I’ll start by asking you to pronounce “Wodehouse”.
If you said anything but “WOOD-house” you’d be wrong. Hopefully you recognise the name and are aware who I am referring to – if not, you’ve failed the second test, and are “0 for 2” (no points for recognising that this is a baseball slogan). As a desperate last resort I can give you are the letters “P” and “G” but have little hope that you are now any the wiser…
If, after reading the introduction, you are completely confused and have no idea what or who I am talking about then… congratulations – you are one lucky person!
Lucky, because you are about to get to know the great English comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse (born 1881) and “the greatest living writer of prose”, “the Master”, “the head of my profession”, “akin to Shakespeare”, “a master of the language”… these are quotes from writers such as Compton Mackenzie, Evelyn Waugh, Hilaire Belloc, Bernard Levin and Susan Hill.
But now for your big test finale. Below you will find three quotes from P.G. Wodehouse novels.
“I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.”
“Honoria… is one of those robust, dynamic girls with the muscles of a welterweight and a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging on a tin bridge.”
“As a rule, you see, I’m not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps… the clan has a tendency to ignore me.”
At this point, IF you are laughing at loud OR have a joyous happy feeling somewhere in your abdomen, then you have passed! Not only is your English first class but – as far as I am concerned – so is you humour, and we can become like-minded friends!
If things didn’t go so well then “nothing to do but keep the chin up and the upper lip and stiff as can be managed” (Wodehouse of course) – try reading “Joy in the Morning” and see if Jeeves can help you.
A final thought from Stephen Fry (of Black-Adder fame). Wodehouse “knew that a great proportion of his readers came from prisons and hospitals… isn’t it true that we are all of us, for a great part of our lives, sick or imprisoned, all of us in need of this remarkable healing spirit, this balm for hurt minds?”
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