I've been re-reading PG Wodehouse lately. I find, more and more, that it's his Blandings Castle stories that I enjoy best. There's just something about that pig...
I first encountered Wodehouse when as a teenager I had a nasty migraine one afternoon and was hunting about for something to distract me. Very Good, Jeeves was in my father's "to-read" stack by his chair, and I made off with it. I was hooked from the first page:
Jeeves and the Impending Doom
It was the morning of the day on which I was slated to pop down to my aunt Agatha's place at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts for a visit of three solid weeks; and, as I seated myself at the breakfast table, I don't mind confessing that the heart was singularly heavy. We Woosters are men of iron, but beneath my intrepid exterior at that moment there lurked a nameless dread.
"Jeeves," I said, "I am not the old merry self this morning."
"Indeed, sir?"
"No, Jeeves. Far from it. Far from the old merry self."
"I am sorry to hear that, sir."
He uncovered the fragrant eggs and b., and I pronged a moody forkful.
"Why—this is what I keep asking myself, Jeeves—why has my aunt Agatha invited me to her country seat?"
"I could not say, sir."
"Not because she is fond of me."
"No, sir."
"It is a well-established fact that I give her a pain in the neck. How it happpens I cannot say, but every time our paths cross, so to speak, it seems to be a mere matter of time before I perpetrate some ghastly floater and have her hopping after me with her hatchet. The result being that she regards me as a worm and an outcast and would gladly drop something on me from a high window. Am I right or wrong, Jeeves?"
"Perfectly correct, sir."
Looks like copyrights are starting to expire — Something New (aka Something Fresh), the first Blandings novel, has been converted and uploaded, as well as a number of his earlier works, including several featuring Bertie Wooster and his famously brainy manservant, Jeeves. Project Gutenberg's collection of Wodehouse can be accessed from their list of authors whose last names begin with "W".
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Back when we had a functional TV, I used to enjoy watching the Jeeves episodes on PBS. But I must confess that I’ve never read a single P.G. Wodehouse book….*blush*….guess it’s time I did!
Excellent news, although I confess I am unlikely to read these on the screen myself. I’m a book person. (Which reminds me, no PGW on the shelves? For shame! Note to self: remedy at once.)
The other side effect of the copyrights expiring is that a number of new editions and compilations have begun to show themselves in the bookstores. Which is cheery news for me, too, as I appear to have only about half of his works, despite my best efforts.
Janice, I remember that series also. It was pretty good; I enjoyed watching it from time to time. But it’s not even close to the same experience as reading the the words of a master of farce. So when you get a chance, I think you’ll enjoy them.
It was “Leave it to Psmith” that won me over: Blandings Castle meets the Psmith chronicles. I tried the Bertie and Jeeves stories but always bounced off but since people like Waugh and Eliot like the books I kept trying them.
Once I got over that initial hurdle I came to enjoy them all. One the average I think I do enjoy the prose of the Blandings Castle stories and novels best. The plotting is masterful in most of the novels regardless of series or lack of one.
The shift I find a touch difficult between Blandings and Bertie-Jeeves is that the first are written in third-person and the latter in first. Maybe writing in third-person about Blandings gave PGW more license to be, I don’t know, warmer? He would have to stick to Bertie’s voice pretty much consistently when writing those stories, and I would think, for that reason, going back to omniscient narrator for Blandings would be a bit of a relief.
Besides, Lord Emsworth and the Hon. Galahad are such sweet fellows.