Age Essay 1

[hobbitjc.livejournal.com]

I'd asked in a comment to chikkiboo's post if people might like to read a few published J&W essays, and a couple folks expressed interest. So No. 1 is behind the cut.

I suck with a scanner, sorry. And I've no idea how to use Photobucket. I hope they're at least readable.

Please let me know if I'm breaking Community rules or posting unwanted information.
I already know I'll be breaking copyright law once I've posted more than 10% of "Thank You, Wodehouse" (which is little more than a pamphlet, anyway). But I really recommend you buy the books, if you can find them --especially "Wodehouse in Woostershire," which is an encyclopedia of all things J&W.











This essay is from "Wodehouse in Woostershire," by Tony Ring and Geoffrey Jaggard.

Comments

[hobbitjc.livejournal.com]

Oh, my sainted aunt! That is too weird (sorry, sorry). *Scratches head* How does ironicbees and others do it so nicely, with thumbnails leading to larger pics? Does it require a paid LJ account?

[ironicbees.livejournal.com]

I don't do anything - Lj does it. I just put a picture from my scrapbook in a post, and LJ for some reason shrinks it down and makes it link back to the larger image. No paid account here, either.

[hobbitjc.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I upgraded my account to the ad-supported version, which gave me access to the scrapbook service.

[ironicbees.livejournal.com]

Basic accounts don't have the scrapbook feature? Huh. I didn't know that.

[princesskraehe.livejournal.com]

Yipe!

I can't help liking the TV casting with them being of similar age. They look so much more adorable together. It's fascinating to see what differences in class could do to people of the same generation in that society.

[serpenatrix.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this, it's very illustrative, do you have more? ^-^

[derien.livejournal.com]

It's fine by me - I can read it, that's all I require. :) And you put it behind a cut, so we're all set with the size.

[pettyrevenge.livejournal.com]

"the brief insight we had into Jeeves' personality as a womaniser"

Oh dear Lord, I do believe that sentence just killed me.

[emeraldreeve.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this! I've always thought of Jeeves as being in his 50s during WWII. I like the idea of them being closer in age and I'm really considering dropping Jeeves's age in my story. If I do, I'll probably have to delete a whole chapter, but I'd like to be as close to canon as possible.

Jeeves a womaniser! LOL.

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for this, it's just what I wanted as I know I have no hope of finding these anthologies locally.

I get the impression in some of the stories that Jeeves isn't a womaniser, he seems largly uninterested in women, but they can't resist him. :-) It's his quietly magnetic personality, of course. He is that old-fashioned expression, a man's man.

There was one story - was it canon or fan fiction? darned if I can remember! in which Aunt Dahlia tried to persuade Bertie to play Father Christmas. When Jeeves suggested a more mature person for the part, Aunt Dahlia asked if he was offering to do it himself, but he suggested someone else - Uncle Tom, I think.

I always rather liked the idea of Jeeves being a good bit older than Bertie, because he is his guide, mentor and protector, and a man of the world, while Bertie is rather guileless and innocent. And yes, gormless as well, but sweet with it. :-)

Perhaps Jeeves only 'dabbled' in WW1 (if he isn't being modest) because he was a boy at the time, or perhaps a not-quite-grown youth who was someone's batman. I'd love to know if PG meant to write more about this, but didn't get around to it, or if he wanted to leave it up to the reader's imagination.

Now I must read part 2.

[chumpchkin.livejournal.com]

I cringe and squirm every time Jeeves is referred to as a womanizer. It's SO WRONG. Eeeeughhh!

I always thought Bertie was in his late twenties and Jeeves was in his early forties. Or at least his late thirties. It's funny, though, I know Hugh and Stephen are close to the same age, but in the show it does look like Stephen is much older. Am I just crazy?

Oh, and thank you very much for posting this! It's most interesting.

[amethystaura.livejournal.com]

If there's anything that makes me cringe till I'm no longer visible, it's the prospect of Jeeves being a good deal older to Bertie. It's ridiculous if one wishes to view them as a couple rather than a father figure/surrogate parent/guardian and his "responsibility", for whom he must care as a father would for his child. The maximum that I can tolerate is an age difference of five years, because as it is there's a gross imbalance that stands out in our fanfiction, highlighting the fact that Bertie's the young master and Jeeves is described as the older man, with "age and experience on his side", full of lust for the blooming fragility of Bertie's youth.
It makes me shudder.
When I started reading Wodehouse, and was not under the influence of the TV show or this fandom, my personal image of Jeeves was of a sober and subdued man, possibly just a few years his master's senior, but obviously seeming more so because of his enormous mental capacity. Therefore, Stephen Fry wasn't a big disappointment at all, in fact his young yet mature face was just as I had imagined it, (but probably a little on the heavy side, I'll admit that).

[lawnnun.livejournal.com]

I find the bishification of Bertie interesting, because it's so subtle. He's so close to *actually* being a wide-eyed, quaking, ivory-skinned lump of nubile innocence, that I can see where the mistake is made. XD