My Book Shelves (7): 'The Inimitable Jeeves,' by P.G.Wodehouse [15 Nov 2022]

 OK. So we need to talk about P.G.Wodehouse. In particular we need to talk about Jeeves and Wooster. I’m going to make the perfectly reasonable claim that the Jeeves novels (and short stories) represent the epitome of comic fiction. Never been bettered. Never likely to be. Oh, and please don’t try to disagree with me – it will only make me upset. And yes, I know I made almost the same assertion about Damon Runyon, (see my Book Shelves (2)) but I can quite comfortably hold two contradictory views – especially where writing is concerned, and on this I’m indisputably correct – they were both the best. (Curious isn’t it, that Wodehouse and Runyon were contemporaries writing comic fiction during the depression. And a century later no one comes near them.)

Anyway. Jeeves and Wooster. You know who they are. The genius begins with the invention of these two central characters – perhaps the best yin-and-yang contrast in fiction – Bertie Wooster the utterly idiotic, upper-class, put-upon (but generally benign) single man-about-town; and Jeeves the cool-headed, supernaturally intelligent, never to be out-smarted valet. There is a definite bromance going on – a friendship of unequals, that lends itself perfectly to the farcical situation comedies that unravel in the stories. But the second, and greater genius, is Wodehouse’s decision to make Bertie the narrator. Everything is told in Bertie’s voice – and what a voice. It’s a jovial, colloquial, laddish style, wholly belonging to the 1930s (or thereabouts), immediately redolent of the privilege and class of the era, and yet laden with comic potential.

Here are the opening paragraphs of ‘The Inimitable Jeeves.’

Morning, Jeeves," I said.

"Good morning, sir," said Jeeves.

He put the good old cup of tea softly on the table by my bed, and I took a refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too hot, not too sweet, not too weak, not too strong, not too much milk, and not a drop spilled in the saucer. A most amazing cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent in every respect. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I mean to say, take just one small instance. Every other valet I've ever had used to barge into my room in the morning while I was still asleep, causing much misery; but Jeeves seems to know when I'm awake by a sort of telepathy. He always floats in with the cup exactly two minutes after I come to life. Makes a deuce of a lot of difference to a fellow's day.

"How's the weather, Jeeves?"

"Exceptionally clement, sir."

"Anything in the papers?"

"Some slight friction threatening in the Balkans, sir. Otherwise, nothing."

"I say, Jeeves, a man I met at the club last night told me to put my shirt on Privateer for the two o'clock race this afternoon. How about it?"

"I should not advocate it, sir. The stable is not sanguine."

That was enough for me. Jeeves knows. How, I couldn't say, but he knows. There was a time when I would laugh lightly, and go ahead, and lose my little all against his advice, but not now.

"Talking of shirts," I said, "have those mauve ones I ordered arrived yet?"

"Yes, sir. I sent them back."

"Sent them back?"

"Yes, sir. They would not have become you."

I think it’s this blustery Wooster prose that makes TV and film adaptations of the stories slightly disappointing. Of course the screenwriter can give Bertie dialogue in the appropriate style, but you can’t tell the story that way. So don’t waste time with screen versions. You need to go back to the books. Settle down in a corner and try to make sure no one is in earshot  (your laughter will annoy them). And give the books a go. Any one will do. Here is some more from the same chapter:

"You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning."

"Decidedly, sir."

"Spring and all that."

"Yes, sir."

"In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove."

"So I have been informed, sir."

"Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg. I'm going into the Park to do pastoral dances."

I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you get on these days round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the sky's a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there's a bit of a breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something. So that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.  

Here (below) are just a few of the Jeeves and Wooster books for you to be getting on with. They are all five star novels. And there are plenty more. 

Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com 

My Book Shelves (6): 'Mother Tongue,' by Bill Bryson [2nd Nov 2022]

Is there any subject whatsoever that couldn’t be made a thousand times more interesting by getting Bill Bryson to write a book about it? Truly this man has an awesome talent for taking a mundane – even dull – topic, and crafting it into something fascinating. You find yourself 

trapped within the pages of a Bryson book, as engrossed as if it was a Donna Tartt novel. And you feel as bereft at the end. I hardly ever read travel books, and yet I devoured ‘Notes from a Small Island,’ (travels in Britain), ‘Neither Here nor There,’ (Europe), ‘Down Under,’ (Down Under), ‘The Lost Continent,’ (USA), and ‘The Road to Little Dribbling,’ (Britain again) and I’ve even read some of them twice. And ‘A Walk in the Woods,’ the chronicle of Bryson’s failed attempt to conquer the Appalachian Trail is a modern classic. Give the man a subject and he’ll come back at you with a best-selling book; and, damn him,  I will probably buy the book while it is still in hardback because I simply won’t be able to wait for the softback. Thus – the human body (‘The Body’), Domesticity (‘At Home’), America in 1927 (‘One Summer’) Shakespeare (‘Shakespeare’) and American English (‘Made in America.’) Oh – and the whole history of science (‘A Short History of Nearly Everything.’) I want to tell you that every one of these is an absolute five-star gem, and I admire the heck out of them.

How does he do it? What is Bryson’s secret recipe? I wish I knew. He comes upon every subject from an oblique angle, and introduces us to odd characters, and follows up with quirky anecdotes, and writes in a folksy style. But he never patronises us. Or belittles his subject. He writes with a delicate balance of respect and irreverence – never quite crossing the line either way. The man is a master of his craft. I have a shelf of his books to prove my devotion.

But I need to pick one; one Bryson book for this blog. And, as it happens, this is an easy task. I pick ‘Mother Tongue.’ It’s quite simply the best exploration of the English language you will ever read. Every page is packed with gems. It’s a travel book of a kind, touring the world’s use of it’s widest spoken language, from ancient Britons to modern creoles via cockney rhymes, swearing, and word origins. It is utterly delicious. 

Here's a flavour:

"In the country inns of a small corner of northern Germany, in the spur of land connecting Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark, you can sometimes hear people talking in what sounds eerily like a lost dialect of English. Occasional snatches of it even make sense, as when they say that the “veather ist cold” or inquire of the time by asking, “What ist de clock?” According to Professor Hubertus Menke, head of the German Department at Kiel University, the language is “very close to the way people spoke in Britain more than 1,000 years ago."

Or this: 

Some cultures don't swear at all. The Finns, lacking the sort of words you need to describe your feelings when you stub your toe getting up to answer a wrongh number at 2:00 am rather oddly adopted the word 'ravintolassa.'  It means 'in the restaurant.'

The dog eared copy in the photo is my own dog-eared copy. I couldn't find an image to steal off Amazon and it worries me that this book might be going out of print. Scour the bookshops. Get yourself a copy. You'll thank me. 

Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com