Thanks to several instant and overwhelming responses received from the brainy coves who infest the Fans of P G Wodehouse group on Facebook, to a query about fiction writers in the Wodehousean canon, Joe Stickney recently whipped up a piece as follows.
Rosie M. Banks might be his most memorable author and certainly his most prolific. She qualifies, I suspect, as a-novel-a-year romance author. While not in the same class, Lady Florence Craye penned the novel ‘Spindrift’ which ran five editions and was turned into an unsuccessful play. Meanwhile, even death couldn’t contain that romance writer Leila J. Pinkney. Her mystery writing nephew James Rodman begins writing and living a romance novel after moving into her former home Honeysuckle Cottage in possibly the oddest Halloween appropriate story ever.
Nor must we forget the works of Vladimir Brusiloff – that dark, mysterious and dull Russian novelist – who helped in the narrative titled Clicking of Cuthbert. Mark Twain once said of Russian novels that he figured out that the translations must be defective after he had wadded through a good dozen weighty and listless tomes. He learned Russian to read them in the original language so that he might find what made them great. However, after reading them in the Russian language, Mr. Twain claimed that the translators had improved upon them.
Grand dames and a few gallant gentlemen with great pretensions gather literati around themselves in a number of Plum’s works. Maybe the most notable amongst them is Ralston McTodd in Leave it to Psmith. Our hero, naturally impersonating the Canadian poet, has to attempt to explain that legendary line, Across the Pale Parabola of Joy.
Speaking of the Blandings saga, the first novel Something Fresh features that creator of Gridley Quayle himself, Ashe Marson. As Freddie Threepwood, the son of the house, is a fan of detective fiction meeting the author of one of his favorite series is as great a thrill to him as if we could somehow step back in time and meet Mr. Wodehouse himself. Freddie’s collection of thrillers would later be passed on to the castle butler Beach and play a role in a number of novels. The Lord of the Manor has no time for such trivial material as he dines on ‘Whiffle’s Care of the Pig’. Finally, on the Blandings side, we all wish that the riotous work of Gally Threepwood had seen print, particularly the story of the prawns.
James “Corky” Corcoran as the scribe for that ne’er-do-well Ukridge is something of a stand-in for Wodehouse himself and, of course, Bertie Wooster pens the yarns we are currently reading. Nor should we forget the great literary triumphs of Bertie’s; he not only won a prize in scripture knowledge but also went on to become a published author in his aunt’s struggling magazine, ‘My Lady’s Boudoir’.
All across the canon, several memoirs, authored by various noblemen, leave many others twiddling their thumbs, trying to steal manuscripts which, if published, may prove to be embarrassing to them. In Summer Lightning, Lady Constance is distracted with worries that the book of memoirs her brother Galahad is writing will bring shame to the family. Rupert Baxter gets rehired, so he may steal the manuscript. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe also hires Pilbeam to retrieve them. However, Galahad tells Lady Constance that he will suppress his book if she agrees to sanction Sue and Ronnie’s marriage, and to persuade her sister Julia to do likewise. Family’s reputation gets protected.
We are told to write what we know best, and Mr. Wodehouse took this to heart as he wrote of writers and their craft with a twinkle in his eye.
About the Author
Joe Stickney is an American admirer of P G Wodehouse who is slowly writing a book about reading a Wodehouse book a week for 52 weeks. A Year with Wodehouse, if that makes sense. So, he has been considering Plum’s works quite a lot recently. He can’t think of anything to qualify him as being an outstanding human being, save and except for his current passion of devouring Wodehouse’s works. One wonders if he is someone in the mould of Lord Ickenham, who even worked as a cowboy once, albeit with literary tastes.
His permission to reproduce this piece here is gratefully acknowledged. Yours truly confesses having made a few changes to the original post.
One wishes him the very best in his literary endeavours and would surely watch his future works with a keen sense of eager anticipation.
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