In the presence of Nazis

Reading P.G. Wodehouse's Full Moon it can difficult to believe he wrote the novel behind enemy lines, a prisoner or virtual prisoner of the Nazi army. This Blandings story is as light, frantic and hilarious as any he wrote.

Biographer Robert McCrum cites the following lines from the novel to suggest what might really have been going on in Wodehouse's mind during this period: "In every situation, when the spirit has been placed upon the rack and peril seems to threaten from every quarter, there inevitably comes soon or late to the interested party at the centre of the proceedings a conviction that things are getting too hot. Stags at bay have this feeling. So have Red Indians at the stake. It came now to Bill."

Well, maybe. But Wodehouse had lines much like those in many of his novels. His characters were always getting into impossible situations, then getting out again thanks to Jeeves, Galahad, Freddie or some other hero. What amazes me is that he could write so breezily in France or Germany, wherever he happened to be at the time, with a war going on around him, sometimes within his hearing.

Wodehouse plots often revolve around young love, the problem of making a marriage possible despite all obstacles. In Full Moon, he doubles the stakes, giving readers two couples in love. In one case, the suitor, an American millionaire the girl's parents would welcome into the family needs a drink to work up the courage to ask her to marry him, but every time he takes a nip he sees an image of a frightful-looking man. That frightful-looking man is actually Bill, who despite his looks is a wonderful man, but one with little money. This girl's mother erects strong defenses to keep Bill away from Blandings Castle. Not until the last few pages does Wodehouse work all this out to the satisfaction of everyone, especially the reader.

When one reviews a Wodehouse novel, it can be all but impossible to refrain from quoting a few of his most notable lines. They are just too choice to pass up. Normally these are the funniest lines in the story, but the lines that struck me most powerfully in Full Moon were those that open the novel, which aren't funny at all but rather quite beautiful. It goes on for a page or more, but here is a sampling:

"The refined moon which served Blandings Castle and district was nearly at its full, and the ancestral home of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, had for some hours now been flooded by its silver rays. They shone on turret and battlement; peeped respectfully in upon Lord Emsworth's sister, Lady Hermione Wedge, as she creamed her face in the Blue Room; and stole through the open window of the Red Room next door where there was something really worth looking at -- Veronica Wedge, to wit, Lady Hermione's outstandingly beautiful daughter, who was lying in bed staring at the ceiling and wishing she had some decent jewelry to wear at the forthcoming County Ball. A lovely girl needs, of course, not jewels but her youth and health and charm, but anybody who had wanted to make Veronica understand that would have to work like a beaver."

Never mind the humor in Full Moon, how did Wodehouse write that under the watchful eye of Nazis?