I enjoyed reading Saumya Balasubramanian's article in the Open page dated 16-JUNE-2019 (Wodehouse, undistilled). I truly believe this world needs to be made aware and talked of PGW's works more than it currently is now. I am all of 25-years old and I was initiated into the world of Wodehouse by my family who were and still are crazy fans of the author's oeuvre.
When everyone around me was fervently and reverently talking of Jeeves, I would be gnawed by a feeling of being left out. Of knowing zilch about this fictional character who apparently had given and still gives a glut of laughs when his exploits were explored in family conversations. To add more salt to this wound, my aunt would relate anecdotes wherein she used to fight with her cousins and uncles and father of how and where Jeeves had been right and wrong. I would feel frustrated at not being a member of this league and I resented that. One fine rummy day, I took a leap of faith from my staple reads of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to the world of P.G Wodehouse.
And it was a miserable failure. Compounding this was my folly of reading the book in the living room, in full public view of the family. I was teased of how serious my countenance was when reading, to the extent that my uncles whipped out mobile cameras to capture this moment in digital stone for eternal ribbing.
The book never seemed to have a well-worn plot, no thrills that caused a sense of dread or joy in the reader and no page-turning events in the protagonist's life seemed to happen. Only that the language was flowery throughout and dense at times. The situations that the characters find themselves in were extremely mundane. In contemporary colloquial language, we would term it first-world problems. These are issues that are trivial to a second-person or the third-person yet significant enough to require ironing out. However, I endeavoured to plod through more of his work. And soon, the fog cleared.
The third book I read caused an awakening of sorts in me. The very same faults that lulled me into boredom morphed into reasons that I started liking his stories for. He had the uncanny knack of using similes that effectively convey the protagonist's mental dialogues with his own self. This, I feel, is singly the most important aspect that a movie fails to deliver on. And rightly so, for the audience a movie caters to, is different.
Have you ever had moments which you wished to cast in a memory stone, to be summoned at will and cherished? I experienced one such moment when I read of a particular scene from Right Ho, Jeeves. This was the scene where the character Tuppy confronts the protagonist Bertie Wooster over whether the latter was in love with the former’s love interest. He sets up the environment so well that you would feel hard-pressed to ignore laughter at the ensuing narration. To get an idea of Bertie’s (Bertram Wooster) assessment of Tuppy at the scene’s start, sample the below:
It would have been a duller man than Bertram Wooster who had failed to note that the dear old chap was a bit steamed up. Whether his eyes were actually shooting forth flame, I couldn't tell you, but there appeared to me to be a distinct incandescence. For the rest, his fists were clenched, his ears quivering, and the muscles of his jaw rotating rhythmically, as if he were making an early supper off something.
His hair was full of twigs, and there was a beetle hanging to the side of his head which would have interested Gussie Fink-Nottle. To this, however, I paid scant attention. There is a time for studying beetles and a time for not studying beetles.
I basked in literary glow in the aftermath of reading these words! A statement such as ‘Tuppy stormed in anger to my place of rest in the morning with the intention of accusing me of betrayal’ could have worked just as easily in conveying to the reader a feel of the situation. But, Wodehouse, through this narrative, takes us into the mind of Bertie and to the exact thoughts that crossed his mind at the point of seeing Tuppy walking in anger towards him. The language he uses is so silken and smooth that he transforms a serious situation into one that is humorous. The whole chapter is a laugh riot. As are many others in PGW’s books.
My mind likens PGW to 'Crazy' Mohan. The former had a sophisticated way of conveying humour and the simplicity of life, though in a manner that only the elite could relate to and imbibe the intent, while the latter sought to and efficiently brought it to the local masses. If you love reading books (pick up the habit if you do not), I suggest every reader to take the leap of faith that I did. You’d need to trudge through two books without giving up. If you do that successfully and then take up the third book, you’d be able to relate to the exact feeling that made Archimedes rush out of a bathtub naked.
When everyone around me was fervently and reverently talking of Jeeves, I would be gnawed by a feeling of being left out. Of knowing zilch about this fictional character who apparently had given and still gives a glut of laughs when his exploits were explored in family conversations. To add more salt to this wound, my aunt would relate anecdotes wherein she used to fight with her cousins and uncles and father of how and where Jeeves had been right and wrong. I would feel frustrated at not being a member of this league and I resented that. One fine rummy day, I took a leap of faith from my staple reads of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to the world of P.G Wodehouse.
And it was a miserable failure. Compounding this was my folly of reading the book in the living room, in full public view of the family. I was teased of how serious my countenance was when reading, to the extent that my uncles whipped out mobile cameras to capture this moment in digital stone for eternal ribbing.
The book never seemed to have a well-worn plot, no thrills that caused a sense of dread or joy in the reader and no page-turning events in the protagonist's life seemed to happen. Only that the language was flowery throughout and dense at times. The situations that the characters find themselves in were extremely mundane. In contemporary colloquial language, we would term it first-world problems. These are issues that are trivial to a second-person or the third-person yet significant enough to require ironing out. However, I endeavoured to plod through more of his work. And soon, the fog cleared.
The third book I read caused an awakening of sorts in me. The very same faults that lulled me into boredom morphed into reasons that I started liking his stories for. He had the uncanny knack of using similes that effectively convey the protagonist's mental dialogues with his own self. This, I feel, is singly the most important aspect that a movie fails to deliver on. And rightly so, for the audience a movie caters to, is different.
Have you ever had moments which you wished to cast in a memory stone, to be summoned at will and cherished? I experienced one such moment when I read of a particular scene from Right Ho, Jeeves. This was the scene where the character Tuppy confronts the protagonist Bertie Wooster over whether the latter was in love with the former’s love interest. He sets up the environment so well that you would feel hard-pressed to ignore laughter at the ensuing narration. To get an idea of Bertie’s (Bertram Wooster) assessment of Tuppy at the scene’s start, sample the below:
It would have been a duller man than Bertram Wooster who had failed to note that the dear old chap was a bit steamed up. Whether his eyes were actually shooting forth flame, I couldn't tell you, but there appeared to me to be a distinct incandescence. For the rest, his fists were clenched, his ears quivering, and the muscles of his jaw rotating rhythmically, as if he were making an early supper off something.
His hair was full of twigs, and there was a beetle hanging to the side of his head which would have interested Gussie Fink-Nottle. To this, however, I paid scant attention. There is a time for studying beetles and a time for not studying beetles.
I basked in literary glow in the aftermath of reading these words! A statement such as ‘Tuppy stormed in anger to my place of rest in the morning with the intention of accusing me of betrayal’ could have worked just as easily in conveying to the reader a feel of the situation. But, Wodehouse, through this narrative, takes us into the mind of Bertie and to the exact thoughts that crossed his mind at the point of seeing Tuppy walking in anger towards him. The language he uses is so silken and smooth that he transforms a serious situation into one that is humorous. The whole chapter is a laugh riot. As are many others in PGW’s books.
My mind likens PGW to 'Crazy' Mohan. The former had a sophisticated way of conveying humour and the simplicity of life, though in a manner that only the elite could relate to and imbibe the intent, while the latter sought to and efficiently brought it to the local masses. If you love reading books (pick up the habit if you do not), I suggest every reader to take the leap of faith that I did. You’d need to trudge through two books without giving up. If you do that successfully and then take up the third book, you’d be able to relate to the exact feeling that made Archimedes rush out of a bathtub naked.
Ha ha lol.. Very well written in PGW style and great exemplary English in the true British tradition.
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