Nov 20, 2008 10:55 AM
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(Updated Aug 10, 2009 10:48 AM)
Whenever I feel down or depressed, I turn to my collection of P.G. Wodehouse books. Because I am yet to find a better pick-me-up than Wodehouse. He was a genius, a writer par excellence.
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born on October 15th 1881 in Guildford, Surrey. His father was a British judge in Hong Kong. When he was just three years old, Wodehouse was brought back to England and placed in the care of a nanny. He attended various boarding schools and, between the ages of three and 15 years, saw his parents for barely six months in total. He spent much of his childhood in the care of aunts (maybe that’s the reason aunts play such an important role in his books). Wodehouse's first career was as a banker for the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank but he left this job and took up freelance writing just two years later. He began by writing for boys' magazines where a lot of his books were published serially first. His first novel was published in 1902. Despite being popular Wodehouse did not reach his peak till 1917 when he came out with the first Jeeves & Wooster story. After that there was no looking back for him. He wrote hundreds of books – the most popular being ‘Jeeves & Wooster’ and ‘Blandings Castle’ stories. Wodehouse married Ethel Wayman in 1914 who had a daughter, Leonara, from her earlier marriage. He had no biological children and he doted on Leonara. He received a long-overdue knighthood at the age of 93 and passed away just 45 days later on 14th February, 1975.
He is best known as the creator of the exceedingly idiotic Bertie Wooster and his super-intelligent valet Jeeves, but Wodehouse also produced multi-volume stories on Blandings Castle, Mr. Mulliner's extended family, Mike and Psmith, Uncle Fred, and the Drones Club in addition to his many stand-alone novels, short stories, and plays.
I first picked up a Wodehouse novel when I was 15 year old. I gave up after reading 5 pages because I felt that language used was too, well, too English. The kind of English only the Britishers can understand. At that time I was not able to grasp the subtlety and humour of Woodhouse’ style of writing. A few years ago I tried to give it a read again but this time I just couldn’t put it down. I was addicted for life. After that I did not read any other author for months. It was just Wodehouse and more Wodehouse. My personal favourites are the ‘Blanding Castle’ stories which have my favourite characters – the dimwitted and absentminded Lord Emsworth and the lovable rogue Hon. Galahad.
Some of his evergreen gems :-
“I suppose I'm one of those fellows my father always warned me against.”
“I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”
“Percy continued to stare before him like a man who has drained the wine cup of life to its lees, only to discover a dead mouse at the bottom.”
“She was the first to speak. She was one of those women who are always the first to speak.”
“I always advise people never to give advice.”
“A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of someone who had searched for the leak in life's gas pipe with a lighted candle.”
“Marriage isn't a process of prolonging the life of love, but of mummifying the corpse.”
“I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that . . . just loafed, I suppose.”
“The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.”
“I can't do with any more education. I was full up years ago.”
These are just small drops of Wodehouse’ vast ocean of gentle satire. The above examples give a clear picture of his writing style. Wodehouse humour was not laced with sarcasm. His humour was cheeky, the leg-pulling kind. Reading his stories makes me feel mischievous as if I am in some way involved with all the mayhem going on. And does the mayhem go on in Wodehouse’ world? Hell it never stops! He makes fun of everybody from the rich to the poor. But it remains fun, it never gets cheap or sarcastic.
Some of Wodehouse critics are of the opinion that his stories are all alike. I completely agree. Not only the stories, even most of the situations in his stories are the same – lovers have a misunderstand and break-up only to make up in the end, good guys get into trouble because of their friends misdeeds or while doing their friends a good turn, and of course how can we forget the aunts – good aunts, bad aunts, sarcastic aunts, scary aunts, lovable aunts – a Wodehouse novel is rarely found without an aunt. But inspite of similar storylines, the treatment and wit is what makes each story unique.
Wodehouse does not arouse the same respect in the mind of the common man like other serious writers like Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky etc. In Wodehouse’ own words, "I go in for what is known in the trade as 'light writing' and those who do that – humorists they are sometimes called – are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at." But I place him many levels over them and many others. Wodehouse’ books entertain me like no other writer, they make me smile, they take me to a secret world of happiness which is far removed for the harsh reality of our day to day lives.
I want to request all those who have never read Wodehouse to give his books a try. For beginners I would recommend “Blandings Castle” or “Jeeves & Wooster” novels. Once you get the hang of Wodehouse’ language you will realize that you are in another world where the happy sun never stops shining, where there are no problems, and the problems that do exist get solved in the most hilarious ways.
Let me finish this review with another example of his extraordinary wit. He dedicated his novel “The Heart of a Goof” to Leonara "without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time."
Edited on 10.08.09 : Some parts of Wodehouse's life history and half a sentence of the third paragraph have been taken from the internet.
