I’d intended to save this for Read of England, but — rum thing, when you begin reading Wodehouse it’s as hard to resist finishing him as it is to rescue Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Agatha when she topples down the stairs. One moment you’re eying the cover in dreamy anticipation and the next moment you’re drowning your sorrows in lemon squashes because it’s over. Sorry, I can never resist bad Bertie imitations when I’m writing about Wodehouse. Actually, bad Bertie breaks in all his own, at the worst possible time, like pimples or uninvited guests.

Ok, sorry. I’m really done now. Ahem. P.G. Wodehouse in his own words is a dashed lively mix of Wodehouse biography, excerpts from Wodehouse describing his own life, and quotations from Wodehouse works that draw from his life, like his fondness for certain dogs, or the fact that he was mostly raised by a series of other female relations, rather like Bertie’s aunts. These same aunts also introduced Bertie to the Downstairs world where butlers were king, especially those molded and fired in the Edwardian day. We learn of his preference for rooming with others, his delight in playing golf despite his dodgy-at-best talents at the old ball-whacking, and his inglorious beginning in…in a bank? Well, it worked well enough for T.S. Eliot. The Wodehouse material is mined from letters, introductions, and of course his novels themselves, many of which I hadn’t heard of despite owning a huge Wodehouse kindle collection. I didn’t know a bally thing about Wodehouse before this, so this little book provided — in addition to Wodehouse’s absolute charm and good humor — a multitude of new insights into the man who made whimsy. I had no idea that he wrote musical comedies, for instance, and was amazed by his World War 2 experience: he was captured by Germans while giving a dinner party in France, imprisoned in an asylum, then put up in a Berlin hotel because the Germans regarded an old writer as a non-threat: he managed to get himself banned from British airwaves by doing humorous sketches inspired by prison life! Fortunately, before the Eighth Air Force and the Red Army began visiting Berlin, he’d been removed to France. For a Wodehouse fan, this is a genuine treat, while not being a full-length biography.

Related:
Essay on Wodehouse, “Wodehouse: Balm for the Modern Soul“, Dean Abbot
Essay on Wodehouse, “Reading for Fun and Freedom”. Thomas Behr.

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