A Wodehouse a Week #31: Cocktail Time

I'm back after a short holiday break (hi hi hi again everyone!), and just in time to bring you...

I love The Jack Benny Program—it's my favorite old time radio show. (What's this got to do with A Wodehouse a Week? Be patient, gentle reader.) Not only is Jack's comic timing on these classic shows among the finest in American comedy, he also surrounded himself with some of the best and funniest sidekick characters from Dennis Day to Phil Harris—and wasn't afraid to let his supporting cast get the laughs at his expense. One of the things I especially love about those old Jack Benny Program shows is that they were meta before meta was defined. While several of the live shows featured Jack and the gang gathered around the microphones in the studio performing a play or a variety show, many others purported to tell the story behind the show: what Jack and friends were up to in the week before the live performance, or the at home lives of the stars, or sometimes even the plot would have Jack walking out on his own show to go to a restaurant or a department store, all the while discussing what's going to happen on the "show" when it's broadcast live (it is, in fact, taking place right then). One of the classic episodes I recently listened to began with Don Wilson's announcement "Let's look in Jack's dressing room ten minutes before this show begins..." and we then have ten minutes of comedy set off stage before the "show" starts up again (with Don's truncated opening announcements). In short, it's a show called The Jack Benny Program about a show called The Jack Benny Program, and the two are not necessary the same thing. If we're listening to an episode where Jack and his writers argue about jokes for the upcoming show, then the show "in" Jack's universe must be different than the one we hear, isn't it?

It's a fine line and a sharp distinction that's a clever gimmick but tricky to pull of effectively in comedy. I'm sure there are others (tell me in the comments if you think of more), but the only other ones I can think of are The Larry Sanders Show and The Truman Show. So why am I talking about fictional versions of entertainment contained inside a real entertainment by the same title? Simple, really: because this week's Wodehouse is a novel entitled Cocktail Time (1958), all about a novel entitled Cocktail Time. Confused? You shouldn't be. Read on...

I've mentioned earlier that I've covered books featuring very nearly all of the Wodehouse starring series characters: Bertie and Jeeves, the Mulliners, Lord Emsworth and the Blanding Castle crowd, the hapless Ukridge, the Oldest Member, Galahad Threepwood, dashing Psmith and even the boys of Wrykyn and St. Austin's. But I had yet, until this week, to review a Wodehouse novel starring my very favorite recurring character: Frederick, Lord Ickenham—Pongo Twistleton's redoubtable Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred's a literary hero of mine not simply because he reminds me of my own dear beloved Uncle Fred, but because he's a man who embodies all the personality characteristics in life I'd like to be when I grow up to be a big stuffed bull: suave, debonair, unflappable, well-spoken, impeccably dressed, sympathetic, inventive, clever, and—best yet—a bit of a rogue. That last characteristic sets the whole novel in motion when Uncle Fred is challenged at the Drones Club to knock off the top hat of stuffy Sir Raymond Bastable using a slingshot and a Brazil nut. Outraged by the assault and mistaking his assailant for one of the young Drones layabouts (rather than his peer in years Ickenham), Bastable furiously pens a scandalous novel condemning the modern youth of the day, a novel entitled (you guessed it) Cocktail Time which becomes a smash bestseller after being condemned by clergymen...a sexy and satirical cross between Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies and Forever Amber. (Which I'm not allowed to read.) Naturally, the road to literary success for Bastable is far from smooth: he has political ambitions and cannot be exposed as the author of the salacious Cocktail Time, so he writes it under a pen name and, at Uncle Fred's cheerful suggestion, he convinces his nephew Cosmo Wisdom to claim credit for the authorship. Loose lips sink ships, and Cosmo blabs the truth about the true author to crooks Oily and Gertrude "Sweetie" Carlisle. The Carlisles con a signed admission from Cosmo and plan to use it to blackmail Sir Raymond Bastable. And that's where Uncle Fred comes in, and that, my friends, is where, as they say, the fun begins...

Frederick, Lord Ickenham, is in many ways similar to Lord Emsworth's cunning brother Galahad Threepwood (who I talked about in A Pelican at Blandings): Gally debuted in 1929 and Uncle Fred in 1936, and their stories are chronologically intertwined through Wodehouse's career, but despite their similarities, the two characters are not identical. Uncle Fred lacks the extensive and elaborate Threepwood/Emsworth family ties of Galahad that ground him to Blandings; although he does have an elaborate network of nephews and godsons, Uncle Fred's not defined by a pig-populated estate, and so his adventures are frequently inhabited by new characters in each adventure, drawing the focus away from the series aspect of the books but still providing us with the familiar and dapper Uncle Fred at the center of all the brou-ha-ha. Rather than having the recognizable old guard of Clarence, Connie, Beach, and the Empress that surround Galahad, Uncle Fred's adventures rely on Wodehouse setting up new characters and plots. (Wodehouse does give us the best of both worlds in two other Uncle Fred adventures, Uncle Fred in the Springtime and Service with a Smile, both of which take place at Blandings). But it's in the introduction of characters and plots of Cocktail Time that Wodehouse shines, showing off his skill. Many of Wodehouse's novels are introduced with a large number of characters within the first couple chapters and he then dexterously spins them together. Cocktail Time is the seven-layer taco dip of Wodehouse novels: the first nine or ten chapters move the plot along swiftly but also serve to introduce a new character or three at a time, gently adding only a sprinkle of complications to the mix like a master baker. It's a very subtle and effective way to get us up to speed: we're introduced to Uncle Fred and Sir Raymond here, Uncle Fred's godson in another chapter, Cosmo further along, Cosmo's mother and her doting butler in yet another...before we know it we're up to speed and the pace is roaring along, and the introductions have been so gentle and gradual we haven't realized how complicated all the inter-relations and the plot twists are. It's the literary equivalent of a funfair rollercoaster: starts out slow, but watch out for the aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

As carefully planned and plotted as Cocktail Time is, of course there's still plenty of room for bon mots and sparkling dialogue (especially from the mouth of Uncle Fred). The earlier Wodehouse short story that introduced him, "Uncle Fred Flits By," was made into a short BBC television comedy film, not once but twice, and in the first version David Niven played the illustrious Fred. I've never seen this bit of celluloid, but I can't think of a more appropriate twentieth-century British actor to utter the following:

'...I am confident that the magic of Dovetail Hammer will eventually work. Give him time. It isn't easy for leopards to change their spots.'

'Do they want to?'

'I couldn't say. I know so few leopards.'

or be described in this colorful metaphorical manner:

Lord Ickenham came into the room, concern in every hair of his raised eyebrows. Many men in his place, beholding this poor bit of human wreckage, would have said to themselves 'Oh, my gosh, another toad beneath the harrow' and ducked out quickly to avoid having to listed to the hard luck story which such toads are always so ready to tell, but to the altruistic peer it never occurred to adopt such a course. His was a big heart,. And when he saw a toad not only beneath the harrow but apparently suffering from the effects of one of those gas explosions in London street which slay six, he did not remember an appointment for which he was already late but stuck around and prepared to do whatever lay in his power to alleviate the sufferer's distress.

That, to me, is the secret of Uncle Fred's success and my bullishness for him: he's a hero through and through, ever-ready to help the underdog and the lovelorn, and in the space of Cocktail Time (the P. G. Wodehouse novel, not the Raymond Bastable one) he nurtures and saves the love relationships of not one, not two, but four cooing couples, sending each of them no doubt to the Office of the Registrar immediately after book's end. I think that love connection total is a personal best for Wodehouse, but curiously this is much less a love story than many of Wodehouse's other novels, even including the slightly similar Galahad at Blandings adventures. Uncle Fred patches up spats and brings couples together, including the improbable pairing of Bastable's fifty-year old sister and the family's faithful butler, but those are all subplots, slightly in the background, definitely important but running a close second to the main story of the letter of confession that points the finger of Cocktail Time's authorship at Bastable. The letter is the novel's Silver Cow Creamer (S.C.C.), stolen and passed around like a hot potato, with a sour cream and chive clever twist of being subject to changing attitudes throughout the action. At first Bastable will do anything to prevent the letter from becoming public in order to save his political career, but when the novel's sold to Hollywood producer Ivor Llewellyn (from Bachelors Anonymous and Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin) for a massive pile of cash...well, even Gordon Brown would chuck his political career and admit he wrote Belle du Jour for that. Mix in greedy crooks and the tipsy Cosmo, and clever Uncle Fred has his hands full trying to stay two steps ahead of the lot. Of course he does. Was there any doubt? As Fred himself admits 'Things have a way of getting solved when an Ickenham takes a hand in them.'



The book begins

The train of events leading up to the publication of the novel Cocktail Time, a volume which, priced at twelve shillings and sixpence, was destined to create considerably more than twelve and a half bobsworth of alarm and despondency in one quarter and another, was set in motion in the smoking room of the Drones Club in the early afternoon of a Friday in July.

I didn't spend 12s 6d on any of my many copies of Cocktail Time: I've got a Penguin paperback (with a lovely Ionicus watercolor of Uncle Fred taking Brazil nut-aim at Sir Raymond's shiny topper on the cover), a UK Herbert Jenkins hardcover with a plain typography library jacket that I bought in Santa Fe in '99, (nineteen-, not eighteen-), a wonderful edition of the same Herbert Jenkins hardcover but with a trade jacket featuring a colorful illustration of the smart and stylish Uncle Fred with a girl in his drink (what's that girl doing in his drink? The backstroke?). My very good friend Constance gave me that copy (ta very much Constance!). I've also got an Everyman Wodehouse hardcover reissue edition (with dour Sir Raymond Bastable, sans top hat, on the cover), and a second printing of the US Simon & Schuster hardcover featuring a lively sketch of Fred...yes, he's once again taking aim at that top hat. I especially enjoy the tag line on the cover of the S&S edition: "A novel about a novel." Why yes, yes it is. And you shan't need to spend twelve and six to get Cocktail Time either if you click on the Amazon box to the right. Like a good cocktail itself, it's refreshing, cool, and looks very sophisticated in your hand, and even better yet, you don't have to be 21 to buy it: you just have to have good taste.

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

We gather together to watch cheesy movies

Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving Day in the Bully household means a lot of lovely things: pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream, hot oyster stuffing, smashed potaters, Jones Turkey with Gravy soda, giving thanks for all the wonderful people and animals I'm privileged to know, and then there's the grandest tradition of them all: "Turkey Day": thirty straight hours of Mystery Science Theater 3000. As inspired by the great Joel Robinson during his marathon viewing on Thanksgiving Eve and Day 1992, it's the perfect way to spend the next day and a quarter, watching old bad movies along with Joel or Mike and their two robot pals, Crow and Tom Servo. The Bully version of Turkey Day began at 6 PM this evening with Side Hackers, and we're now into one of my favorite bad spy films, Danger!! Death Ray. Watch along for ten minutes or so with me, won't you?:



Even if you're not spending the next day watching your MST3K tapes and DVDs, you'll be pleased to note that it's a good time to be a MSTie—maybe the first good time since the show actually was cancelled by the Sci Fi Channel. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett are currently releasing a "Film Crew" DVD about once a month, Nelson and various friends continue to offer their downloadable MP3 "Rifftrax" to sync alongside recent popular movies, giving them the MST-style treatment, and Jim Mallon and Paul Chapin, also of the original show, are producing new online Flash cartoons starring Tom Servo and Crow at the Official MST3K Website. Your mileage may vary with any or all of these, as the kids on the internet say, but it's always nice to see new stuff from some of my favorite creators come out, and if you're gonna complain it's not exactly the same as the old stuff, well, you're entitled, but then, what is? Now shut up and watch your "Manos."

Bully-fans with good memories, or those who haven't emptied their browser caches in a while, may remember my post on "Caption This": a Sci Fi Channel era online game that allowed you to post funny comments to accompany as-the-happen screencaps from the Sci Fi Channel's fine schedule of programming. This was the very definition of ephemeral entertainment: since the Caption This screen would only display the most recent dozen or so picture/riff posts, your fast-witting humor would cycle off the site quickly and be lost forever.

This is, if it were not for the aid of "Caption This" fans who saved and preserved many of the CT riffs to their own websites for posterity. (Search around the web and you'll find a nice variety of these sites; here's a representative page which has saved many of the Battlestar Galactica caps. I'd saved a handle of my own caps (I posted under the username "MST4000") as screenshots and showed 'em off to you in my previous post. What I didn't expect from that post was a lovely email from a fellow capper who discovered a handful of MST4000 posts in her Knight Rider collection and thoughtfully passed them back onto me. So here you go—how I used to spend my afternoons: typing furiously to add so-called funny captions to screenshots of Michael Knight and his pals:




















Ah, halcyon days. "Caption This" is long gone, but I still talk back to the television (never at movies; I'm a very well-behaved little stuffed bull, even during Beowulf). But for the rest of my MST3K Turkey Day I'm just gonna curl up on the sofa, munch on turkey nachos, and watch the pros do it:

Don't wait for the trade

Tamora Pierce has an interesting post in her LiveJournal about some "creative editing" done to White Tiger #2 when the issue was reprinted in trade paperback. Seems like Marvel got cold feet over reprinting a reference to a thoughtful and logical spin on the events in Civil War as they would be likely be explored in our universe, if our universe had a guy in a tin suit and a guy in an American flag duking it out in the street. (If only!) Boo on Marvel for chickening out; double-boo on them for altering the reprint of the book without consulting or even notifying the original author.

That's not the first and it won't be the last time a story is altered (even though it's done mildly) from floppy to trade. For example, earlier this year I remember an Outsiders trade altering a sexual reference from the original issue. Yep, I know: it's work-for-hire and Marvel, DC, and the rest have the legal right to alter the original without permission from the writer or artist. This ain't a recent thing, either: remember the reprint of Fantastic Four #1 in a later FF annual which redrew the look of Johnny Storm from Jack Kirby's original to make the Human Torch look more like the latter-day version than the earlier mess o' flame?

Speaking of Johnny Human Torch, here's another alteration from comic to trade that really bugged me when I saw it. It's very minor, yes. But it flies in the face of everything I believe in about comics: it alters and lessens the fun.

Here's the original: the final four panels from the comic book version of Fantastic Four volume 3 #61:

Panels from Fantastic Four v. 3 #61 (November 2002), written by Mark Waid, art by Mike Wieringo, Karl Kesel, and Paul Mounts, lettering by Richard Starkings and Albert Deschesne

And here's the same panels as reprinted in the trade. Look closely: what's different? Note: ignore the slight coloring and shading differences of this image; it's simply my scanning skills at work here. The real difference is a little more subtle.

Panels from Fantastic Four v. 3 #61 as reprinted in the Fantastic Four: Imaginauts trade paperback (2003)






Did you catch it?


I know it's a relatively minor matter beside the perfectly valid complaint Tamora Pierce could make that Marvel has edited her work out of fear of controversy, but this one steams me up because they edited out an absolutely pitch-perfect joke. When I first read that issue and saw the next issue box following Sue's words of wisdom, I cracked up and milk came out of my nose. And I was not even drinking milk!

In short, the trade is a minuscule but significant percent less fun than the original comic. And that's something for which Bully will not stand! More fun in the comics, I say.

Even at the expense of Johnny Storm.

A Wodehouse a Week #30: William Tell Told Again

Hi hi hi hi hi everyone! It's Marshall here presenting tonight's A Wodehouse a Week— yes, Marshall, Bully's kid sister and everyone's favorite tiny stuffed cow. Bully is very very very tired from being at the sales conference all last week (or so he says, looks like it was a lot of parties with his friends every night to me! Hmmmph!) so as he rolled over and yawned and hugged his teddy and snuggled under the sheets he asked if I could handle this week's Wodehouse. "Sure thing, big bro!" I said, enthusiastically, and ran to the big Wodehouse Shelf O' Books as fast as my tiny hooves could carry me.

Tonight's book is pretty apt for a tiny stuffed cow: it's p'raps Mr. Wodehouse's only real children's book, William Tell Told Again, alllllllll the way back from the year 1904. Golly! That's more than ten years ago. I think. Counting is quite difficult on hooves. Even tho' I am quite small, I don't only read children's books, oh no sirree. I am quite a big fan of Miss Jane Austen and Miss Agatha Christie and 'specially Miss Bridget Jones, who is a very good friend of mine in London who lets me read her diaries sometimes, even tho' I don't understand everything she's writing about sometimes. But I like when she counts her cigarettes.

Anyway, William Tell Told Again is 'xactly what it sounds like: a retelling (tee hee) of the famous story of Switzerland's most amazing national hero. He is sort of like Captain America, 'cept instead of a big shiny shield or even a Swiss pocket knife, he carries a bow and arrow. Oh, wait, maybe he's like Hawkeye. Without any unfortunate slang.

You all know the story: ruled over by the evil Austrian governor, the good Swiss folk and their threatened cheese must turn to the strong arm of the one man who can lead a rebellion against the evil Empire: a young farm boy known as Luke Sk...no, wait, I got confused. The mighty bowman known as William Tell! Mister Tell's adventures in inspiring his people to throw off the oppressive rule make a good thrilling story, and even tho' this novella is originally written for kids, I think adults who are fans of Mister Wodehouse or even great swashbuckling adventure. While his early style is a little more straightforward and less whimsical than the later work Bully sometimes reads aloud to me, there's still flashes of Wodehouse wit poking through the story like edelweiss through mountain snow:

Gessler also taxed bread, and biscuits, and jam, and buns, and lemonade, and, in fact, everything he could think of, till the people of Switzerland determined to complain. They appointed Walter Fürst, who had red hair and looked fierce; Werner Stauffacher, who had gray hair and was always wondering how he ought to pronounce his name...

...and he has some fun writing a heckling mob scene as the wicked Governor addresses the crowd:

And punctually at eleven o'clock, Gessler, having finished a capital breakfast, came out on to the top step and spoke to them.

"Ladies and gentlemen,"—he began. (A voice from the crowd: "Speak up!")

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began again, in a louder voice, "if I could catch the man who said 'Speak up!' I would have him bitten in the neck by wild elephants. (Applause.) I have called you to this place to-day to explain to you my reason for putting up a pole, on the top of which is one of my caps, in the meadow just outside the city gates. It is this: You all, I know, respect and love me." Here he paused for the audience to cheer, but as they remained quite silent he went on: "You would all, I know, like to come to my Palace every day and do reverence to me. (A voice: 'No, no!') If I could catch the man who said 'No, no!' I would have him stung on the soles of the feet by pink scorpions; and if he was the same man who said 'Speak up!' a little while ago, the number of scorpions should be doubled. (Loud applause.)

But the heart and soul of the story is that dramatic scene where William Tell confronts the Governor:

"You should always think, Tell. It is very dangerous not to do so. And I suppose that you shot your arrow through the hat without thinking?"

"I was a little carried away by excitement, your Excellency."

"Dear, dear! Carried away by excitement, were you? You must really be more careful, Tell. One of these days you will be getting yourself into trouble. But it seems to have been a very fine shot. You are a capital marksman, I believe?"

"Father's the best shot in all Switzerland," piped a youthful voice. "He can hit an apple on a tree a hundred yards away. I've seen him. Can't you, father?"

Walter, who had run away when the fighting began, had returned on seeing his father in the hands of the soldiers.

Gessler turned a cold eye upon him.

"Who is this?" he asked.

Ooooooooh! Doesn't that put a chill up your spine? The boy is, of course, William Tell's own little son Walter (probably in lederhosen). Threatened by the Governor, William Tell must prove his archery skills by shooting an apple off the head of his son...or both will die. Aieeee! At this point I had to set the book away for a while and go lay down until I had stopped shaking.

Well, I won't risk a SPOILER ALERT by telling (hee hee hee) you the end of the story, but everyone lives happily ever after except for the wicked people in the story. And there is much rejoicing, and applesauce.

When this story was originally published in 1904, the book had lovely illustrations by Mister Philip Dadd (you can see one of them on this page of the wonderful and incredibly useful Russian Wodehouse Society website), but the more modern edition I read today had no illustrations. So I got to make up what the story looked like in my head (which is always fun!) Bully's edition of William Tell Told Again is contained in a 1980 reprint collection entitled The Eighteen-Carat Kid and Other Stories, so reading the other tales between the two covers gave me a lovely sense of some of Mister Wodehouse's other early work. The longer title novella is a school story a bit like, and written during the same time period as, Tales of St. Austin's, but written from the point of view of one of the masters of the school (rather than the boy students) and it's more of an adventure thriller than a comedy: a young rich but unruly transfer student is threatened with kidnapping by American gangsters, and our hero reluctantly protects the bratty young Ogden Ford, leading to an exciting gun battle inside a barn in the dark of a stormy night on the school's deserted grounds. Ooo-ee! Around that point I had to go and lie down again for my nerves. But, like William Tell, there's still a smattering of Mister Wodehouse's whimsy and clever dialogue, as in this scene where the blustery Headmaster confronts the new student:

'How dare you smoke, boy? How dare you smoke that cigarette?'

'It's the only one I've got,' responded Ogden, amiably.

Like Mister Wodehouse's later country house romances, there's butlers who are Not What They Seem To Be and double-crossed criminal plans and a Jim Dandy of an O. Henry twist at the end when we find out who really hired the kidnappers and why. (Once again, everybody lives happily ever after, even the bad guys, who despite a few sinisterly-aimed bullets, aren't really that bad after all.) In fact, the whole story bears a handful of resemblances to O. Henry's famous "The Ransom of Red Chief" with its plot of a young terror of a kidnap victim, but the execution and plot are purely Mister Wodehouse.

There's also two short stories in the collection. "The Prize Poem" is a St. Austin's school story of students inadvertently all turning in the same verses for a creative writing contest. It's the first short story he ever had published in a magazine (in 1901) and it shows up again as a chapter in Tales of St. Austin's. But I 'specially enjoyed the short story "The Wire-Pullers," which is a story told by—I think—the only first-person female narrator in all of Mister Wodehouse's big cannon canon. As a girl myself, I very much applaud that. Did you ever think you would see words by Mister Wodehouse on the page like this?:

It was a beautiful day on the Monday. I wore my pink sprigged muslin with a pink sash and the pink chiffon hat Aunt Edith sent from Paris. Fortunately, the sun was quite hot, so I was able to have my pink parasol up the whole time, and words can't express its tremendous duckiness.

You can't imagine those words coming out of the mouth of Bertie Wooster, can you? Maybe Bingo Little. Not Bertie Wooster.



This is the point in the review where Bully tells you where you can go to get the book because you will almost certainly want and need to read it now. I have provided you with two choices above in the clever little Amazon boxes that take you right to internet shopping (almost as good as going to the mall, but no Orange Julius). One link is to get yourself The Eighteen-Carat Kid like Bully has, or you might prefer a public domain paperback reprint of William Tell Told Again plus what appears to be some other stuff in A Wodehouse Miscellany. But since Bully's snoring loudly and is fast asleep, I'll let you in on Marshall's tiny secret: if you want, you can read William Tell for free online! Go to the very super-secret Project Gutenberg page on the Russian Wodehouse Society website and check out a free e-text of the book! Hooray! Another triumph for out of copyright works and for those of us who don't have much money to spare because we only get six cents a week in allowance (for my totally excellent job of brushing the kittycat everyday). Tell 'em Bully's kid sister Marshall sent you. I think you'll enjoy it. Words can't express its tremendous duckiness.

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

Ten of a Kind: My truth comes out, my mask falls to the floor/I see the face that I got

(More Ten of a Kind here.)

Separated at Birth: You're fired, Superman!

L: Trump: The Art of the Deal book jacket, originally published 1988
R: Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography (January 1989), art by Eric Peterson
(Click picture to apprenti-size)

Sunday Late Afternoon Cartoon: One Tin Soldier

Just because I slept through most of Saturday doesn't mean you don't get the usual weekend features, folks! Just not on Saturday morning, is all!


"One Tin Soldier" by Coven, animated by John Wilson

"Hi hi hi" to Ed from me and my pal Meg!

Meg says she misses you lots and she will be home soon. But in the meantime, we're havin' lotsa fun here, so don't be too sad, Ed!

Now can we go out for pizza an' ice cream, Meg?

Bee Arr Bee

Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun now takes a brief hiatus for your little stuffed truly to attend sales conference with my pal John, which is always fun. I get to learn about new books and how to sell them. I hope there are books about pirates this year! There are never enough.

It's a brief time away from blogging, however: I'll be back at my tiny keyboard this Saturday will all the usual weekend features. Have a wonderful week and be good to yourselves and others.

And, as always...

A Wodehouse a Week #29: A Few Quick Ones

'Gesundheit,' said a Draught Ale.

'I wasn't sneezing, I was snorting,' said the Whisky-and-Splash. Disgustedly, he added, 'Why do they publish these things?'

'What things would that be?'

'These stories, illustrated in glorious technicolor, where the fellow meets the girl on the beach, and they start kidding back and forth, and twenty minutes after they've seen each other for the first time, they're engaged to be married.'

Mr Mulliner took a sip from his Scotch and lemon.

'You find that unconvincing?'

'Yes, I do. I am a married man, and it took me two years and more boxes of chocolates than I care to think of to persuade the lady who is now my wife to sign on the dotted line. And though it is not for me to say so, I was a pretty fascinating chap in those days. Ask anybody.'

Mr Mulliner nodded.

'Your point is well taken. But you must make allowances for the editor of the Saturday Evening Post. He lives in a world of his own, and really does think that two complete strangers can meet in bathing suits on the beach and conclude their initial conversation by becoming betrothed....'
—from "The Right Approach" in A Few Quick Ones


Every year on December 25th Father Christmas brings me all sorts of goodies, but one of the gifts I love best is the annual Whitman's Sampler box of chocolate. Last year I got the big Mega-Sampler with 365 pieces of chocolate, which I guess the idea of is to eat a piece of candy each and every day and by the time you get to the bottom of the you'll be unwrapping a new one under the festive tree. That's in theory. Of course, around about the afternoon of December 28th when I was sifting through the empty wrapped and upending the box with a frenzied shake to try and find one last piece, it doesn't always work that way. But I 'specially love the patented unique feature of the Whitman's Sampler: the candy-coded chart inside every box that tells you what you're biting into, whether it's a smooth silky Caramel Creme, a frosty Peppermint Patty, or a surprising Crunchy Frog.

Aside from the mention of boxes of chocolates in the excerpt above, what's all that got to do with P. G. Wodehouse, you ask? Well, it's because this week I'm reading A Few Quick Ones (1959), an omnibus of short stories featuring all his greatest characters. No, that's not "omnibus" as in a big red vehicle driven around by London Transport (altho' those are loads of fun, too) but an anthology collection of stories which, like a big box of lovely chockies, makes the perfect companion to snuggling up in your favorite armchair on a rainy afternoon. And there isn't a lemon crème among them.

Befitting the title, I'll make this review a quick one (as I'm on my way out the door heading for sales conference, where I will pay close attention and take lots of notes on exciting books) and basically give A Few Quick Ones two hooves up as one of the delightfully well-mixed authorized anthologies that were published during Wodehouse's lifetime, consisting of stories originally published in a wide variety of magazines in both the US and UK. How wide a variety? Well, The Saturday Evening Post (poking a bit of fun at himself and his stories in the excerpt above) and The Strand should come as no surprise—Wodehouse published regularly in both. A Jeeves and Wooster heist story originally appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. There's stories here from the famous Punch and Collier's and the wonderfully titled John Bull magazine. There's even a couple that originally appeared in Playboy, which is a magazine a little stuffed bull is not allowed to look at, even though from that name it must be full of all sorts of playground and outdoors fun and japes for the active boy.

Name a famous Wodehouse creation and he's probably in here: Bertie and Jeeves of course (Aunt Dahlia has Bertie steal a painting, chaos ensues), Bertie's pal Bingo Little (Bingo tries to make a bit of ready money without his wife finding out, chaos ensues), Drones member Oofy Prosser (Oofy indulges in get-rich-quick schemes, chaos ensues), The Oldest Member and Mr. Mulliner (tales are told about hapless golfers and Mulliner family members, chaos etc. etc.), and, depending on which edition of the book you have in your own hooves (because it isn't in some of the earlier US printings), Ukridge (oh, nothing ever goes right for him). Even Lord Emsworth pops up in one of his rare non-Blandings appearances, kind-heartedly selling richly-bound encyclopedias of sport and unknowingly blackmailing rogue George Spenlow into purchasing a gross of the things. As Emsworth's is the only story in this collection where the desired scheme comes off without a hitch (although not in precisely the way he intended), one might presume the moral of the story is "be vaguely unaware about what you're doing and you shall succeed."

Wodehouse, of course, is fully aware of what he's doing here: these nine short stories are tight and intricately plotted with hardly a misplaced word or description: this is the well-polished Wodehouse of the post-War period, and one of the things that impresses me when comparing short stories and full-length novels featuring the same characters is that Wodehouse doesn't simply compress a novel to make a short story (or vice-versa)—he has very different approaches and, I might imagine, even internal rules about which plots work as stories and which as novels. The Jeeves story comes closest to following the pattern of its big novel brothers: Bertie's invited to a country house and reluctantly persuaded by Aunt Dahlia to steal a hideous painting. Of course he accidentally steals the wrong one in the dead of night—and, at Dahlia's instructions, destroys it:

With the three of us sparing no effort, we soon completely the work in hand. I had scarcely got through my first whisky and s. and was beginning on another, when all that was left of the Venus, not counting the ashes, was the little bit at the south-east end which Jeeves was holding. He was regarding it with what seemed to me a rather thoughtful eye.

'Excuse me, madam,' he said. 'Did I understand you to say that Mr Fothergill senior's name was Edward?'

'That's right. Think of him as Eddie, if you wish. Why?'

'It is merely that the picture we have with us appears to be signed "Everard Fothergill", madam. I thought I should mention it.'

To say that aunt and nephew did not take this big would be paltering with the truth. We skipped like the high hills....

...'Bertie,' said Aunt Dahlia, speaking in a voice of the kind which I believe is usually called strangled and directing at me the sort of look which in the days when she used to hunt with the Quorn and occasionally the Pytchley she would have given a hound engaged in chasing a rabbit, 'Bertie, you cursed of the civilised world if you've burned the wrong picture...'

But he has and he did. In a Jeeves novel this would probably be a mid-point of the adventure«maybe about three-quarters of the way through, following an intricate ballet of all cast members roaming the manse at midnight. In a short story, however, Wodehouse paces this revelation a couple pages from the end, giving him time to throw in another twist (turns out everyone wanted the painting destroyed for one reason or another) and wrapping it up with a pithy word from Jeeves. The different between the short story and a similar novel is more than just compression or characters—both are perfectly paced for their length but the climaxes ride on different points of importance. (The painting revelation would have been one minor point in a novel rather than the turning point in the short story.) I'll leave it to more knowledgeable literary scholars to map out the exact rise and fall of plots and action and compare their sine waves to each other, but a short story for Wodehouse is more than simply a shorter roller-coaster ride: it's a whole other attraction but just as spellbinding.

The shortened length of a story, however, does not mean he doesn't get to display his usual wonderful turns of phrases and prose:

His gloom was not lightened by the sight of the cold collation which leered at him on his return to the house. There was the tray of which Freddie has spoken, and on it a plate which, like corpses after a battle, lay a slice of vermilion ham, a slice of sepia corned beef, a circle of mauve liverwurst and, of all revolting things, a large green pickle. It seemed to Lord Emsworth that Freddie's domestic staff was temperamentally incapable of distinguishing between the needs of an old gentleman who had to be careful of what he ate and those of a flock of buzzards taking pot luck in the Florida Everglades.

...or this lovely paragraph detailing the quick rise and fall from fortune of Mister Bingo Little:

Now, though at the moment when he made this fine gesture Bingo actually had ten quid in his possession, having touched Purkiss for an advance on his salary, one would have expected him, thinking things over in the cold grey light of the morning after, to kick himself soundly for having been such an ass as to utter those unguarded words, committing himself as they did to a course of conduct which would strip him of his last bean. But such was not the case. Still mellowed by a father's love, all he thought next day was that as a gift to a superchild like Algernon Aubrey a tenner was a bit on the cheese-paring side. Surely twenty would be far more suitable. And he could pick that up by slapping his ten on Hot Potato in the two-thirty at Haydock Park. At dinner the previous night he had burned his mouth by incautiously placing in it a fried spud about ninety degrees Fahrenheit warmer than he had supposed it to be, and he is always far too inclined to accept omens like this as stable information. He made the investment, accordingly, and at two-forty-five was informed by the club tape that he was now penniless.

...or, the courting ritual of two avid golfers:

'Old blighter,' he said tenderly, 'let's get married right away, before there can be any more misunderstandings and rifts and what not. How about Tuesday?'

'Can't Tuesday. Mixed foursomes.'

'Wednesday?'

'Can't Wednesday. Bogey competition.'

'And Thursday I'm playing in the invitation tournament at Squashy Heath,' said Sidney McMurdo. 'Oh, well, I daresay we shall manage to find a day when we're both free.'

So, in "short" (tee hee) A Few Quick Ones is a Whitman's Sampler with all the coconut pieces pre-removed. But It's not as easy to find as a Whitman's Sampler, I'm afraid: it's out of print in the US and UK (my own sole edition is a Coronet mass market paperback from the late 1980s). While I'm sure sooner or later Overlook will get around to publishing this great assortment chock-full-o-laffs in their Complete Wodehouse hardcover edition, for the moment you'll have to look for cheap used copies or haunt your local library. Just remember to lick your chocolately fingers clean before handling the pages.

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

Ten of a Kind: Wanna see my picture on the cover/Gonna buy five copies for my mother

(More Ten of a Kind here.)

Separated at Birth: "Wow."

L: The Big All-American Comic Book #1 (1944), art by Sheldon Mayer, Howard Purcell, E. E. Hibbard, Martin Naydel, and others
R: 9-11 #2 (2002), art by Alex Ross
(Click picture to hero-size)

Saturday Morning Cartoon: The Rutles "Cheese and Onions"

"Cheese and Onions" by The Rutles from The Rutles: All You Need is Cash (1978), song written by Neil Innes

Veterans Day: Friday Night Fights: The Real Fighters

We're comic book fans. We like our heroes strong-hearted, our adventures high-spirited, and our fights big, bold, and bombastic:


And there's nothing wrong with that.

But tonight I want to focus on a different kind of fighter. A different kind of fight. A different breed of hero. The real ones.


from Up Front by Bill Mauldin (1945)
Sunday is Veterans Day (observed this year on Monday, November 12). Not just a holiday off or a day the banks and post offices are closed. It's a day to remember, honor, and salute America's fighting men and women who have protected and battled...and many have died...for our rights and lives, in our World Wars and other conflicts.


Much as we'd like to picture it, Captain America and the Invaders didn't win wars. Nor was it muscled-ripped, gung-ho Sergeants Rock or Fury. It was the fighting forces of America and her allies, soldiers like Bill Mauldin's war-weary, unshaven Willie and Joe...the quintessential WWII G. I. Joes. The Real American Heroes.


In the best traditional of editorial cartooning, Mauldin's "tell it like it is" cartoon reporting straight from the frontline infuriated General George Patton for daring to portray the troops as anything but clean-shaven, well-turned-out, battle-professional soldiers. Mauldin had his champion in Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower, however, who overruled Patton. The cartoons—and Mauldin—were great favorites of the military men and women for portraying the battlefield as it happens to be: grim, muddy, unglamorous, and black-humored.


Salute and honor these men and women, veterans not just WWII but of all America's wars, on Monday—and every day. They never fought Darkseid or Doctor Doom. They never teamed up with Captain America or the Justice Society. But they fought the good fight.


Bahlactus's Friday Night Fights.