cancer or cirrhosis.  The past is always with us; goodness knows that I am probably an antiquated fossil in the minds of today’s bright young things. 

While the past is always with us, I was musing the other day about how the points of reference I had when I was younger were slipping away.  What brought this home most to me was a conversation I had with my boyfriend, who referenced a report on NPR which stated that approximately 900 World War II veterans were dying each day.  When I was small, it was normal to encounter World War I vets, and now they are almost an extinct species.  An adult survivor of the concentration camps visited my elementary school; now in interviews I more frequently hear from either the children of those who were liberated from that living nightmare, or those who now, very old, were children at that time.  My son’s historical points of reference will be very different; perhaps his old dusty war will be Vietnam, or Desert Storm.  The former, although concluded when I was growing up, was a recent memory and the latter had a profound effect on me during high school. 

All of which leads me back to contemplating Wodehouse in the years before his death.  He was a living legend, although one best known for writing about a time and a society long since passed.  I cannot fathom what it must have been like for someone who lived through both world wars coping with disco balls, Andy Warhol, and Watergate.  A book of Plum’s letters recently came out, and I hope that there are some from his later years as I am interested to see how he reacted to things as he aged.  Did he embrace the changes, or, as I suspect from reading Bachelors Anonymous, did he try to maintain his grip on things by trying to impose elements of a time long gone in the created worlds of his fiction?