indeedsir_backup | Interesting Excerpt from Wodehouse’s Letters to Bill Townend

From Author! Author! by P.G.Wodehouse and W. Townend

The trouble with critics is that some of them are good critics and some of them are bad critics. An author likes the former but not the latter. A typical instance of the bad critic is the one on an English provincial paper some years ago who put a large headline at the top of his review which ran:

WODEHOUSE IS A PAIN IN THE NECK

When my press clipping bureau send s me something like that, an icy look comes into my hard gray eyes and I mark my displeasure by not pasting it into my scrapbook. Let us forget this type of critic and turn to the rare souls quo can spot a good thing when they see one ―and, shining like a beacon among these, is the woman who said in her book column the other day that she considers Shakespeare “grossly materialistic and much overrated” and “greatly prefers P.G. Wodehouse.”

Well, it is not for me to say whether she is right or not. One cannot arbitrate in these matters of taste. Shakespeare’s stuff is different from mine, but that is not necessarily to say that it is inferior. There are passages in Shakespeare to which I would have been quiet pleased to put my name. That “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” thing. That one gets over the plate all right. I doubt, too, if I have ever done anything much better than Falstaff.

I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farce situation of the man who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind him. In The Winter’s Tale, Act Three, Scene Three, here is how Shakespeare handles it.

Farewell!

The day frowns more and more: I never saw

The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!

Well may I get aboard! This is the chase:

I am gone for ever.

(Exit, pursued by a bear.)

I should have adopted a somewhat different approach. Thus:

I gave the man one of my looks.

“A touch of indigestion, Jeeves?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why is your tummy rumbling?”

“Pardon me, sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of the animal that has just joined us.”

“Animal? What animal?”

“A bear, sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner.”

I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak, it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult to find a formula acceptable to all parties.

“Advise me, Jeeves,” I yipped. “What do I do for the best?”

“I fancy it might be judicious for you to exit, sir.”

No sooner said than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off the world’s mile record.

Who can say which method is superior?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

darketernal09.livejournal.com

dude, that's AWESOME! I always knew P.G. Wodehouse rocked, but his level of rocking has increased in my eyes! Thanks for sharing!

serpenatrix.livejournal.com

XDDDD Too good for words!! Thank you very much!

lady529.livejournal.com

Aw, thanks for posting this, made my day X D

The Lady 529

taricalmcacil.livejournal.com

Thanks for posting! I've been trying to track down a copy of this since I learned of it, but my area bookstores are somewhat lacking in Wodehouse.

juliacarmen.livejournal.com

Your welcome!

Taricalmcacil, try your city library. I had this copy sent to my library branch from another branch. I've found books on Wodehouse in my library database that I've never heard of before! The next one I'm reading is "Bolton & Wodehouse & Kern"!