That'll do, PG

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:07:40 GMT

Too many people forget that February 14^th is also PG Wodehouse’s death anniversary (in spite of the fact being mentioned at the back of most Penguin editions). As far as India is concerned, PGW’s death preceded Valentines Day celebrations and Shiv Sena madness by 20 years or so. I’ve been a fan of Wodehouse ever since I picked up “Laughing Gas” on a friend’s recommendation in 1993 and learnt the vital lesson that attempting to kiss a girl on the neck is not a good idea when the cigar is still in your mouth. “Something fresh” was next – my first in the Blandings Saga - and that had the unforgettable staircase sequence. More Wodehouse followed (Stiff Upper lip Jeeves, the Code of the Woosters, Leave it to Psmith, Ukridge, The Girl on the Boat, Hot Water, etc.) and with it the realization that the world is divided into people who adore PGW and people who gave up after chapter 3. I used to be pretty annoyed when I’d come across people who fell into the second category…until an uncle of mine (deceased, God rest his soul) mentioned that he pitied them for missing out on all the fun. Anyway, lets just say that I’m a big fan, have a lot of PGW’s finest in single, pirated, second-hand, soft copy and Omnibus format and recently paid 500 bucks for a hard cover of “The code of the Woosters” with minimum regret and with the firm belief that it’s the best Jeeves and Wooster novel of the lot.

Here’s an extract from “Uneasy Money.” Not like its his best, but an example of his consistently funny routine…and it’s the only PGW that I’ve managed to read in soft copy.

***

The village of Brookport, Long Island, is a summer place. It lives, like the mosquitoes that infest it, entirely on its summer visitors. At the time of the death of Mr Ira Nutcombe, the only all-the-year-round inhabitants were the butcher, the grocer, the chemist, the other customary fauna of villages, and Miss Elizabeth Boyd, who rented the ramshackle farm known locally as Flack's and eked out a precarious livelihood by keeping bees.

If you take down your _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Volume III, AUS to BIS, you will find that bees are a 'large and natural family of the zoological order Hymenoptera, characterized by the plumose form of many of their hairs, by the large size of the basal segment of the foot ... and by the development of a "tongue" for sucking liquid food,' the last of which peculiarities, it is interesting to note, they shared with Claude Nutcombe Boyd, Elizabeth's brother, who for quite a long time--till his money ran out--had made liquid food almost his sole means of sustenance. These things, however, are by the way. We are not such snobs as to think better or worse of a bee because it can claim kinship with the _Hymenoptera_ family, nor so ill-bred as to chaff it for having large feet. The really interesting passage in the article occurs later, where it says: 'The bee industry prospers greatly in America.'

This is one of those broad statements that invite challenge.

Elizabeth Boyd would have challenged it. She had not prospered greatly. With considerable trouble she contrived to pay her way, and that was all. Again referring to the 'Encyclopaedia,' we find the words: 'Before undertaking the management of a modern apiary, the beekeeper should possess a certain amount of aptitude for the pursuit.' This was possibly the trouble with Elizabeth's venture, considered from a commercial point of view. She loved bees, but she was not an expert on them. She had started her apiary with a small capital, a book of practical hints, and a second-hand queen, principally because she was in need of some occupation that would enable her to live in the country. It was the unfortunate condition of Claude Nutcombe which made life in the country a necessity. At that time he was spending the remains of the money left him by his aunt, and Elizabeth had hardly settled down at Brookport and got her ventureunder way when she found herself obliged to provide for Nutty a combination of home and sanatorium. It had been the poor lad's mistaken view that he could drink up all the alcoholic liquor in America.

It is a curious law of Nature that the most undeserving brothers always have the best sisters. Thrifty, lodding young men, who get up early, and do it now, and catch the employer's eye, and save half their salaries, have sisters who never speak civilly to them except when they want to borrow money. To the Claude Nutcombes of the world are vouchsafed the Elizabeths.

The great aim of Elizabeth's life was to make a new man of Nutty. It was her hope that the quiet life and soothing air of Brookport, with--unless you counted the money-in-the-slot musical box at the store--its absence of the fiercer excitements, might in time pull him together and unscramble his disordered nervous system. She liked to listen of a morning to the sound of Nutty busy in the next room with a broom and a dustpan, for in the simple lexicon of Flack's there was no such word as 'help'. The privy purse would not run to a maid. Elizabeth did the cooking and Claude Nutcombe the housework.

***

Happy Valentines Day folks!

This is practice: Books

That'll do, PG