Thursday, August 12, 2010

From the shelves of the Paco library



What ho! Time for another Wodehouse review.

I have been very fortunate over the last few months in finding some of the Master’s novels that had eluded me until recently. Today’s pick is Indiscretions of Archie. The circumstances are similar to those occurring in many of Wodehouse’s books featuring non-recurring characters: young man marries rich girl (in this case the daughter of yet another hotelier), young man experiences numerous unhappy run-ins with stern father-in-law, young man makes everything all right in the end.

The young man this time around is Archie Moffam (pronounced “Moom”) – genial, kind-hearted, not extraordinarily intelligent (one instantly recognizes one of Wodehouse’s basic “types”). The novel opens with an encounter between Archie and his future father-in-law, the intimidating American millionaire, Daniel Brewster, in the lobby of the latter’s New York Hotel, the Cosmopolis. Archie complains about the service – he had left his boots outside the door of his room overnight and was miffed at finding them untouched the following morning, unaware that this was not the custom in American hotels – and sets the stage for the unpromising beginnings of his absorption into the Brewster family.
‘There is a shoe shining parlour in the basement. At the Cosmopolis shoes left outside bedroom doors are not cleaned.’

‘Then I think the Cosmopolis is a bally rotten hotel!’

Brewster’s compact frame quivered. The unforgivable insult had been offered. Question the legitimacy of Mr. Brewster’s parentage, knock Mr. Brewster down and walk on his face with spiked shoes, and you did not irremediably close all avenues to a peaceful settlement. But make a remark like that about his hotel, and war was definitely declared.

‘In that case,’ he said, stiffening, ‘I must ask you to give up your room.’

‘I’m going to give it up! I wouldn’t stay in the bally place another minute.’
Two weeks later, of course, Brewster receives the explosive news that his daughter has gotten married. And, lo! when he finally meets his new son-in-law, it is none other than Archie.
There was one of those silences. Mr. Brewster looked at Archie. Archie gazed at Mr. Brewster. Lucille, perceiving without understanding why that the big introduction had stubbed its toe on some unlooked-for obstacle, waited anxiously for enlightenment. Meanwhile, Archie continued to inspect Mr. Brewster, and Mr. Brewster continued to drink in Archie.

‘Lu!’

‘Yes, father?’

‘Is this true?’

‘True?’

‘Have you really inflicted this - this on me for a son-in-law?’ Mr. Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching with a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative’s Adams-apple.
Mr. Brewster comes around, very grudgingly, to putting up his daughter and Archie in his hotel until his son-in-law finds work (not an imminent prospect, given Archie’s somewhat vague strategy: ‘The general scheme was that I should kind of look round, you know, and nose about and buzz to and fro till something turned up.’) Thus commences Mr. Brewster’s long nightmare.

As usual, it is not the plot that intrigues us so much as it is Wodehouse’s sheer inventive zaniness and the multitude of comic touches: A few samples:
Professor Binstead had picked up a small china figure of delicate workmanship. It represented a warrior of pre-khaki days advancing with a spear upon some adversary who, judging from the contented expression on the warrior’s face, was smaller than himself.

* * * *

It would have pained Peter deeply, for he was a snake of great sensibility, if he had known how much his entrance had disturbed the occupant of the room. He himself had no feeling but of gratitude for the man who had opened the window and so enabled him to get in out of the rather nippy night air…He was a snake who took things as they came, and was prepared to rough it a bit if necessary…When at home, he had an eiderdown quilt to sleep on, and the stone of the window-sill was a little trying to a snake of regular habits. He crawled thankfully across the floor under Squiffy’s bed. There were a pair of trousers there…They were not an eiderdown quilt, but they would serve. He curled up in them and went to sleep. He had had an exciting day, and was glad to turn in.

* * * *

Much has been written of the emotions of the wanderer who, returning to his childhood home, finds it altered out of all recognition; but poets have neglected the theme – far more poignant – of the man who goes up to his room in an hotel and finds it full of somebody else’s dressing-gowns and bulldogs.
It’s all great fun, and a welcome distraction from our current woes.

9 comments:

Merilyn said...

Which shelf did you say you put that book on? Uh, just asking.
It sounds like a classic Wodehouse.

bruce said...

They're currently showing the BBC adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as J and W. Somehow it doesn't quite work, as if they're miscast, but I can see Laurie playing this Archie Moffam guy.

(I'm a mad fan of House and also enjoy Laurie in the Blackadder series very much).

Anonymous said...

I hear you, Bruce. Fry and Laurie should have been perfect. But I couldn't stand Laurie's Jeeves always smiling. JEEVES NEVER SMILES. One may occasionally see a millimeter of twitch on the stoic lip, but smile? Never.

cac said...

The Fry and Laurie adaptation doesn't really work at all unfortunately which is a shame as they are both talented and funny men. Far better, if you can track it down, is the mid 70s "Wodehouse Playhouse" although the stories were Mulliner rather than Bertie. Interestingly enough the series was early enough to be introduced in person by the Master himself.

Paco said...

I read somewhere that Fry was aware that he wouldn't make a perfect Jeeves, primarily because he was too young, but he loved the character so much he really wanted to try the role.

I agree that the Fry/Laurie versions fall short of excellence; for one thing, at least one episode I recall took some extreme liberties with the story-line.

The BBC did some Wooster and Jeeves radio plays back in the fifties. I have one on a cassette somewhere - can't remember which story it was - but it was superb.

Steve Skubinna said...

My biggest objection to the Fry and Laurie attempts were the idiotic liberties the screenwriters took, as though they thought they could "improve" upon Wodehouse.

What put the icing on the cake, however, was Russel Baker's asinine chortling over how brilliant Wodehouse was, based upon the entirely non-Wodehousian story elements (i.e., Jeeves' cross dressing, or the two of them jumping off a liner mid-ocean). I had til then thought Baker fairly intelligent. Instead he's an abysmal moron, unfit to even speak of the Drones or Blandings.

Steve Skubinna said...

Incidentally, I have been gathering copies of the Collector's Wodehouse, published by Overlook, the past decade or so. They are nice and inexpensive hardbound editions, with retro cover designs. Problem is, Overlook is only printing about 45 titles.

However, their UK partner is printing everything, in uniform editions. So whenever I find myself in Singapore I tour the bookstores, list in hand, snapping up copies. Maybe before I die I'll have every title.

I suppose I could make a trip to the UK and buy all of them at the source, or even try Amazon's UK site, but so far I'm game to do it the hard way.

Hey, I can decide what obsessions to pursue, and I choose P.G. Wodehouse.

Paco said...

Steve: That business about jumping off the liner was the exact thing I was thinking of.

And if you have to be obsessed with something, you can't do better than Wodehouse.

bruce said...

Paco, OT but since we're touching slightly on the Tory side of Conservatism, wonderful photo essay here about social decline (via Instapundit):

http://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/then-and-now-part-two/

And although it's US, identical photo comparisons could be made in UK (worse) or even Australia. (The 'only in America' crowd are wrong).