Wodehouse: S/D

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This might have already been done on ILE, I'm not sure. But. I'm reading Wodehouse again, after several years' absence, and of course it's terrific. But are there any I should focus on or any I should avoid? Also I am frustrated because the publishers never tell you what order the books go in. Bah!

Anyway I just read "Very Good, Jeeves" and "Summer Moonshine", what next? I'm curious about his non-Jeeves stuff (though I certainly like it well enough).

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 15 May 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Non Jeeves:
Search: Ukridge, Uncle Fred in the springtime, Golf Stories, Service with a Smile, The Girl on the Boat among others.
Destroy: School stories.
(I havent read any P Smith yet)

― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 15 May 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Also I am frustrated because the publishers never tell you what order the books go in.
You can find the order here

― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 15 May 2004 09:34 (twenty-one years ago)

The Psmith books are terrific. I much prefer them to J&W.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Saturday, 15 May 2004 12:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks for the link, Fred. I suspected the info was on the web somewhere, but hopefully I'll remember it when I'm in the library next time.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 15 May 2004 14:18 (twenty-one years ago)

destroy.

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 15 May 2004 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I have the most enduring crush on Psmith. Too bad Wodehouse never went back to him at the height of his powers -- Psmith seems to have gotten completely absorbed by the far less crushworthy Wooster. I guess Wooster's a better comic character all around... or, really, when paired with Wooster, righto -- hm!... was Psmith split into Jeeves and Wooster?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Saturday, 15 May 2004 23:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Destroy?!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 16 May 2004 05:08 (twenty-one years ago)

please.

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 16 May 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, you can't just say that and then not give a reason. Come on, vent. I've never heard a negative opinion of Wodehouse before. People I know either love him or haven't read him.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 16 May 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Cozen, you have no love of poetry.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 16 May 2004 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Uh oh, this could get ugly. And here I thought it was the Coleridge thread that was going to end in tears.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 16 May 2004 16:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Does it just strike too close to home? Are you a Wooster-in-training, Cozen?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 16 May 2004 16:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Careful, Cozen! Wodehouse fans are like pit bulls with sharp bon mots.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 16 May 2004 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

And we always get our way in the end.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 16 May 2004 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Is it the... Englishness, cozen?

Another non-Jeeves to Search is Uncle Dynamite, which I just finished. Special mention for having the 'my wife's just gone to the West Indies'/'Jamaica?' joke on the second page!

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 17 May 2004 11:08 (twenty-one years ago)

That was the first Wodehouse book I ever read, Archel, and I just loved it. I think I was about seven when I read it and I apparently insisted on wearing white gloves in the house for about six months afterwards. And of course I re-read the book at every possible opportunity until we joined the library and I could get more.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 17 May 2004 11:10 (twenty-one years ago)

My local library seems to be carrying out an upsetting 'put all Wodehouse in storage' policy at the moment. I know they have space issues, but really. When you look at how much Danielle Steele still clogs up their shelves, AND her books are much fatter.

:-(

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 17 May 2004 11:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Search: "Leave it to Psmith" (tops of the four Psmith books. It's the book I've bought a half-dozen times to give to friends). Of the seven Psmith books that the site above mentions, one's a comp (The World of Psmith) and I'm pretty sure one of these three (Mike, Enter Psmith, Mike & Psmith) combines the other two. The last one? Anyone know? "Mike & Psmith" has many hilarious moments, too - the way the two cadge the best room in their dorm, for one. Also search "A Damsel in Distress", "Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin" and "Bachelors Anonymous".

Destroy: the Fred Astaire adaptation of "A Damsel in Distress". Shame they couldn't have done a straight adaptation. The movie thins the plot with song and dance numbers while keeping the leap from the tower. But hey, it's got Gracie and George - so mangle instead of destroy.

― Chris Hill (Chris Hill), Monday, 17 May 2004 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Gracie and George are totally classic, indeed.

OK, I will probably be going to the library today, and I'll probably start on the Psmith series then. Rah!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 17 May 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I've always felt that the best Wodehouse stuff was between 1935 and 1965--the really early and the really late books are a bit weak. And while I love Jeeves and Wooster, and Psmith, and Uncle Fred, one of my favorite books (from the 1950s, I think) concerns Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps and a Dean-Martinish actor named Mervyn Potter who has a large dog that goes with him everywhere, including nightclubs. It all takes place in New York (one of those Broadway stories), and now I'm thinking I really want to read it again...

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Monday, 17 May 2004 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Not by, but about; I've been dipping in and out of "PG Wodehouse: A Biography" by Frances Donaldson. It contains great swathes of his letters and really details the WWII radio address scandal. Perhaps I should xpost this to the bio thread...

― Rabin the Cat (Rabin the Cat), Monday, 17 May 2004 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

As a teenager, I wrote a letter to P.G. Wodehouse to say that Sir Ralph Richardson really should play Uncle Fred in a movie. (I had just seen "The Wrong Box," in which the great Sir Ralph was truly Wodehousian.) I got back a hand-written letter from him, thanking me for my note and telling me that David Niven had in fact played Uncle Fred in a British TV version of "Uncle Fred Flits By." Another great bit of TV lost to history, no doubt. A few years ago I read that Wodehouse answered virtually every letter he got, since, like many authors, he welcomed a chance to take a break from actual writing.

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Monday, 17 May 2004 18:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I've read most of Wodehouse, and it's only the early school stories that I didn't enjoy much - they have some good lines, and introduce Psmith, but they're a bit dull. I think my favourites are the first few Blandings novels, but as Waugh, I think, pointed out, there's hardly a page of Wodehouse without a gem on it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

There is a great story that Wodehouse could never be bothered to post letters: he just addressed them, stuck a stamp on and threw them out the window, in the firm belief that some kind soul would pick them up and take them to a letter box for him.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm going to have to challenge that story, The Nipper. I believe he claimed that one could do that in New York because people were so honest that they would post a stamped letter if they found it on the street. I don't know that he actually did it.

I could be wrong, of course.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 13:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Is it just me, or is Wodehouse racist, sexist, snobby, and not THAT funny? I mean I'm not even exactly saying that to CRITICISE him, I just want to know, is that never mentioned because it's too boringly obvious, or because it's not true?

― . (...), Thursday, 20 May 2004 03:00 (twenty-one years ago)

It's never mentioned because it isn't really the point. But, you know, possibly. Certainly his characters are often any or all of those things.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 20 May 2004 03:01 (twenty-one years ago)

This might be of interest but I guess everyone here knows it.

― Fred (Fred), Thursday, 20 May 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Or... this, even.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 20 May 2004 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Stupid frames. And then click on "Wartime Controversy".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 20 May 2004 16:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I think his 1930s stuff was the best. There's a wonderful collection of his Blandings stories in Penguin. For short stories, I also like "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets". My favourite novels are "The Code of the Woosters" and "Uncle Fred in the Springtime," which is also a Blandings story. And I love "Laughing Gas", which some adore and some hate. It's very fast-paced and contains my favourite Wodehouse heroine, a girl called Ann.

― Baravelli. (Jake Proudlock), Thursday, 20 May 2004 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

― Bunged. (Jake Proudlock), Thursday, 20 May 2004 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry; there were two of me by mistake.

― Baravelli. (Jake Proudlock), Thursday, 20 May 2004 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I never found Wodehouse sexist, racist, or elitist, mostly because he was so funny, but also because there was never anything (that I've read, at least) that made me uncomfortable. Sure his females are either flighty-flaky or dominating types (Aunt Dahlia being a jolly combination), and other races besides the British aristocrat are seldom seen, but considering the flaky-flightiness, dominating attitudes, and general foolishness of those male British aristocrats, they don't seem to be "superior" to anyone. (Except, of course, that Jeeves is superior to everyone.)

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Friday, 21 May 2004 00:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure, there are some racist terms or such in some of the Wodehouse books ... but at his time, the term wasn't considered 'bad'. It just was. So once in a while I run across a scene or a term that makes me blink now (the corked Bertie minstrel singer), but I just remind myself that Wodehouse was a writing of his time and that in his life he generally treated everyone politely and was a friendly chap - no matter if you were rich or poor, black or white, or even if you read his books or not!

― camel (camel), Friday, 21 May 2004 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn...
-Wodehouse

― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 22 May 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

He also said you could turn his books into serious literature by taking out all the jokes and adding loads of misery.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 22 May 2004 22:28 (twenty-one years ago)

There's also a good essay by Orwell (in his Collected Essays Vol 3, and I think elsewhere) about Wodehouse's WW2 exploits.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 May 2004 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

And come to think of it, just because the corked-Bertie incident existed, did it mean Wodehouse wasn't poking fun at the way all the characters were all freaked out by seeing a man in blackface? Think about it: Bertie with white-looking skin = jolly dumblehead his aunts tut-tut over and girls laugh at. Same Bertie, blackened skin = AUUUUUGH! A DEMON FROM HEEEELLLLLLL!!!! Um, if you don't get the social criticism there methinks youse humor-impaired. Because an author SHOWS SOMETHING HAPPENING doesn't mean he approves of it for christ's sake. And Bertie's terror of women? We're only supposed to laugh WITH him? Gimme a break.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

"Is it just me, or is Wodehouse racist, sexist, snobby, and not THAT funny?" -anonymous poster

I think it's just you, then.

― Rabin the Cat (Rabin the Cat), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven months pass...

search.

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 15 May 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

what were wodehouse's own class origins?

― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 15 May 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

I still have that Psmith book out from the library, but I haven't read it yet.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 15 May 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

Now, Chris, you must read it. There's a good lad!

― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 15 May 2005 18:15 (twenty years ago)

Are you changing your mind, cozen?

I'm in a Blandings phase at the moment.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 16 May 2005 07:54 (twenty years ago)

I might. I just realised how cruel my earlier injunction to destroy was out there on its own. I wanted to counter-act that somehow. I still haven't read any wodehouse but I am about to.

― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 16 May 2005 11:33 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

After I got plummed out on another thread, I googled around and saw that there is some early Wodehouse stuff, including some Psmith books, that is out of copywrite and available on the web. See here for instance.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 13:05 (twenty years ago)

He's also got My Man Jeeves.

Here is the start of "Leave It To Jeeves."
Jeeves--my man, you know--is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable.
Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's
like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements
at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked "Inquiries." You know
the Johnnies I mean. You go up to them and say: "When's the next train
for Melonsquashville, Tennessee?" and they reply, without stopping to
think, "Two-forty-three, track ten, change at San Francisco." And they're
right every time. Well, Jeeves gives you just the same impression of
omniscience.

As an instance of what I mean, I remember meeting Monty Byng in Bond
Street one morning, looking the last word in a grey check suit, and I
felt I should never be happy till I had one like it. I dug the address
of the tailors out of him, and had them working on the thing inside the
hour.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

Score! Gavel Puzz has just sent me LEAVE IT TO PSMITH, which I had never seen and is apparently out of print, and I am so far rawther deeply in crush with RPS and highly amused. No woman, crush she never so wisely, could resist.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 14:03 (twenty years ago)

It's out of print? Cor, better hope my mum's still got our copy. It's timer I read some Psmith again.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

I must say, assuming the gent on the cover is supposed to be PSmith himself and not, say, Baxter the secretary, he's looking a little more Mediterranean than English! Darkly fringed bedroom eyes being more of an Italian thing, in my experience....

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

ILB, I'll Wodehouse you!

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 18:00 (twenty years ago)

How is Cozen getting on with Wodehouse?

― Matt (Matt), Friday, 2 September 2005 11:35 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

I wish I had spelled "copyright" correctly upthread.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 4 January 2006 20:31 (nineteen years ago)

I still have that Psmith book out from the library, but I haven't read it yet.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 4 January 2006 21:48 (nineteen years ago)

Chris, Chris, Chris, what do we have to do, have the local chapter of the Drones Club pelt you with dinner rolls?

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 5 January 2006 01:40 (nineteen years ago)

I got Live With Jeeves for Xmas, though, so now I own some, even though it's some that I've read a few times. I am always up for some roll-pelting, certainly it's more pleasurable than pelt-rolling.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 January 2006 03:17 (nineteen years ago)

am always up for some roll-pelting, certainly it's more pleasurable than pelt-rolling.

Maybe you're not doing it properly.

― frankiemachine, Thursday, 5 January 2006 10:34 (nineteen years ago)

I recommend reading, "Wake Up, Sir" Jonathan Ames homage to W&J, once you've run out of the real deal.

― Phastbuck, Saturday, 7 January 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

I did read one Psmith book - Psmith, Journalist, and I must say I wasn't that enamoured of (by?)it. I'm not sure I like Wodehouse's New York stuff as much as I like his tootling around the English countryside and calling pigs by their christian names and talking about cow-creamers stuff.

That is simply personal preference, you understand.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 8 January 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not sure I like Wodehouse's New York stuff as much as I like his tootling around the English countryside and calling pigs by their christian names and talking about cow-creamers stuff.
That is simply personal preference, you understand.

Agree 100%.

― frankiemachine, Sunday, 8 January 2006 16:19 (nineteen years ago)

cozen is useful!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Sunday, 8 January 2006 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

there is some early Wodehouse stuff, including some Psmith books, that is out of copywrite and available on the web.

In the UK at least, everything Wodehouse wrote will still be under the copyright of his estate for another 40 years or so under current law.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Sunday, 8 January 2006 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

You'd probably also have to not have read the book, as Bertie does go on about exactly that once or twice. The thing that really snapped my head back about the story ("Thank You, Jeeves") is that early on he proposes going down to the village that his friend Chuffy is landlord of, and one of the selling points is "You play the banjolele, don't you Bertie? There's a troupe of nigger minstrels in the village at the moment". The shock is dimishished slightly by three things, of which the first is the social criticism mentioned above. The second is the restriction of the use of 'nigger' to Bertie and Chuffy, both frankly twits. Jeeves refers to them as 'negro minstrels' throughout. And the third is that there's no occasion when the 'nigger' isn't followed by 'minstrel' or 'minstrely' - it's effectively being used as a musical genre!

(The fourth reason is probably that at no point do any of the minstrels appear.)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Hereward/CIMG0217.jpg

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

Someone posted that self-portrait over on The Mainland, and some people think he looks like a character from a Wodehouse novel.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 23 February 2006 08:55 (nineteen years ago)

Oi! It is not The Mainland. It's more like America.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 23 February 2006 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

I have been in major Wodehouse mode in the last three months. Thanks to this thread, I know a) I'm not alone, and b) where to find the unfindable "Psmith, Journalist." Cheers, ILB!

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 23 February 2006 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

My favorite Psmith moment is when he is going to meet someone and he is told to wear a chrysanthemum (the guy presumably meant a carnation)

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

No, that's my second favorite. My favorite is in Psmith, Journalist where he takes over a magazine for kids and becomes a muckraking, well, journalist, often repeating the catchphrase "Cozy Moments will not be muzzled!"

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

I think I might still have my copy kicking around somewhere, Haikunym. If you're having difficulty finding it, I could send it to you.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 23 February 2006 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

I was assuming he was going to read it here.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 16:17 (nineteen years ago)

I'm 3/4 of the way through the [collection entitled] The Most of PG Wodehouse. Golf stories are bleh, Mulliner stories were OK, Drones Club and Ukbridge stories are good to really good (esp. "A Bit of Luck For Mabel"), and the Jeeves stories, of course, are the best. No psmith, though, and he seems to everyone's fav...

― W i l l (common_person), Thursday, 23 February 2006 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

My friend tells the story of her stay in a Russian hotel where the library had two books: a single volume of some encyclopedia, and Psmit-zhurnalist.

― Paul Eater (eater), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

If you were introducing Wodehouse to someone (namely: me), what would you recommend as the first novel to read?

― swinburningforyou, Friday, 14 September 2007 20:14 (eighteen years ago)

Short answer: Right Ho, Jeeves.
Slightly expanded: the Jeeves books are the obvious place to start, and it's this or Code of the Woosters for me. Choosing this just because I think Code will have other supporters here.

― woofwoofwoof, Friday, 14 September 2007 21:26 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, Code (rhymes with "Spode") is kind of the canonical starting point.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Sunday, 16 September 2007 01:28 (eighteen years ago)

I finally gave that book back, unread, a while back.

― Casuistry, Sunday, 16 September 2007 03:52 (eighteen years ago)

According to my current Standards & Practices, that means you can never borrow that book again, but must purchase your own copy.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Sunday, 16 September 2007 05:38 (eighteen years ago)

i've been reading <i>leave it to psmith</i> (library didn't have <i>journalist</i>, which hey does anyone have a list of what's out in everyman's wodehouse editions so far? i couldn't find one - ). it's mostly excellent. i can't tell if it had a slow start or if i just wasn't in the mood for those couple chapters. psmith spends a great while impersonating one ralston mactodd, a canadian poet, "the singer of Saskatoon".

― thomp, Tuesday, 18 September 2007 01:28 (eighteen years ago)

grrtalics.

― thomp, Tuesday, 18 September 2007 01:29 (eighteen years ago)

psmith spends a great while impersonating one ralston mactodd, a canadian poet, "the singer of Saskatoon".
Just like Casuistry!

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 18 September 2007 02:02 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder if Leave It To Psmith is the one I didn't read? It certainly had some really unengaging first few chapters.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 18 September 2007 07:22 (eighteen years ago)

I wouldn't think it was Leave It To Psmith. Psmith's 'willing to do anything except fish-related activities' ad verbage hooks you in quickly. He pops out of his club and gives Eve an umbrella in the first couple chapters, too - one of my favorite scenes in the book.

Akin to random acts of kindness, that made me want to randomly give someone an umbrella.

― scampering alpaca, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

i think expecting him to show up would have been more of a hook if i had read the other psmiths first, and thus knew what i was expecting to show up

― thomp, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 19:41 (eighteen years ago)

nine months pass...

i read psmith journalist today because it was out in a nice new everyman wodehouse edition and odd paragraph about SOCIAL JUSTICE was really quite odd, and felt like i'd accidentally sat on the remote control

opening descriptions of cosy moments are to-die-for tho; ending's a bit lame.

― thomp, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 16:20 (seventeen years ago)

'Cosy Moments cannot be muzzled!'

― James Morrison, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 00:00 (seventeen years ago)

yes, very good

― thomp, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 12:13 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

Started Code of the Woosters this afternoon -- my first Wodehouse!

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 01:55 (fifteen years ago)

Annoyingly, I saw 2 very cheap new Wodehouse books yesterday (one Jeeves, one Mulliner), but ended up not buying them because I wasn't entirely sure that I didn't already own them, due to non-specific titles and blurbs. Got home and found I owned neither.

― ... (James Morrison), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 07:24 (fifteen years ago)

cmon alfred, your first??

got two huge omnibusses (omnibi?) for xmas a few years back, can dip in and out when the mood takes. they're all so similar that i can't usually tell if i've already read or not.

― k¸ (darraghmac), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 09:11 (fifteen years ago)

Yes, how did you manage to avoid him this long?

In addition to the sameness, some novels have had more than one title (US/UK) which has tricked me more than once.

― Redd Cadillac & A Blecch Moustache (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 16:17 (fifteen years ago)

Barmy uncles vs. iron-willed aunts: FITE!

― Aimless, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 16:58 (fifteen years ago)

nah, 'sall about devious butlers vs temperamental chefs

― k¸ (darraghmac), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 17:04 (fifteen years ago)

they're the lower orders pulling all the strings behind the scenes

― k¸ (darraghmac), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 17:04 (fifteen years ago)

The only empress is the Empress of Blandings.

― Redd Cadillac & A Blecch Moustache (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 17:13 (fifteen years ago)

they're all so similar that i can't usually tell if i've already read or not.

this.

useful: http://www.avclub.com/articles/pg-wodehouse,30148/. world of jeeves is back in print in the UK btw.

― caek, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 17:14 (fifteen years ago)

they're all so similar that i can't usually tell if i've already read or not.

I've the problem with Muriel Spark.

cmon alfred, your first??

Unbelievable, sure. I've devoured this book though – only 50 pages left.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 18:02 (fifteen years ago)

yeah they're all very easy reads

― k¸ (darraghmac), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 18:04 (fifteen years ago)

Ha, Muriel Spark is a perfect example of the same phenomenon.

― Redd Cadillac & A Blecch Moustache (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 18:17 (fifteen years ago)

I have managed to avoid Wodehouse by never liking the artwork on cheap copies I find. Quality idiocy.

― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 20:49 (fifteen years ago)

three years pass...

The only empress is the Empress of Blandings.

― Redd Cadillac & A Blecch Moustache (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 September 2010

― etc, Friday, 11 April 2014 03:59 (eleven years ago)

― Lem E. Killdozer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 April 2014 00:25 (eleven years ago)

Found two old Penguin Wodehouses for $2 each yesterday, ine one of those tiny book exchange places. Possibly the only 2 books in the whole shop worth reading, amongst all the Mills & Boon, old Penthouse mags, 3rd-rate SF and military pulp.

― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Wednesday, 16 April 2014 00:53 (eleven years ago)

eleven months pass...

Interviewer: Did you always know you would be a writer?

Wodehouse: Yes, always. I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't remember what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 14 April 2015 12:31 (ten years ago)

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