P. G. Wodehouse for the Laughs

After the haunting and intense story of The Wager, I decided a little light reading was in order. For me, nothing fills that bill better than P. G. Wodehouse, who is probably most famous for his Jeeves and Wooster stories. I love those, and I like his Blandings Castle tales even better – it’s an Eden where ditsy lovers try to outwit killjoy aunts, and the only danger is from unscrupulous persons who covet the Empress of Blandings, the Earl’s prize-winning enormous pig.

Anyway, Delphi Classics has put together a huge collection of Wodehouse eBooks (31 novels, 10 short story collections, and 2 plays for a whopping $2.99!) and it’s been fun to discover some lesser-known titles of his. The Small Bachelor was first published in 1927, and like many of Wodehouse’s early novels, it is set in New York City.

Even though Wodehouse’s novels don’t tackle “serious” subjects or wrestle with deep philosophical issues, he is an incredibly talented and erudite author. His mastery of comic simile and metaphor is unparalleled:

“Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington was a strong woman. In fact, so commanding was her physique that a stranger might have supposed her to be one in the technical, or circus, sense. She was not tall, but had bulged so generously in every possible direction that, when seen for the first time, she gave the impression of enormous size. No theatre, however little its programme had managed to attract the public, could be said to be “sparsely filled” if Mrs. Waddington had dropped in to look at the show. Public speakers, when Mrs. Waddington was present, had the illusion that they were addressing most of the population of the United States. And when she went to Carlsbad or Aix-les-Bains to take the waters, the authorities huddled together nervously and wondered if there would be enough to go round.” P. G. WODEHOUSE. The Small Bachelor (Kindle Locations 453-458). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Or how about this:

“His clothes had been cut by an inspired tailor and pressed by a genius. His tie was simply an ethereal white butterfly, straight from heaven, that hovered over the collar-stud as if it were sipping pollen from some exotic flower.” P. G. WODEHOUSE. The Small Bachelor (Kindle Locations 465-466). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Wodehouse casually drops in Biblical references, as well as Tennyson, Kipling, Shakespeare, and other authors any well-educated Englishman should be familiar with. Take, for example, his description of the imposing Mrs. Waddington in high dudgeon:

“But, whether it was cold or hot, there was always in Mrs. Waddington’s gaze one constant factor — a sort of sick loathing which nothing that he could ever do, George felt, would have the power to allay. It was the kind of look which Sisera might have surprised in the eye of Jael the wife of Heber, had he chanced to catch it immediately before she began operations with the spike.” P. G. WODEHOUSE. The Small Bachelor (Kindle Locations 697-700). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

As far as the plot of The Small Bachelor goes, it’s your typical Wodehouse love story that is incredibly convoluted, but by a series of hilarious coincidences manages to untangle itself. George Finch, an independently wealthy young man (no one in Wodehouse Land has to work for a living, kind of like Hallmark Movie Land), sees a pretty young woman on a street and falls head over heels in love with her. She ends up being the daughter of Sigsbee H. Waddington, a somewhat dense businessman who dreams of being a cowboy in the Wild West. The aforementioned Mrs. Waddington is his second wife, and she is determined to marry her stepdaughter, Molly, off to a dimwitted Lord Hunstanton (wearer of that perfect bowtie mentioned above). Meanwhile, poor George spends hours trying to figure out who the love of his life is, until it turns out his best friend, J. Hamilton Beamish, has known Molly from childhood. Hamilton Beamish is famous for the self-help booklets he publishes on every topic under the sun – “Read Them and Make the World Your Oyster”.

Did I mention that George is from out west, namely, East Gilead, Idaho, so of course Molly’s father immediately takes to him? Oh, and the hyper-rational Hamilton Beamish falls in love with a young woman he sees on a bus, who turns out to be Mrs. Waddington’s palm reader, as well as from…East Gilead, Idaho. I’m not even going to get into George’s valet, Mullett, and his fiancée, except to say that she is the most talented pickpocket in New York City. Throw in a hapless policeman, Garroway, to whom Sigsbee Waddington sells some worthless stock in a Hollywood Motion Picture company, and I think that covers all the main characters.

There are laugh-out-loud scenes throughout, and even when you think you know what’s going to happen, Wodehouse throws a curveball. If you are looking for something to completely escape into for a few hours, you can’t do much better than P. G. Wodehouse, and The Small Bachelor was a delightful surprise. It’s not as well known as some of his other work, but it is just as good as any Jeeves and Wooster story.