A Bunny of Sorts

[lifeisame.livejournal.com]

On the somewhat SERIOUS lines of fanfic:

Something that bothers me late at night is the thought of the time period J and W live in. Pretty soon the depression hits in the US, and I know England didn't suffer nearly as hard, but I wonder how they got by with that? And then of course, the scariest thing is WWII!! (and my knowledge of London life during this time is really limited to what I remember from high school history. Which isn't much.)

I mean, did Wooster have the money to avoid the military? Or did Jeeves for that matter? Or did Jeeves manage to get them both out of it? *fret fret* I'm pretty sure there's ample slash opportunities either way.

>_> These things keep me up at night. LOL, it doesn't make a very good plot bunny for me, but I figured I'd post these disturbing ideas here, in case someone else gets a bite.

I think waaaaaaaaaay to much into historical fiction and real history.

Comments

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I always imagined Jeeves saw what was coming and made sure he and Bertie were safely out of the country before conscription was introduced... (or that Bertie was, at least. Maybe Jeeves was a spy?)

[lifeisame.livejournal.com]

The angst factor right?

Jeeves DOES resemble a spy, so, yeah, I could buy that.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Definitely going to be some angst - even if they both get out, I imagine a lot of Bertie's friends would have been killed. And of course, things would have been different after the war (it's hard to imagine Madeline Bassett as a land girl...)

[poisonivory.livejournal.com]

Well...war sort of doesn't exist in the Land of Wodehouse. Neither does depression. And Bertie sidesteps even minor period inconveniences like prohibition (when he's in America) with little fuss, so...I mean, the Wooster world is not a realistic one, and though Wodehouse himself was very much affected by WWII, he never put war in his books. At least that's the impression I got. So I bounce along in the frivolous happy universe he's created and fret about war and depression and such in other books. As Stephen Fry says in Blackadder, when all else fails, a pigheaded unwillingness to look facts in the face will always see us through. ;)

[lifeisame.livejournal.com]

well, yarr. I just think too far into things some times. My imagination runs wild and such. That's why something like this wouldn't work as a fic idea (I believe). It's not erm - fluffy - enough, I guess is the term I'm looking for. The biggest charm in Wodehouse is the absolute " XD " attitude it has. But it's interesting to bring it up to see what other people think.

[tuff-ghost.livejournal.com]

i'd always thought J&W was interwar, the 20s, when everything was beautiful and frivolous. and the magic of wodehouse's world, sort of personified in innocent bertie, was just to make a timeless happy limbo out of that and never extend the period that the series takes place in beyond 1929.

stephen fry called it 'pre-lapsarian'. excellent term.

[derien.livejournal.com]

daegaer hypothesised he was too young for WWI and too old to be conscripted by WWII.

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

All the references he makes in the books, or most of them are from the 1930s. From about 1933-1939. The thing with Bertie is that he never really seems to age, but if we take him to be 24 when Jeeves entered his employment, and that was in the early 30s, he'd have been in his late thirties by the time WWII broke out.

I do support the idea, actually, that Jeeves would have been cautious and up to date enough on currrent affairs to get Bertie out of the line of fire and move him to America (or possibly even Australia) well in time before anything truly serious could ever happen. And in doing so he'd have kept Bertie blissfully clueless and innocent. I think corruption is the worst thing one could ever do to Bertram W. Or the cruelest anyway.

[kalayo.livejournal.com]

The introduction to one of the J&W novels mentioned Wodehouse's own experience in WWII briefly - something about giving a radio interview from a German prison camp. That novel also had a character based on Sir Oswald Moseley, leader of the British Fascist movement (who is relentlessly spoofed and made into a closet designer of women's underwear). Unfortunately, I can't remember off the top of my head which book it is.

[jeppa.livejournal.com]

SPODE? Roderick Spode was a spoof of an actual person? That is too funny... i always thought that character was just a stab at fascists in general.

[anima-mecanique.livejournal.com]

I've always sort of assumed that J&W takes place in the equivalent of an alternate universe -- the Depression and the second World War sort of...don't exist. Or at least, they never intersect with Bertie's universe.

The first WW definately happened, as I think Bertie referenced it as the Great War...thus putting the time period sometime before WW2. For all intents and purposes, however, I think Wodehouse-verse exists in a dream-world -- eternally stuck in a period where the first war wasn't as devastating as it was in reality and the second will in all likelihood never occur.

Actually, now that I think of it, the depression must have happened too, because they mention the New Deal. However, while the businessmen involved seem to be affected by the New Deal, none of them ever mention the effects of the Depression. Hm.

I was actually wondering about Prohibition...Bertie and co. seem to encounter no obstacles to living the high life while in New York. I kept expecting something to happen, but nothing ever did.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Prohibition's mentioned in the TV series but not the books, as far as I recall.

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of mention of impoverished dukes and earls and what have ye, though, that all happened after WWI, didn't it?

Oh, I'm horrible at history anyway.

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

'England didn't suffer nearly as hard'?

Jesus. Tell that to my grandparents.

[peak-in-darien.livejournal.com]

*throws her Eliot icon at your Eliot icon*

[peak-in-darien.livejournal.com]

As poisonivory says, those kinds of things don't exist in Wodehouse's fiction. One of the Wodehouse biographies I was reading (can't remember the author I'm afraid) said as much, too. He just wrote in his own happy, wonderfully eloquent little universe.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Several people have said that bad things just don't happen in the Wodehouse universe, but I'm not quite sure it's all of the Wodehouse universe. Psmith encounters tenement buildings, and is appalled by them and sets out to improve the street he saw. (Specifically only the street he saw - that's biting off a big bite, but Psmith never bites off more than he can chew.) "Psmith, Journalist" was written, I believe, before - perhaps well before - the Jeeves and Wooster stories. My guess is that Wodehouse hated suffering far too much to be able to deal with it in his fictional worlds, and perfected the Wooster universe as an escapist place.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Jeeves says at one point that he fought in the Great War (aka WWI -- which, I'm told, if you were there at the time, really wasn't that great).

[lifeisame.livejournal.com]

Do you remember which book, or what tv episode he said that in? That's interesting.

[anima-mecanique.livejournal.com]

Checking thread responses from way back here....

Whoa. Seriously? Jeeves was in the war?

Now I have this mental image of Jeeves as some kind of super-spy who single-handedly stepped in and ended the whole thing.

Too bad they didn't have him stay for the treaty-drafting. Would have saved an awful lot of trouble.

Which, come to think of it, might be an explanation for why Wodehouse-verse doesn't seem to have hit WW2 yet (Ring for Jeeves notwithstanding).

[lonelybrit]

The only thing I remember regarding The Great War was in the story where Jeeves is on loan to another family and Bertie is, sadly, nowhere to be seen. It's mentioned that after The Great War, lots of aristocrats were being made/under pressure to learn how to be more independent. They were *gasp* getting jobs. Bertie's absence was put down to him attending a school and going on a course to teach young gentleman how to look after themselves. Of course, he does terribly and winds up getting chucked out and having Jeeves return to his side. But that's the only reference I can remember...

[lonelybrit]

Just been having a quick google round. Apprently the only time mention of the war was really made was in: Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, and Ring For Jeeves. (Mentioned here.)

[derien.livejournal.com]

That was in "The return of Jeeves," but it doesn't mention it as "The Great War" it only mentions "post war," so I assumed it was WWII they were referring to. I did a ficlet off it, though now I'm thinking of doing another (conflicting) version.

[sivib.livejournal.com]

adina_atl wrote this wonderful fic. It's a Jeeves and Wooster/Lord Peter Wimsey crossover and it is terribly good and terribly sad and very much along the lines of the topic at hand.

Green Ice (http://www.livejournal.com/users/adina_atl/58365.html)

[anima-mecanique.livejournal.com]

I second this -- excellent fic. *cough* should probably comment on it sometime.

What sort of animal is that in your icon? A mouse or a small rat or what? *is a rodent fancier*