Wodehouse On Wodehouse

by P.G. Wodehouse

1 Bring on the Girls (with Guy Bolton) 1954
2 Performing Flea 1953
3 Over Seventy 1957
Autobiographical account published first by Herbert Jenkins UK. American editions differ "quite substantially", last 2 titled "Author! Author!" and "America, I Like You".

Genres: Autobiography, Biography, Nonfiction, Humor, British Literature, Memoir

655 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Rakhi Dalal]

No one can say I didn't give it a try. I read some 60 pages and just felt bored. I don't know if I will ever read a Wodehouse again. No rating for this one.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

an interesting collection of non-fiction, the first section is co-written by wodehouse's musical theatre partner, guy bolton, presented in third person, and generally recounts the time they spent making musical theatre. some very funny stories retold, and the scope of wodehouse's love and inspiration through musical theatre revealed.

the second work, performing flea, is a collection of letters sent to an old school friend, and minor writer, and my favourite part of the book because it's full of book recommendations, and talk about pekes, and cats, and getting older, and writing advice, and truly shows what an interesting and generous person wodehouse really was at heart, in addition to giving some insights into his methodology.

the third is called over seventy... and purports to being some kind of autobiography shaped by some questionnaire received by wodehouse in the mail. he lists out the questions and tries to answer them but invariable digresses. it was funny but much more like robert benchley than like wodehouse (which i now know is pronounced "woodhouse").

[Anne Patkau · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Bring on the girls" is author's professed solution, with pal Guy Bolton, to fixing problems in their string of "smash hit" p 69 musicals. "I can't write plays without Guy" p 387. He scoffs at name droppers, but does his fair share here, some passages repeat in "What ho!", temptress to Hollywood "The Girl in the Pink Bathing Suit" ch 17 p 616. Wife Ethel appears intermittently. He quotes supposedly true stories, about gamblers, a Colonel bamboozled by woman claiming to be a loser's wife, then Flo Ziegfeld travelling down on same train to Palm Beach Florida "in the humble 'lowers'" p 119, "George Gershwin" p 131, others we have forgotten in next century 2014.

Marion Davies was a knockout at "eighteen .. Justine [Johnstone] a year and a half older. Both wore mink coats that even a masculine eye could see were the best that the mink family had to offer. Both wore a spray of [rare hothouse] orchids as if orchids were an everyday affair - which for them they were. Diamonds sparkled at their wrists and glistened more discreetly through the sheer black silk stocking that covered Marion's slender ankle" p 55.

In "Performing Flea", letters to William 'Bill' Townend, London "Grovesnor Square, April 28th, 1925" p 263 "lunch with Conan Doyle .. still revere his work as much as ever. I used to think it swell, and I still think it swell" p 264. "Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk, June 26, 1926 .. putting in a week or two here. It's one of those enormous houses, about two-thirds of which are derelict" p 267.

Trivialities share pages with stars "moat .. duck" accompany "Guy Bolton .. Gertrude Lawrence .. George Gershwin is doing the music .. means that Ira Gershwin will write the lyrics" p 267. "MGM studios October 26th, 1930" p 288 "Last night Maureen O'Sullivan brought her new Peke round here .. a Peke only resents Peke visitors in the actual house. Leave it to Psmith .. £2017 the first week at the Shaftesbury ..a lot of free seats had to be given away .. February 25th, 1931 .. I have been away for a week at Hearst's ranch .. 440K acres, more than the whole of Long Island!" p 290.

"Maureen O'Sullivan's Peke is still with us. She - the Peke, not Maureen - snores like twenty dogs and sleeps under the bed .. ugliest and greediest hound I ever met, but full of charm" p 294. "Beverly Hills, Sept. 14, 1931" p 295 "We dined last night with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. She is a most intelligent woman, quite unlike the usual movie star. I talked to her all the evening. (Probably bored her stiff.)" p 296.

"Alpes Maritimes, March 6th, 1932 .. move in on Thursday. We have taken it for a year. It is sort of Provençal country-house, with 100 acres of hillside and large grounds and a huge swimming-pool. It ought to be lovely in summer. Just at the moment it is a bit bleak" p 298.

"Low Wood, Le Touquet, October 5th, 1934" p 308 "I am very fit .. four-mile walk .. dogs for runs .. steady fifty miles a week" p 309. "Voyage without End .. absolute masterpiece" p 312, yet cannot be found today. 'Plum' offers his letter reader Townend, a plot about a "man at Ascot with a rich but unpleasant wife. I pity him, and you, who know him, tell me he is one of the happiest men you know" p 314.

Advice on one page can be reversed on another. "Isn't it odd how one can spoil a story by being too leisurely in telling it?" p 317. His dogs are his passion "March 10th 1935 What asses Pekes are!" after "ten days separation" have "six fights in the first ten minutes" before "settled down" p 318. Also he follows [British soccer] after all these years one can still be as keen on school football" p 381.

"1315 Angelo Drive, Beverly Hills, California, November 7th, 1936" p 326 "nice pool .. remote" p 327 "thick black hair on my now bald head. .. swim every morning .. Haven't seen many celebrities yet. We don't see much of anybody except our beloved Maureen O'Sullivan and her husband John Farrow .. I met Clark Gable the other day. Also Fred Astaire" p 328.

"November 29th, 1938 Winkie is dead. I can hardly bear to write about it. The usual thing - tick fever. Same as Boo. I went up to Paris to join Ethel on Monday, taking her with me, and thought she was more than usually fit"- Winkie, not Ethel p 342.

Other authors' opinions on age can entertain "heading for seventy .. (Extract from book I was reading the other day: 'Latterly his mind had been going to seed rather. He was getting on toward seventy, you see')" p 379.

"Pavillon Henri Quatre, St Germain-en-Laye. November 1st, 1946" p 380. "This is a heavenly place. Nine miles out of Paris, but right in the country. This hotel is on the edge of a terrace .. to the left .. is a forest .. house where Louis the Fourteenth was born, if that interests you" p 381.

"November 20th, 1946." Rarely does larger world intervene. "Life is really terrible for women these days" p 383. "Life nowadays has got down to simplicities. All that matters is three meals a day and light and warmth. Here we are all right for food, in fact extremely well off, but every Monday and Friday there is no electric light till six in the evening, which means that the heating subsides to nothing" p 383.

Publisher "Grimsdick of Jenkins is very agitated about this [food descriptions] .. cause an uproar .. changed the fried egg to a sardine and cut out the steak .. But .. Agatha Christie's The Hollow .. people in it simply gorge .. encouraged .. ignoring present conditions in England" p 384.

"1000 Park Avenue, New York" "December 16, 1949" "I always find a great charm in Canada, and sometimes toy with the idea of settling there .. In 1931 .. day with Stephen Leacock .. never set eyes on each other again" p 399.

"September 10th, 1952 "a television set? I swore I would never get one, but finally yielded .. What a loathsome invention it is" p 413. It is "the foulest, ghastliest, loathsomest nightmare .. programmes .. drivelling half-witted" p 613. Regarding "laughter .. tinned or bottled .. mummified mirth" could be from "ancient days by emporer and clown, as Keats put it" .. "laugh machine" p 610.

He would have preferred to have been interviewed decades before. "1906 or thereabouts. I really was an eyeful then. Triim athletic figure, finely chiseled features and more hair on top of my head than you could shake a stick at" p 614.

"1941" p 440 year only comes up late in Chapter Six "Huy Day by Day" p 418, before "barbed wire" and "lice" p 444 for "prison camp .. cooped up for a year with 1300 men of all trades and professions" p 416 on barely bread and water.

"Internee Bob Shepherd, the camp trombonist .. wandering .. puzzled .. muttering, 'I have been here before' .. one of the English soldiers .. quartered at the local lunatic asylum .. barbed wire .. prevented Bob recognizing the old place at first .. Tost Lunatic Asylum .. Tost is no beauty spot. It lies in the heart of the sugar-beet country .. flat dullness about the country-side which has led many a visitor to say, 'If this is Upper Silesia, what must Lower Silesia be like?'" p 428.

"August 3rd 'First night at Huy. Arrived at four-thirty .. forty of us in a room large enough for about fifteen. No beds. Not even straw on the floor .. No blankets .. Parade was at eight-thirty on the first morning. The morning was given up to cleaning" p 418. This is supposed to be a never-published book manuscript "Wodehouse in Wonderland" from collection of letters, yet "morning" repeats. Humor sneaks in despite gruesome subject. "By the time we have finished, you will be able to eat your dinner off Belgium .. fourteen kilos of macaroni" p 418 "A less conscientious [cook] man might have put in a couple of small Belgians [for flavor]" p 419.

As punishment, the "elderly internees" p 421 under guard by similarly "elderly reservists" p 420, are confined to barracks, the Kommandant forgetting "they are jolly well confined to barracks already" p 422. One guard baffled as to status "prisoners of war .. he didn't think so. 'Civil prisoners?' 'No." .. look on us as just acts of God" p 424.

Does Plum praise editorial cuts or slip famous names in subtly? "Kipling's autobiography maintains that the principal thing in writing is to cut. Somerset Maugham says the same. Kipling says it's like raking the slag out of a fire to make the fire burn brighter. I know just what he means. You can skip as you read, but if the superfluous stuff is here, it affects you just the same. The trouble is to know what to cut" p 375.

He invents many conversations. Like his "Bring in the girls", Shakespeare suggests "Bring on the bears" to Marlowe p 518 "the first hundred years were the hardest". Add Bacon and Earl of Oxford to write "Antony and Cleopatra" p 604.

By "Over Seventy", he looks back on career fondly. "I had a great deal of fun - one-sided possibly - writing all my books ..What makes a writer write is that he likes writing" p 530. He makes fun of letters to the editor, requiring addition of "cuckoo"p 531.

Conversations - Bacon, Marlowe p 604 - and verses embellish throughout. "Dog food suitable for .. Pekinese" and "Diamond necklace suitable for A wife" p 538. "In addition to watching his diet, the septuagenarian must, of course, have exercise" p 583. "I make a practice of smoking all day and far into the night" p 584. "I prefer living in the country" p 588. Even "a mob of pigeons" chat "We'll have to fix Wodehouse" p 594.

The senior loftily regards "kids of sixty-eight" p 597. He can imagine a taxi-driver threatened by a "switch-knife" in a "stick-up" as "Mr Lomonaco, intrigued" who offers cigars "mild" to armed Elmer Hinitz p 601. Skip to limericks p 603, one for Tennyson "There was a young fellow called Artie" for "Idylls of the King" p 604 - reminds me of "Shrek" film.

"I have written quite happily on ocean liners during gales, with the typewriter falling into my lap .. writing my stories - or at any rate rewriting them - I enjoy. It is the thinking them out that puts those dark circles under my eyes" p 643.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. His charm and wit are evident. He and his co-author, Guy Bolton, shape stories in Bring on the Girls to make the most mundane interactions and life in the early musical theater (following vaudeville) readable. I wish I had gotten it as an ebook because so many of the references were before my time (and I'm old). I researched, for example, more about Fred Astaire and his sister and about the early days of musicals. His letters in the second section about writing were the most revealing about him as a person as they were not as studied as the other essays. All in all, I would recommend it as more Wodehouse writing but not as much about the man.

[Sudeshna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolute must for anyone who is a Wodehouse fan. Not only do you get to know Wodehouse at a close angle but you also know that his books are so happy and full of life because that is the kind of person that he himself was. Loved living his life and always saw the goodness in others. Always! And that is the spirit of the man that comes through in all his books too.

[Malcolm]

You know this could possibly be my "desert island" book.

It's as funny and fresh now as when I first read it over twenty years ago.

[Stephen Burridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omnibus volume containing 3 previously published more or less autobiographical books from the 1950s. “Bring on the Girls”, co-written with Guy Bolton, recalls the authors’ collaboration on successful musical comedies in the 1920s and earlier. Lots of highly polished anecdotes about famous Broadway names of the period. “Performing Flea” is the most substantial and interesting of the three. It consists mainly of letters written by Wodehouse over many years to an old schoolfellow and longtime friend, a less successful writer named W.P. Townend. There is discussion of the craft of writing, opinions on various other writers, and descriptions of the author’s day to day life. There is also a memoir of Wodehouse’s experiences in a German internment camp in WW2, very interesting if you are at all interested in Wodehouse’s life. The third of the books, “Over Seventy”, was to me the least interesting, mainly just general facetiousnness about life in the 1950s, vaguely contrasted with the way things used to be. Barely worth the read.

As a whole, though, a very interesting and entertaining volume.

[Olly Colluphid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really three very different books.

Bring on the Girls: an account of Wodehouse/Boulton as writers of plays. It is bright and breezy but does suffer from descending into lists of plays and people.

Fortunately Performing Flea being made of PGW letters to Bill Townend makes for a change of tone. It is much less the polished public writing as a result. There is quite a bit of interest, especially the final chapter on the internment.

Finally, Over Seventy is a rather bizarre memoir. The asides are funny, but do rather remind you that PGW is very much a man of his time.

None of the three outstays it's welcome and they complement each other nicely. One for fans rather than casual readers I should imagine though.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some incredible anecdotes here. This is three books-- the first is a hilarious joint memoir covering early days of Broadway and West End plus forays into other works. You get cameos from George Gershwin and Ziegfeld (and his follies)! The second is a collection of letters to a friend who is a fellow author. Really good insights on his writing process, time in Hollywood, and a LOT on his love of his Pekinese dogs. The third isn't as good, in my opinion, Wodehouse has some good anecdotes around a selection of different themes, but a lot of the time he comes across as a grumpy old man. I mean, in fairness to him, he was an old man by this point...

[Mark Farley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three non-fiction books in one. The first a narrative biography about Wodehouse's theatre producer days in London and New York. The second is a collection of letters to a friend and the third is the only Wodehouse penned autobiography or memoir of sorts. For Wodehouse fans, its essential reading and very informative and entertaining. Personally, as a fan of the Jeeves books and as a writer, its fascinating to read the history and backstory of not only the characters but also to read of the authors reservations and insecurities about even his timeless work.

[VENKATRAMAN C K · Rating 5 out of 5]

collection of essays full of dry wit from the master.