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P.G. Wodehouse

murphyz

murphyz

New Member
P.G Wodehouse

I haven't read any of these yet, but noticed in Waterstones that they have a lot of editions published by Everyman's Library (see image) which are very retro stylish and would make a nice little collection.

I was wondering if anyone has read them and can suggest which particular one I should read first. Knowing my luck, if I picked one at random, I would end up getting one of the ones which were not as good as the others and it may put me off reading more.

Thanks in advance

Mxx

wodehouse.jpg
 
I've been wanting to read more Wodehouse myself. The only book of his I've read so far was Laughing Gas, and then some short stories, and they tasted like... "more".
 
Try Lord Emsworth and Others, if only for Crime Wave at Blandings. Either that or The Mating Season to hear Bertie Wooster rewriting a hunting song.
 
Wodehouse is hysterical. Try "Jeeves in the Morning" (Originally Joy in the Morning). All the Wooster/Jeeves books are great...
 
I did like Code of the Woosters, and have since purchased 'Hot Water', 'Jeeves in the Offing' and...um...another one - I forget which. :)

Mxx
 
Jeeves

I've only read one of the Jeeves books. I seem to recall I wasn't as entertained by it as I had expected to be. However, I've recently listened to an audiobook version of the same title - The Inimitable Jeeves - and quite enjoyed it. Perhaps they work better for me as audio entertainment rather than as reading? Maybe it was Simon Callow's reading that brought them to life? Maybe I should read another? A bit of entertainment is certainly welcome in this increasingly dark - literally and metaphorically - days.
 
"I never was interested in politics. I'm quite unable to work up any kind of belligerent feeling. Just as I'm about to feel belligerent about some country I meet a decent sort of chap. We go out together and lose any fighting thoughts or feelings."

"A short time ago they had a look at me on parade and got the right idea; at least they sent us to the local lunatic asylum. And I have been there forty-two weeks. There is a good deal to be said for internment. It keeps you out of the saloon and helps you to keep up with your reading. The chief trouble is that it means you are away from home for a long time. When I join my wife I had better take along a letter of introduction to be on the safe side."

"In the days before the war I had always been modestly proud of being an Englishman, but now that I have been some months resident in this bin or repository of Englishmen I am not so sure. ... The only concession I want from Germany is that she gives me a loaf of bread, tells the gentlemen with muskets at the main gate to look the other way, and leaves the rest to me. In return I am prepared to hand over India, an autographed set of my books, and to reveal the secret process of cooking sliced potatoes on a radiator. This offer holds good till Wednesday week."
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http://www.drones.com/orwell.html
 
P G Wodehouse

My favourite author has got to be P G Wodehouse. He makes everything seem fun, he's easy to read and his use of language is masterly.:)
 
Is P.G referring to his time in German interment camp here Still? I just read recently that there was quite a scandal concerning him while there. He braodcast some comedy sketches over the radio for the Americans and was accused by the British of propoganda. This was later found to be completely untrue and perfectly innocent although very badly timed. Although he loved England he never returned, settling in America. He received a knighthood at 93, three months before his death.
 
He's my favourite humorous author too, sib. A delightfully funny man, has an amazing flair for words and phrases. Was interested to see on another thread someone referring to his work as satire, which I'd never considered before. It's been pointed out that the world he wrote about never really existed so I guess he was sending up the class system of that time.
 
(Maybe a mod will move this to "Author Discussion" unders Sib's post where it more properly belongs.)

Yes, Poppy. I always had a dim recollection of some vague political scandal surrounding Wodehouse, but for the life of me I couldn't understand why. He seems to be truly apolitical in his novels. I can forgive a fellow much for making me laugh like Wodehouse does.

Why should a few rather silly but harmless remarks by an elderly novelist have provoked such an outcry? One has to look for the probable answer amid the dirty requirements of propaganda warfare.

There is one point about the Wodehouse broadcasts that is almost certainly significant -- the date. Wodehouse was released two or three days before the invasion of the U.S.S.R., and at a time when the higher ranks of the Nazi party must have known that the invasion was imminent. It was vitally necessary to keep America out of the war as long as possible, and in fact, about this time, the German attitude towards the U.S.A. did become more conciliatory than it had been before. The Germans could hardly hope to defeat Russia, Britain and the U.S.A. in combination, but if they could polish off Russia quickly -- and presumably they expected to do so -- the Americans might never intervene. The release of Wodehouse was only a minor move, but it was not a bad sop to throw to the American isolationists. He was well known in the United States, and he was -- or so the Germans calculated -- popular with the Anglophobe public as a caricaturist who made fun of the silly-ass Englishman with his spats and his monocle. At the microphone he could be trusted to damage British prestige in one way or another, while his release would demonstrate that the Germans were good fellows and knew how to treat their enemies chivalrously. That presumably was the calculation, though the fact that Wodehouse was only broadcasting for about a week suggests that he did not come up to expectations.
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Probably everybody here already knows that his name is properly pronounced "Woodhouse".
 
The link in the initial post of this thread provided an interesting analysis of Wodehouse's misadventure in Germany. Most interesting, I found, was how foreign readers were supposed to have found his writing to be anti-British! I have never read him that way at all. I feel fortunate that such a "silly" fellow had the marvelous capacity to write it out, since we're all the richer for it.:cool:
 
bren said:
The link in the initial post of this thread provided an interesting analysis of Wodehouse's misadventure in Germany. Most interesting, I found, was how foreign readers were supposed to have found his writing to be anti-British! I have never read him that way at all. I feel fortunate that such a "silly" fellow had the marvelous capacity to write it out, since we're all the richer for it.:cool:
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Whoops, sorry Still, I didn't read the link :eek:
 
Probably everybody here already knows that his name is properly pronounced "Woodhouse".
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I do now :D. Perhaps I'll pick up one of his books next time I'm at B&N, although I've said that about way too many authors. I really should start making some sort of list...
 
Kell said:
Wheeeeee!!!!
gotta love Wodehouse....

love Bertie, LOVE the aunts :cool:
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I read Wodehouse when I'm feeling blue. Nobody else does the trick quite like Bertie and Jeeves -- somehow, between them, they make life seem worth living again -- kind of like one of those pick-me-ups (I forget what he calls them) that Jeeves serves to Bertie in bed after a Big Night Out.
 
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