So Miki's long-overdue Wodehouse collection has finally begun... and it's already looking good, eh?
Who is Wodehouse, you ask? You lucky blighter, about to discover the untold joys of discovering the untold joys of the wodehouse world. A world bound neatly between the colorful covers of every one of the books you see up there. Chockful of old beans and good eggs, meddlesome aunts and troublesome nephews, wise butlers and prize pigs, fink-nottles and ffinch-ffarrowmeres, pip-pips and tally-hos ... you get the general idea, i hope? Or how about a few examples such as these:
"Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror".
"The cosy glow which had been enveloping the Duke became shot through by a sudden chill. It was as if he had been luxuriating in a warm shower-bath, and some hidden hand had turned on the cold tap."
"I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled"
"The Right Honorable was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say `When!'"
"It began to be borne in upon Lord Ickenham that in planning to appeal to the Duke’s better feelings he had omitted to take into his calculations the fact that he might not have any."
"There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action."
"The boy is the father of the man."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about this Glossop."
"I thought you said something about somebody's father."
"I said the boy was the father of the man."
"What boy?"
"The boy Glossop."
"He hasn't got a father."
"I never said he had. I said he was the father of the boy--or, rather, of the man."
"What man?"
"Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’ , had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter."
It is utter injustice to the wodehousian wit to present these out of their original context, suffice it to say that the difference in its impact is that between ":)" and "rotfl". Surely by now you want to drop everything, rush out and pick up your very own copy of, say, "Right-Ho Jeeves" to begin with. But be advised, every Wodehouse book will land you in that sweet quandary where on the one hand you want to dive right in and greedily lap up every delectable ink-laden tidbit from the master's pen, but then on the other, you want to hold back, savor every simile, applaud every plot twist, and marvel at every perfectly placed punctuation mark, lest it all be over too soon. Not to worry, however - it just so happens that you can do both. The considerate man not only left us with over a hundred books, but carefully crafted each sentence in each book so that, like a fine wine, it actually gets better with every read.
Doctor Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse... a simple, heartfelt thank you.
