Well-read Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse

I was midway through P.G. Wodehouse's Full Moon before it occurred to me I should have been making note of each literary reference. He employs them by the score, usually for comic effect, not just in this novel but in so much of his work. Readers of the Jeeves stories will recall instances when one of Bertie's challenges, or perhaps his own pluck in facing that challenge, reminds him of something he read in public school, but he can't quite put his finger on it. Jeeves, the manservant who never had the advantage of that kind of education, immediately quotes the line and cites the source. These exchanges never fail to amuse.

In this Blandings novel, as well, the literary references are plentiful and, whatever their original intent, Wodehouse uses them for humor. Here are some examples, all from the novel's second half:

"He was not in the market for sunshine. Given his choice, he would have scrapped this glorious morning, flattering the mountain tops with sovereign eye, and substituted for it something more nearly resembling the weather conditions of King Lear, Act Two." (page 143)

"Anybody who wishes to be clear on Tipton Plimsoll's feelings at this juncture has only to skim through the pages of Masefield's Reynard the Fox. The sense of being a hunted thing was strong upon him." (page 158)

"It is a truism to say that the best-laid plans are often disarranged and sometimes even defeated by the occurrence of some small unforeseen hitch in the programme. The poet Burns, it will be remembered, specifically warns the public to budget for this possibility." (page 164)

"... the poet Coleridge, had he been present, would have jerked a thumb at him with a low-voiced: 'Don't look now, but that fellow over there will give you some idea of what I had in mind when I wrote about the man who on honeydew had fed and drunk the milk of Paradise.'" (page 214)

"'Bothering passes me by as the idle wind which I respect not.'
"'That's Shakespeare, isn't it?'
"'I shouldn't wonder. Most of the good gags are.'" (page 222)

And so it goes. Wodehouse was a busy writer, always with several projects going on at once. He usually wrote quickly to meet book and magazine deadlines. Yet he apparently took time to read, as well, or else unlike Bertie Wooster, he remembered everything he read in public school.