P.G. Wodehouse: A literary biography

by Benny Green

P. G. A Literary Biography

Genres: Biography

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, at this point I can probably stop reading biographies of Wodehouse, because I am reading the same information over and over again - the school days, the aunts, the bank job, the short story flurry, the theatrical output, the debut of each major character, the scoop-up in France and the Berlin radio broadcasts that altered the course of Wodehouse's life.

But this was a little different (thank goodness). There was more tying in of Wodehouse's work to the world around him, and what other authors were doing in any decade of Wodehouse's long career. I mean, we have an extended look at Wodehouse's early (1907), and obscure novel - really his only SF novel, and don't think Heinlein - The Swoop, so that it can be appreciated as a response to the German-Invasion scare that was fashionable in England at the time. It actually worked out that this bio of Wodehouse sat on my shelves for years before I finally got farther than a few chapters and aborted (must have happened three times, cannot explain it). By this time in my life, I have read not only The Swoop, but also a notable example of "German invasion" scare fiction, in the short stories of William Le Queux. So, this discussion mattered, finally - and I wasn't just waiting for stuff about Blandings, or Wooster's World.

Green deals a lot with Wodehouse's early writings, and this may be due to the fact that, clearly, one of his favourite of Plum's characters is Psmith...who Wodehouse sent to limbo almost criminally early. Then, another point of focus, quite expanded upon, is Wodehouse's contributions to, and innovations within, 1930s musical theatre; Green wants us to leave this biography knowing just how brilliant, and under-appreciated (especially in the US), the Master's lyrical output was, while we all swim endlessly in the novels and short stories.

I agree with Benny Green on two points: (a) The Little Nugget is not funny, which is odd, since, why isn't it?, and (b) Company For Henry is an underrated later novel; Green, in fact, can't seem to tear himself away from Company For Henry, and loves quoting it whenever the fancy takes him.

By the end, I did feel that - even though we do sort of move along in chronological order - there is a sort of breezy messiness to the structure. Green will talk of later books whenever he wants, while dealing with the early years. Much farther along, as Green tackles the fiasco of the Berlin broadcasts, he of course gets into one of the highlights of the topic: George Orwell's defence of Wodehouse. One of Orwell's assertions had been that Wodehouse's naivety about fascists was clear in that he had never written of them, or acknowledged fascism. I knew immediately that Green would start talking about the supreme and satirized fascist Spode of the 1938 novel, The Code of the Woosters, meaning of course Wodehouse knows what a fascist is. That would be enough to make the point, but Green segues over to Spode's 1971 appearance in Much Obliged, Jeeves, and a discussion of that novel (which can have no real bearing on Wodehouse's 1940s situation) before getting back to Orwell's wonderful but strange defence of Wodehouse as too dopey to know when the Nazis were using him and thus alienating him from the people at home. And - a smaller point - Green had mentioned the step-child Wodehouse adored, Leonora, but does not mention her passing right in the midst of Wodehouse's worst personal crisis, those Berlin radio broadcasts and their repercussions. I dunno, I found that a bit strange.

But it is a "literary biography", with the focus on Wodehouse's writing - especially those novels and short stories that had something going on in them, relative to the world or popular publishing trends, that the casual reader looking for laughs well beyond the relevant decades might have missed.

[Highlandtown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benny Green's study of P.G. Wodehouse is one of the best book I've read in a while. I bought the book second-hand so I could put sticky notes on the many excellent references from Wodehouse's lyrics and novels. Green ends with an excellent tribute to Wodehouse: "Nothing matters but the language, which sparkles and scintillates, twisting and turning down the most arcane byways of syntactical and exegetical mannerism, at last hypnotizing the reader, who is reduced, to borrow a Wodehouse epithet, to the status of an ostrich goggling at a brass doorknob."

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb feel for the subject; my first and favourite of all biographies of Wodehouse.