Sally Revisited
Sep. 14th, 2013 03:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wotwotleigh.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
indeedsir_backupI have finished reading The Adventures of Sally, and I have feelings about it!
I didn't really know what to expect from this book. It is not one of Wodehouse's more famous works, and I get the sense that it is perhaps one of the more underrated. While the style is immediately recognizable, the tone of the book is markedly different from that of the Jeeves and Bertie stories.
I suppose I should say a bit about the plot and setting. The Adventures of Sally is about a young American woman, Sally Nicholas, who has just come into an inheritance. She decides to loan a significant chunk of this money to her brother so that he can produce a play written by her fiance. Sally's involvement in the play and a brief but fateful vacation to France set off a typically Wodehousian chain of zany events and romantic complications. The setting is all over the place, as Sally runs around to various parts of the US, France and England. Most of the story is set in New York, however.
I will say that the plot of Sally feels a little thin and anticlimactic in comparison to the magnificent farcical insanity of a Jeeves tale or, say, something like Leave it to Psmith. There are times when it really does feel more like a serial (which is how it was originally published, after all) than a tightly-constructed novel. And of course, the unique eloquence of Bertie Wooster's narrative voice is missing. But what Sally may be lacking in wacky plot twists and eccentric narration is made up for in other ways.
First of all, the book is rich in period detail in a way that is notably lacking in many of the Jeeves stories, where Wodehouse seems to have instinctively avoided anything (beyond occasional references to contemporary celebrities) that set the stories in any particular time period. The Jeeves and Bertie stories (especially the later ones) play out in sort of a glowing, fairy-tale England suspended in ill-defined "Christie Time" and set in equally vaguely-defined places. Sally feels much more real, and anchored in time and space. (However, a brief reference to the Bassington-Bassington family does establish a direct connection to the Woosterverse!) Wodehouse was clearly drawing on his own experiences of America and its theatrical scene, although other settings get an equally fascinating and detailed treatment. The boxing scene, in particular, is wonderfully vibrant.
But the thing that really makes Sally feel real is the characters themselves. I wasn't sure how Wodehouse would handle writing from the perspective of a woman. A lot of the women in the Jeeves stories were basically there to be unpleasant foils for Bertie in his subverted romantic adventures. Nevertheless, I have always been mostly positively impressed by the female characters in the Woosterverse -- most of them are at least as smart as their male counterparts and, in the cases of the bad eggs, no more repugnant than the worst of the male characters. Still, I had no idea what to expect from a woman as a romantic lead in a Wodehouse story. I was not disappointed.
Sally is a wonderful character. As I said in the previous post, she initially gives the impression of having some Mary Sue-esque characteristics. She is described as extraordinarily pretty, extremely kind and generous, and capable of stirring the passions of just about every man she meets. But to me, Sally's personality rings true. She is a fully realized character, with a complicated and deeply appealing personality. She is bright, extroverted, and sarcastic, with a tendency to get perhaps a little too involved in other people's business. She is also refreshingly independent and self-confident, and very self-aware. At one point, in a rare moment of self-doubt, she describes herself as "a bossy, cocksure little creature, swaggering about the world like an English sparrow." Sally's good-natured but occasionally a-little-too-mean ribbing of her goofy brother Fillmore will feel delightfully familiar to anyone who grew up with a sibling.
There are two scenes in particular that stand out to me as the most poignant, emotionally complex moments I have encountered in any of Wodehouse's writing so far. The first is the scene where
Sally learns that her fiance, Gerald, has married another woman.
In the second, in a rather Bertie Wooster-like moment, she
accepts a proposal from a man she doesn't really love. Unlike Bertie's many engagements, this one isn't the result of a comical misunderstanding. Sally is caught off guard by a creepy and aggressive suitor in a moment of emotional vulnerability.
Both scenes are beautifully crafted and have a surprising emotional honesty to them that makes them feel as if they were written from the heart. Sally handles her heartbreak with dignity combined with a certain impulsive recklessness.
The other characters are appealing as well, particularly Sally's friend Ginger -- who comes across as sort of an amiable doofus at first, but quickly reveals an underlying dignity and fierce sense of pride. Although Ginger is (predictably enough) in love with Sally, he is never pushy about it, unlike the "villain" of the piece, Ginger's creepy (but handsome and genteel) cousin Mr. Carmyle. But even the stalkery Mr. Carmyle is complex enough that he doesn't come off as a cardboard caricature of a creep. There are times when I almost sympathized with Carmyle, and I suppose it helps that the narrative POV shifts from one character to another (although Sally's is always the dominant POV), so we get to see the action from his point of view a little bit.
I also adore Sally's plain, smart and eminently practical sister-in-law, Gladys Winch, and wish she had gotten more screen time, so to speak. So much unexplored potential!
Another interesting aspect of Sally is that most of the characters are working stiffs, a reflection of Wodehouse's own relatively humble background. Sally herself holds down a couple different jobs during the course of the story, including as a "hostess" in a dance hall -- a curious occupation of the period made famous by the maudlin but moving Ruth Etting song, Ten Cents a Dance.
So, all-in-all, a delightful read, with certain characteristics that I wish had appeared more often in the Jeeves and Bertie stories. I still think Bertie and Sally's paths should cross at some point. I'm thinking that a Sally and Gladys team would be an awesome pair with Bertie and Jeeves . . . the potential for meddling and matchmaking would be limitless!
ETA: The Grand Magazine version of Sally appears to have been illustrated by none other than A. W. Mills! The Collier's version has lovely illustrations, too.
I didn't really know what to expect from this book. It is not one of Wodehouse's more famous works, and I get the sense that it is perhaps one of the more underrated. While the style is immediately recognizable, the tone of the book is markedly different from that of the Jeeves and Bertie stories.
I suppose I should say a bit about the plot and setting. The Adventures of Sally is about a young American woman, Sally Nicholas, who has just come into an inheritance. She decides to loan a significant chunk of this money to her brother so that he can produce a play written by her fiance. Sally's involvement in the play and a brief but fateful vacation to France set off a typically Wodehousian chain of zany events and romantic complications. The setting is all over the place, as Sally runs around to various parts of the US, France and England. Most of the story is set in New York, however.
I will say that the plot of Sally feels a little thin and anticlimactic in comparison to the magnificent farcical insanity of a Jeeves tale or, say, something like Leave it to Psmith. There are times when it really does feel more like a serial (which is how it was originally published, after all) than a tightly-constructed novel. And of course, the unique eloquence of Bertie Wooster's narrative voice is missing. But what Sally may be lacking in wacky plot twists and eccentric narration is made up for in other ways.
First of all, the book is rich in period detail in a way that is notably lacking in many of the Jeeves stories, where Wodehouse seems to have instinctively avoided anything (beyond occasional references to contemporary celebrities) that set the stories in any particular time period. The Jeeves and Bertie stories (especially the later ones) play out in sort of a glowing, fairy-tale England suspended in ill-defined "Christie Time" and set in equally vaguely-defined places. Sally feels much more real, and anchored in time and space. (However, a brief reference to the Bassington-Bassington family does establish a direct connection to the Woosterverse!) Wodehouse was clearly drawing on his own experiences of America and its theatrical scene, although other settings get an equally fascinating and detailed treatment. The boxing scene, in particular, is wonderfully vibrant.
But the thing that really makes Sally feel real is the characters themselves. I wasn't sure how Wodehouse would handle writing from the perspective of a woman. A lot of the women in the Jeeves stories were basically there to be unpleasant foils for Bertie in his subverted romantic adventures. Nevertheless, I have always been mostly positively impressed by the female characters in the Woosterverse -- most of them are at least as smart as their male counterparts and, in the cases of the bad eggs, no more repugnant than the worst of the male characters. Still, I had no idea what to expect from a woman as a romantic lead in a Wodehouse story. I was not disappointed.
Sally is a wonderful character. As I said in the previous post, she initially gives the impression of having some Mary Sue-esque characteristics. She is described as extraordinarily pretty, extremely kind and generous, and capable of stirring the passions of just about every man she meets. But to me, Sally's personality rings true. She is a fully realized character, with a complicated and deeply appealing personality. She is bright, extroverted, and sarcastic, with a tendency to get perhaps a little too involved in other people's business. She is also refreshingly independent and self-confident, and very self-aware. At one point, in a rare moment of self-doubt, she describes herself as "a bossy, cocksure little creature, swaggering about the world like an English sparrow." Sally's good-natured but occasionally a-little-too-mean ribbing of her goofy brother Fillmore will feel delightfully familiar to anyone who grew up with a sibling.
There are two scenes in particular that stand out to me as the most poignant, emotionally complex moments I have encountered in any of Wodehouse's writing so far. The first is the scene where
Sally learns that her fiance, Gerald, has married another woman.
In the second, in a rather Bertie Wooster-like moment, she
accepts a proposal from a man she doesn't really love. Unlike Bertie's many engagements, this one isn't the result of a comical misunderstanding. Sally is caught off guard by a creepy and aggressive suitor in a moment of emotional vulnerability.
Both scenes are beautifully crafted and have a surprising emotional honesty to them that makes them feel as if they were written from the heart. Sally handles her heartbreak with dignity combined with a certain impulsive recklessness.
The other characters are appealing as well, particularly Sally's friend Ginger -- who comes across as sort of an amiable doofus at first, but quickly reveals an underlying dignity and fierce sense of pride. Although Ginger is (predictably enough) in love with Sally, he is never pushy about it, unlike the "villain" of the piece, Ginger's creepy (but handsome and genteel) cousin Mr. Carmyle. But even the stalkery Mr. Carmyle is complex enough that he doesn't come off as a cardboard caricature of a creep. There are times when I almost sympathized with Carmyle, and I suppose it helps that the narrative POV shifts from one character to another (although Sally's is always the dominant POV), so we get to see the action from his point of view a little bit.
I also adore Sally's plain, smart and eminently practical sister-in-law, Gladys Winch, and wish she had gotten more screen time, so to speak. So much unexplored potential!
Another interesting aspect of Sally is that most of the characters are working stiffs, a reflection of Wodehouse's own relatively humble background. Sally herself holds down a couple different jobs during the course of the story, including as a "hostess" in a dance hall -- a curious occupation of the period made famous by the maudlin but moving Ruth Etting song, Ten Cents a Dance.
So, all-in-all, a delightful read, with certain characteristics that I wish had appeared more often in the Jeeves and Bertie stories. I still think Bertie and Sally's paths should cross at some point. I'm thinking that a Sally and Gladys team would be an awesome pair with Bertie and Jeeves . . . the potential for meddling and matchmaking would be limitless!
ETA: The Grand Magazine version of Sally appears to have been illustrated by none other than A. W. Mills! The Collier's version has lovely illustrations, too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-15 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-20 07:56 am (UTC)When Ginger first proposed, it was really out of the blue! But by the time he asked again, I could see why she said of course she loved him. Really nice.
The book did feel very sparce, but I'm guessing that's due to its original serial format.