May 16, 2001 05:19 PM
4647 Views
P.G. Wodehouse (hereinafter called PGW) is a humorist par excellence. I started reading his books while I was in school about 3 decades ago. The Jeeves series used to have me in splits.
I once remember traveling in a crowded bus (its almost always crowded) in Bombay; another fellow commuter was reading a book. Every now and then his face would break out into a wide grin. The other commuters thought he was crazy but, having spotted the cover page of the book he was reading, I was not the least bit surprised. It was, as you may have guessed, a PGW.
The British are reputed to have a stiff upper lip but I have admired their ability to laugh at their own foibles. See BBC’s “Yes Minister” as a case in point. PGW epitomizes this characteristic most emphatically. Off course I must add here that PGW lived most of his life in the US.
If you’re looking for reverence to British aristocracy, you had better look elsewhere.
Coming to this book, the plot is the usual convoluted situation where A loves B while B loves anyone but A. Adding to the complication is the fact that there are several As and Bs in a single plot.
The central character here is Lady Maud, the pretty 20 year old daughter of Lord Marshmoreton. She loves an American called Geoffrey Raymond(GR), who is for the most part, absent from the scene. Her family would have none of this rubbish and confines her to the house. She has no business loving a commoner and more so a supposedly impoverished American. Enter another American, George Bevan a music composer who, meeting Maud in rather fortuitous circumstances at her vulnerable best, instantly falls for her. The family, not ever having met GR, thinks George is the guy Maud is after and desperately strives to keep her away from him. Maud meanwhile, unaware of George’s love for her, conscripts him as an ally to help her to reach GR.
While this is happening, Lady Caroline Byng, the scheming, dominating elder sister of Lord Marshmoreton is keen that her son, Reggie Byng sign on the dotted line with Maud. Off course it goes without saying that Reggie loves someone else; namely Alice Faraday, the young secretary of Lord Marshmoreton. Reggie is your typical Bertie Wooster type and I would have liked a little more of him to liven up the story. His role however, is only peripheral to the main proceedings and he flits in and out of the story.
Then there is the staff on the estate that take bets and throw their considerable weight behind one or other candidate for the prize of Maud. Chief among these are the butler Kegg and pageboy Albert. I wouldn’t like to reveal more of the plot lest I spoil your fun.
PGW contrives to have plenty of comic situations throughout the book. The situation where George visits the estate for the first time and mistakes Lord M as the gardener is pretty hilarious. To make matters worse, he enlists Lord M’s help to get a note across to Maud.
Above all else PGW is a master of the language. He has the ability to be funny even with a completely non-existent plot or devoid of comic situations. I feel I am smiling through every sentence of his books. He can describe even the most mundane in a style that can make me laugh. I would happily have appended a few samples here but they may not seem so enjoyable when read out of context.
Forget your worries, pick up a copy of this book and laugh your guts out.
