Wodehouse: A Life

This doesn't come to life, so suffers in comparison to the works of Wodehouse himself.

It's a diligent and comprehensive but rather dull dissertation, rattling off facts in an efficient chronology, but lacking in passion, or even original insights about its subject. When McCrum does dare to venture an opinion he tends to contradict himself a few pages later (e.g. giving conflicting summaries of PGW's academic success, and emphasising that he was a loner but then describing another situation as satisfying his need for companionship).

There are voluminous notes, but there is no superscript marker when reading the chapters, so you don't know when there is additional information, which is intensely irritating and makes the notes somewhat pointless.

For a far more enjoyable and informative read, see Barry Phelps' P G Wodehouse Man and Myth (out of print, but surely available from Amazon Marketplace and abebooks etc).

The Master would have politely yawned ... (11/13 people found this helpful)

To someone who wrote a fan letter to "The Master" 33 years ago and received a hand-written postcard of thanks back, which he treasures still today, this book is a bit of a disappointment. It reads too much like a shopping list. It's full of details and information but it doesn't really have much soul. And in spite of the importance that homes had for Wodehouse there isn't a photo of even one of them in the book. I suppose an academic might find that McCrum has added to the known facts of P.G.'s life, but it wasn't obvious to me. And the fact that the last hundred pages (!) of the book are footnotes is in itself perhaps an indication of McCrum's attitude to his task. The basic problem is that loveable old P.G. was a writaholic, had a rather faceless personality and his vices were morning callisthenics, Pekinese dogs and cucumber sandwiches. It may be interesting, but it's not edge of your seat reading - though the picture of Wodehouse calmly writing away in a country mansion à la Blandings in deepest Germany during the war is perplexing, as is his sojourn with his Pekinese at the best hotel in 1941 Berlin. Apart from the war episode the book doesn't really make for gripping reading. One gets the impression that the real life to write about was Ethel Wodehouse's. Now there's an intriguing woman - with her hinted at affairs, her joie de vivre, her Mata Hari war years... But that book has to be written by someone with a little more humour and immediacy than Mr. McCrum who isn't even as funny as his name. There wasn't a laugh in the whole book.

Wodehouse's Sources, Inspirations, Habits and Shame (15/16 people found this helpful)

Should a dedicated fan of P.G. Wodehouse's writing read this book? Yes, I think so. Mr. McCrum's book is filled with information that will make reading Mr. Wodehouse's many comic offerings more rewarding. For instance, where did so many of those wonderful names come from? Many were drawn from people and places that Wodehouse knew as a youth. Why did he have such a jaundiced view of aunts and say so little about mothers? His own family history contained strained relationships with dictatorial aunts and a distant mother who ignored him. Where did the inspiration for Blandings Castle come from? It turns out to be based on actual experiences in an English country home. Simply from those perspectives, I felt that my understanding of Wodehouse plots, humor and references were vastly increased.

In addition, I knew that P.G. Wodehouse was very prolific, but I never quite understood how he did it. I was fascinated to see how disciplined he was to keep doing his daily quota of words. As someone who likes to write as well, this was a positive inspiration to keep to that discipline myself. I was also pleased to find out more about how he developed his plots and characters and did his rewriting. If you combine this book with Sunset at Blandings, you can get a quite helpful perspective on the details of his craft.

Next, I am always running into veiled and ambiguous references to P.G. Wodehouse having done some broadcasts for German radio during World War II while living in Germany. It was never clear to me what that was all about. Now, this book gives me enough information to have views on the subject. I hadn't realized that Wodehouse had been interned by German forces in prison environments for over a year before the broadcasts. In addition, he was released from internment before agreeing to do the broadcasts which turn out to have been very ill-considered but not a clear-cut case of selling out to the enemy.

Naturally, the ultimate question is also about how interesting Wodehouse must have been in person. That's a disappointment. He was a real bore in public who preferred solitude. On the other hand, I was fascinated to see how much of his personality can be found in the various characters in the stories.

I was aware of his famous quote about writing about life as though it is musical comedy, but I didn't realize that he actually helped write lyrics for musical comedies among his many successes.

Finally, there's a marvelous question of what-might-have-been. Wodehouse was about to go to university with bright prospects when he family pulled the financial plug to favor his older brother. P.G. spent two years working in a bank while writing furiously at every spare moment to establish himself in England, rather than being sent abroad as another bank trainee. You'll find yourself cheering for him!

Mr. Wodehouse lived so long that there's also the fascinating part of the tale about how his writing went from being cutting edge comedy to being historical fiction about the Edwardian era.

The less you have read of Mr. Wodehouse's work, the more you will probably enjoy this volume.

I found that the book's main weakness was that it gave me a great many more details about his personal life than I really wanted to know (such as all of his dogs and his relationships with them) and a little less on his writing than I would have liked to know.

But it's a solid effort, nevertheless, and one that will provide much pleasure to Wodehouse fans.

Robert McCrum

Reader Reviews:

Dull but thorough (11/11 people found this helpful)

The Master would have politely yawned ... (11/13 people found this helpful)

Wodehouse's Sources, Inspirations, Habits and Shame (15/16 people found this helpful)

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