[looking back] pelham grenville wodehouse, 1881 - 1975

Dickens and Wilde were praised for using one word when most writers used twenty. Plum operated thusly:

Bertie Wooster: "Jeeves brought in the eggs and bacon and I pronged a moody forkful."

On aunts: "She fitted into my largest armchair as though it had been built around her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight around the hips that season."

"His supply of the milk of human kindness is plainly short by several gallons’

‘Gone off her onion’

‘A surging sea of aunts’

‘Expunge the thought from your mind.’

‘The elixir in my hand was purely medicinal.’

‘In the soup’

‘Impressed it upon me with all emphasis at her disposal’

‘Toothsome filly’

Bertie on Jeeves: "If I had even half his brains, I would take a shot at being Prime Minister or something."

The telegram:

"The first of the telegrams arrived shortly after noon, and Jeeves brought it in with the before-luncheon snifter. It was from my Aunt Dahlia and it ran as follows:

‘Come at once. Travers’

When I say it puzzled me like the dickens, I am understating it, if anything. As mysterious a communication as ever flashed over the wires. I studied it in a profound reverie for the best part of two dry martinis. I read it backwards. I read it forwards. As a matter of fact, I have a sort of recollection of even smelling it. But it still baffled me.

Consider the facts, I mean - it was only a few hours since this aunt and I had parted, after being in constant association for nearly two months. And yet here she was - with my farewell kiss still lingering on her cheek, so to speak - pleading for another reunion with me.

Bertram Wooster is not accustomed to this appetite for his society. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that after two months of my company, what the normal person feels is that ‘this will just about do for the present’. Indeed, I have known people who couldn't stick it out with me for more than a few days.

Before sitting down to the ‘well-cooked’, therefore, I sent this reply:

‘Perplexed. Explain. Bertie’

To this I received an answer during the after-luncheon sleep:

‘What on earth is there to be perplexed about, ass? Come at once. Travers’

Three cigarettes and a couple of turns about the room, and I had my response ready:

‘How do you mean come at once? Regards. Bertie’

I append the comeback:

‘I mean come at once, you maddening half-wit. What did you think I meant? Come at once or expect an aunt's curse first post tomorrow. Love. Travers’

I then dispatched the following message, wishing to get everything quite clear:

‘When you say ‘Come’ do you mean ‘Come to Brinkley Court’? And when you say ‘At once’ do you mean ‘to come once’? Fogged. At a loss. All the best. Bertie’

I sent this one off on my way to the Drones, where I spent a restful afternoon throwing cards into a top-hat with some of the better element. Returning in the evening hush, I found the answer waiting for me:

‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It doesn't matter whether you understand or not. You just come at once, as I tell you, and for heaven's sake stop this backchat. Do you think I am made of money that I can afford to send you telegrams every ten minutes? Stop being a fathead and come immediately. Love. Travers’

It was at this point that I felt the need of getting a second opinion - Jeeves. "

Later:

"Regret I am not in London, so unable to hit you with a brick. Love. Travers" - from ‘Right Ho, Jeeves!’

Bertie feels that: "...conversing with Aunt Dahlia was like throwing chaff into the path of a tornado.... " - from ‘In Brief’

At Honoria’s:

"Hallo!" I said, with a sickly sort of grin - wasted on the kid, because he didn't bother to turn around and look at me. He merely wiggled his left ear in a rather peevish manner. I don't know when I've met anybody in whose life I appeared to mean so little.

"Hallo!" I said. "Fishing?"

I laid my hand in a sort of elder-brotherly way on his shoulders.

"Here, look out!" said the kid, wobbling on his foundations.

It was one of those things that want doing quickly or not at all. I shut my eyes and pushed. Something seemed to give. There was a scrambling sound, a kind of yelp, a scream and a splash. "

Honoria appears:

"I was interrupted in my meditations by a noise like the Scotch Express train going under a bridge. It was Honoria Glossop laughing. She was standing at my elbow, looking at me in a rummy manner.

"Oh, Bertie, you are funny!" she said. And even in that moment there seemed to me something sinister in the words. She had never called me anything except "Mr. Wooster" before. "How wet you are!"

"Yes, I am wet."

"You had better hurry into the house and change."

"Yes."

I wrung a gallon or two of water out of my clothes.

"You are funny!" she said again. "Pushing poor little Oswald into the lake so as to impress me by saving him."

I managed to get the water out of my throat sufficiently to try to correct this fearful mistake.

"No, no!"

"He said you pushed him in, and I saw you do it. Oh, I'm not angry, Bertie. I think it was too sweet of you. But I'm quite sure it's time that I took you in hand. You certainly want someone to look after you. You've been seeing too many moving-pictures. I suppose the next thing you would have done would have been to set the house on fire so as to rescue me."

She looked at me in a proprietary sort of way. "I think," she said, "I shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you."

"No, really, there isn't."

"Oh, yes, there is. It simply wants bringing out. Now you run straight up to the house and change your wet clothes, or you will catch cold."

And, if you know what I mean, there was a sort of motherly note in her voice which seemed to tell me, even more than her actual words, that I was for it. " - from "Scoring Off Jeeves," in ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’

Bertie is dressing, explaining to Jeeves about a personal sadness:

"Somewhat unfortunate sir. "

"Jeeves," I said, "Don't try me too high at a moment like this. Somewhat unfortunate! Who was it you were telling me about the other day, with the cares of the world on her shoulders?"

"The Mona Lisa, sir."

"Well, if I met the Mona Lisa at this moment, I would shake her by the hand and tell her that I knew just how she felt."

"Yes sir. The trousers perhaps a quarter of an inch higher, sir. One aims for the carelessly graceful break above the instep. It is a matter of the nicest adjustment."

"Like that?"

"Admirable, sir."

I sighed. "There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers really matter?'"

"The mood will pass, sir. " - from ‘The Code of the Woosters’

On Bingo Little’s romantic problems, Jeeves advises:

"The tie, if I might suggest it, sir, a shade more tightly knotted. One aims at the perfect butterfly effect. If you will permit me ..."

"What does it matter, Jeeves, at a time like this? Do you realize that Mr. Little's domestic happiness is hanging in the balance?"

"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter. " - from ‘Very Good, Jeeves’

Aunt Agatha catches him:

"She fixed me with a glittering eye. "Bertie, you must marry!"

"No, dash it all!"

"Yes! You should be breeding children."

"No really, I say, please!" I said, blushing richly. Aunt Agatha keeps forgetting she isn't in the smoking-room of her club. " - from "Scoring Off Jeeves"


"His hat was dented, his clothes muddied, and he moved painfully.

"Hullo!" Tony said. "Have an accident?"

"No thanks," said Syd. "I've already had one. " - from ‘If I Were You’

Collected from various sources:

"Do you know,' said a thoughtful Bean, 'I'll bet that if all the girls Freddie has loved and lost were placed end to end - not that I suppose one could do it - they would reach half-way down Piccadilly.'

'Oh, further than that,' said the Egg. 'Some of them were pretty tall. "

After a hard night: "I was feeling like a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. I'm never at my best in the early morning."

A chivalrous idiot: "Boko Bagshott we called him. Took a girl to supper once at the Gardenia. Supper scarcely concluded when an angry old gentleman plunges into the room and starts shaking his fist in Boko's face. Boko rises with chivalrous gesture.

"Have no fear, sir. I am a man of honour. I shall marry your daughter."

"Daughter?" says the old gentleman, foaming a little at the mouth. "Damn it, that's my wife. " - from ‘In Brief’

Taste: "He trusted neither of these people as far as he could spit, and he was a poor spitter, lacking both distance and control. " - from ‘Money in the Bank’

"Mr Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He has made a world for us to live in and to delight in. " - novelist Evelyn Waugh

The Code of the Woosters: One must always help out a friend in need no matter what the circumstances and one must never overly resist matrimony when a young woman professes her love for you; regardless if it is true love or not. - "From "Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg"

It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a fellow wish he'd got a soul or something... - The Butler's Cross (from America, I Like You)

Eventually I reached the age when the hair whitens…I realized one morning that, while I was fifty, my butler was a mere kid of forty-six. It altered the whole situation. From tentative discussions of the weather we progressed until he was telling me of how the butler's cross is that he has to stand behind Mr. Big's chair night after night listening to the funny noise he makes over his soup.

"You serve the soup and stand back. Now comes the funny noise," you say to yourself. This explains the universal gloominess of butlers.

The flaw in all these ideas of yours is that the hero always seems to have a half-witted friend who is eager to place himself in the foulest positions on his behalf.

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.

I could see that she was looking for something to break as a relief to her surging emotions ... and courteously drew her attention to a terra-cotta figure of the Infant Samuel at Prayer. She thanked me briefly and hurled it against the opposite wall.

He finished his tea and muffins, and then ordering the perambulator, had the son and heir decanted into it. - From "Goodbye to All Cats"

Freddy shoved his head out of the window and cried, "I say!"

There being no response, he repeated, "I say!" And, finally, to drive his point home, he added, "I say! I say! I say!"

This time he got results. The head of Lady Prenderby suddenly protruded from the window. "Who," she inquired, "is making that abominable noise?"

"It's me. Widgeon, Frederick."

"Must you sing on your balcony, Mr. Widgeon?"

"I wasn't singing. I was saying `I say'."

"What were you saying?"

"‘I say'."

"You say what?"

"The fact is there's a dog in my room."

"What sort of dog?"

"A whacking great Alsatian."

"Ah, that would be Wilhelm. Good night, Mr. Widgeon."

The window closed. Freddie let out a heart-stricken cry. "But I say!"

The window reopened.

"Really, Mr. Widgeon!"

"But what am I to do?"

"Do?"

"About this whacking great Alsatian!"

Lady Prenderby seemed to consider.

"No sweet biscuits," she said. "and in the morning, when the maid brings your tea, please do not give him sugar. He is on a diet. Good night, Mr. Widgeon."

PG Wodehouse also produced multi-volume stories on Blandings Castle, Mr. Mulliner, Mike and Psmith, The Oldest Member, Uncle Fred, and the Drones Club.

"Mr Wodehouse's characters are purely and essentially literary characters. They live in their own universe like the characters of a fairy story. We are not sceptical about their quite astonishing celibacy. We do not expect them to grow any older. We are not interested in how they would react to changing social conditions'.

The `Drones Club,' with its piano, swimming pool and the borrowing and lending of fivers, has no resemblance to any London club. Their language has never been heard on human lips. Their romantic passions are unconnected with procreation. They all live, year after year, in their robust middle twenties; their only sickness is an occasional hangover.

It is a world that cannot become dated because it never existed. " - Evelyn Waugh, 1939

He hated appearing on television:

"From my remarks you may think that I dislike television. I would not go so far as to say that. Apart from thinking it the foulest, ghastliest nightmare ever inflicted by science on a suffering human race and the programs the most drivelling half-witted productions ever seen outside a home for the feeble-minded, I do not particularly object to it. As far as I am concerned, it can carry on, provided I have not to appear on the screen myself. " - from ‘America, I Like You’

Short biography

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born at Guildford, Surrey, 15 October, 1881. After attending Dulwich College from 1894-1900 he worked at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in London, writing articles and short stories in his spare time and having his first novel, a school story The Pothunters, published in 1902. He joined The Globe as editor of the column 'By the Way' in 1904 and his first adult novel, Love among the Chickens was published in 1906.

By this time he had already visited USA for the first time and was writing song lyrics as well as plays and novels. In 1909 he resigned from The Globe and for the next several years spent much time on both sides of the Atlantic, writing for the screen as well. In 1932 he bought a house near Le Touquet in France and was interned by the Germans in 1940. After time in several prisons he was released at the age of 60 in 1941 and broadcast from Germany to the American people, an action which was misinterpreted.

After the liberation of France he was arrested by the French police but was eventually released and he moved to New York in 1947, becoming a US Citizen in 1955. In January 1975 he belatedly received a Knighthood from the British Queen and in February the same year died in hospital at Southampton.

Germany

The most serious accusation against him was that he made broadcasts for the Nazis during World War 2. When hostilities broke out, Wodehouse was living in Le Touquet in France, having lived for years in America, which was not at war yet with Germany.

When the Germans finally got to that part of France, they arrested Wodehouse and sent him to camps like all British prisoners, to be released at the age of 60. One official in the German government was a fan of Plum, so he arranged to have him released a couple of months before his 60th birthday.

They wouldn't let him leave Germany, so he and his wife stayed at the expensive Adlon Hotel in Berlin. The fan, realizing how politically naïve Wodehouse was, asked him to make a few non-political humorous broadcasts to his American fans. The British government were furious but the BBC disagreed:

"I'm living here at the Adlon Hotel – I have a suite on the third floor, a very nice one, too - and I come and go as I please..."

"Question - Do you mind being a prisoner-of-war in this fashion, Mr Wodehouse?

Answer - Not a bit. As long as I have a typewriter and plenty of paper and a room to work in, I'm fine. "

He wasn’t fine - the Wodehouses lost all their belongings, their villa, their cars, his mother and their daughter in that war.

He was supported by many people, most notably the writers George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh. However, writer A. A. Milne, Plum’s former friend, condemned him. About Milne, he later said:

"Nobody could be more anxious than myself that Alan Alexander Milne should trip over his bootlaces and break his bloody neck, yet I still regularly read his early stuff with all the old enjoyment. "

But Wodehouse could never return home and by the time Britain realized his innocence and his knighthood was awarded in 1975, he was too old to travel there to receive it and he died a couple of months later.

Another criticism was about his use of racist remarks such as calling a black man ‘nigger’. This must be seen in context. At that time, this was just a common expression which everyone used and in Plum’s case, he actually used it in praising the skill of a particular negro he was writing of.

He has been accused of being less than complimentary to women. There is one girl ‘"who kills rats with her teeth". Another "gargles with broken glass". And again:

"I attribute my whole success in life to a rigid observance of the fundamental rule - never have yourself tattooed with any woman's name, not even her initials. "

Hardly complimentary, yet his characterization of girls is modern, they know what they want and not one of them is idiotic or weak minded, unlike the men. Rather, they are very quick thinking and can act just as quickly. Here is such an example:

"I was sauntering on the river bank with a girl whose name has slipped my mind, when there was a sound of barking and a large hefty dog came galloping up, obviously intent on mayhem. And I was just commending my soul to God when the girl, with extraordinary presence of mind, opened a coloured Japanese umbrella in the animal's face. Upon which it did three back somersaults and retired into private life. " - from ‘In Brief’

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was an acknowledged master of the English language, some say the greatest in this area after Shakespeare. Like other great writers, he used language in an easy, articulate way to evoke atmosphere but the skill and cleverness are hidden behind the overall effect.

The First Berlin Broadcast [abridged], June 28, 1941

This is the German Shortwave Station. Here in our studio in Berlin tonight is Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, the well known father of the inimitable Jeeves, of Bertie Worcester, Lord Emsworth, Mr. Mulliner, and other delightful persons. Mr. Wodehouse has been in Germany for almost a year since German troops occupied his residence in Northern France.

During that time he has finished a new novel which, I understand, is on its way to the United States for publication, and started with another one. We felt that his American readers might be interested to hear from Mr. Wodehouse, so we have invited him to this microphone to tell you in his own words how it all happened.

Mr. Wodehouse:

I have just emerged into the outer world after forty-nine weeks of Civil Internment in a German internment camp and the effects have not entirely worn off. I have not yet quite recovered that perfect mental balance for which in the past I was so admired by one and all.

First, they put us in a prison, then in a barracks, then in a fortress. Then they took a look at me and the rest of the boys on parade one day, and got the right idea at last. They sent us off to the local lunatic asylum at Tost, and there I have been for the last forty-two weeks.

It has been in many ways quite an agreeable experience. There is a good deal to be said for internment. It keeps you out of the bars and gives you time to catch up with your reading. You also get a lot of sleep. The chief drawback is that it means your being away from home a good deal. And I feel that when I rejoin my wife, I had better take along a letter of introduction, just to be on the safe side.

Young men, starting out in life, have often asked me `How can I become an Internee?' Well, there are several methods. My own was to buy a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France and stay there till the Germans came along. This is probably the best and simplest system. You buy the villa and the Germans do the rest.

At the time of their arrival, I would have been just as pleased if they had not rolled up. But they did not see it that way, and on May the twenty-second along they came, - some on motor cycles, some on foot, but all evidently prepared to spend a long week-end.

The whole thing was very peaceful and orderly. All that happened, as far as I was concerned, was that I was strolling on the lawn with my wife one morning, when she lowered her voice and said "Don't look now, but here comes the German army". And there they were, a fine body of men, rather prettily dressed in green, carrying machine guns.

One's reactions on suddenly finding oneself surrounded by the armed strength of a hostile power are rather interesting. There is a sense of strain. The first time you see a German soldier over your garden fence, your impulse is to jump ten feet straight up into the air, and you do so. About a week later, you find that you are only jumping five feet. And then, after you have been living with him in a small village for two months, you inevitably begin to wish that you had learned German at school instead of Latin and Greek. All the German I know is `Es ist schænes Wetter'.

And so, day by day, all through June and July, our quiet, happy life continued, until one day, an official-looking gentleman came along and said he wanted my car. Also my radio. And in addition my bicycle. That was what got under the skin. I could do without the car, and I had never much liked the radio, but I loved that bicycle. I looked him right in the eye and said `Es ist schænes Wetter' - and I said it nastily. I meant it to sting. And what did he say? He didn't say anything. What could he have said? P.S. He got the bicycle.

But these were small things. A perfect atmosphere of peace and goodwill continued to prevail. Except for the fact that I was not allowed out of my garden after nine at night, my movements were not restricted. Quite soon I had become sufficiently nonchalant to resume the writing of the novel. And then the order went out that all British subjects had got to report each morning at twelve o'clock at the Kommandant down in Paris Plage.

As Paris Plage was three miles away, and they had pinched my bicycle, this was a nuisance. But I should have had nothing to complain of, if the thing had stopped there. But unfortunately it didn't. One lovely Sunday morning, as I was rounding into the straight and heading for the door of the Kommandant, I saw one of our little group coming along with a suitcase in his hand.

This didn't look so good. Wodehouse, old sport, I said to myself, this begins to look like a sticky day. And a few moments later my fears were fulfilled. Arriving at the Kommandant, I found everything in a state of bustle and excitement. I said "Es ist schones wetter" once or twice, but nobody took any notice. And presently the interpreter stepped forward and announced that we were all going to be interned.

All over France during that Sunday, British citizens were being picked up and taken away without being given time to pack, except for Le Touquet, which was given time to go home and put a few things together, and as my home was three miles away, I was actually sent there in a car.

The soldier who escorted me was unfortunately not one of those leisurely souls who believe in taking time over one's packing. My idea had been to have a cold bath and a change and a bite to eat, and then to light a pipe and sit down and think for a while, making notes of what to take with me and what could be left behind. He seemed to think that five minutes was ample. Eventually we compromised on ten.

I would like my biographers to make careful note that here at last was my chance to buckle down and read the complete works of William Shakespeare. It was a thing I had been meaning to do these last forty years, but somehow, as soon as I had got to say, Hamlet and Macbeth some Mystery would catch my eye and I would weaken.

I didn't know what internment implied - it might be for years or it might be for ever - or it might be a mere matter of weeks - but the whole situation seemed to point to the complete works of William Shakespeare, so in they went into the suitcase. It was a pang to leave my novel behind, I had only five more chapters of it to do, for it was a nice little novel and we had some great times together.

I wonder what my listeners would have packed in my place - always remembering that there was a German soldier standing behind me all the time, shouting "Schnell" or words to that effect. I had to think quick. Eventually what I crammed in were tobacco, pencils, scribbling blocks, chocolate, biscuits, a pair of trousers, a pair of shoes, some shirts and a sock or two. My wife wanted to add a pound of butter, but I fought her off. There are practically no limits to what a pound of butter can do in warm weather in a small suitcase. If I was going to read the complete works of William Shakespeare, I preferred them unbuttered.

In the end, the only thing of importance I left behind was my passport, which was the thing I ought to have packed first. The young internee is always being asked for his passport, and if he hasn't got it, the authorities tend to ask nasty questions. I had never fully realized what low class was till I became an internee without a passport, thus achieving a social position somewhere between a gangster and a rat.

The problem with travelling when you are an internee is that your destination always is unknown. It is unsettling, when you start out, not to be sure whether you are going half way across Europe or just to the next town. We felt very far from our snug homes and not at all sure that we liked the shape of things to come.

As to what exactly was the shape of things to come, nobody seemed to know. But the general sentiment that prevailed was one of uneasiness. We feared the worst.

Nor were we greatly encouraged, when, having passed through Lille, we turned down a side lane and came through pleasant fields and under spreading trees to a forbidding-looking building which was only too obviously the local prison. A nasty-looking man in the uniform of the French provincial police flung wide the gates and we rolled through.

That was Mr. Wodehouse in the first broadcast of a series of weekly talks which he will give from this station.