P.G. Wodehouse (pronounced “Wood House” as I learned after pronouncing it incorrectly for many years) was a prose stylist and one of the great humorists of the 20th Century. S.J. Perelman, James Thurber, and Ring Lardner are his peers. I reread a few of Wodehouse’s novels and short stories each year. My Wodehouse paperbacks have worn rounded corners and yellowed pages, but I keep on reading them. Here is why:
- Current events. Bertie Wooster and his posse are frequently jailed for knocking hats off policemen. Would they have been jailed more frequently if the police wore webcams?
- Political Theory. Wodehouse’s heroes are from the wealthy upper classes, but they struggle against oppression. An aunt insists Bertie marry a mountebank, a secretary bullies a titled pig fancier; these all chronicle life under the iron heel.
- Health. Jeeves has a mixture that instantly cures hangovers. This is the stuff of health legend.
- Style. Silver cow creamers appear in Wodehouse plots. My grandmother had a porcelain cow creamer. The tail was the handle and the cream poured from the cow’s mouth. As a child, I thought a porcelain cow creamer was the tip top of sophistication. Then I read Wodehouse and discovered that the upper crust has silver cow creamers.
- Art. I once spent a day in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London looking for a silver cow creamer. They have a whole herd of them, but the cows all have matchstick legs and flies on their backs. My grandmother would not have a cow with flies on her table. Apparently, sophisticates like flies on their table.
- Education. Wodehouse was published in Playboy so modest swains in search of wisdom could enjoy Playboy without looking at the pictures.