The world of Blandings Book

When I was about 9 or 10 years the local pizzeria. Well it was Hamilton, New Zealand circa 1990, it was a Pizza Hut. A place where the mozzarella could stretch a metre, pineapple was on everything and the bases tasted as if they were deep fried. But more importantly this Pizza Hut Restaurant (are there still Pizza Hut Restaurants?) had an all you can eat desert buffet. Imagine the scene a little girl wearing a home made knitted sweater, pressed jeans, freckles and short curly hair (Mum liked it curly so I was never allowed it long). My eyes wide, I could almost see the halo, hear the angles singing. Lets be honest, it was a tired soft serve machine, grubby pumps of gooey chocolate, caramel and strawberry sauces, with plastic bowls of sprinkles and smarties. But my 10 year old self wanted to gorge, drown, a large dollop of ice cream in chocolate, buried in smarties. Oh and yes I wanted a second bowl, this time I was mixing chocolate and strawberry sauces. And yes a third bowl, I had decide to experiment with caramel. Ok yes I now start to feel queasy, under the rolling knowing eyes of my parents. But I still pushed sticky spoon fills in my mouth. I had also had a bizarre notion that if I was getting full, drinking water would push food down creating more room. OK on the way home I threw up out of the car window, and was never allowed to go back to a dessert buffet ever again.

I felt something a little similar to Wodehouse. When I opened that cover, read the first few glorious sentences I wanted to gorge. The writing just sparkled, it was snappy, joyful, perfectly baked writing.

"The sunshine of a fair Spring morning fell graciously upon London town. Out in Piccadilly its heartening warmth seemed to infuse into traffic and pedestrians alike a novel jauntiness, so that bus-drivers jested and even the lips of chauffeurs uncurled into not unkindly smiles. Policemen whistled at their posts, clerks on their way to work, beggars approached the task of trying to persuade perfect strangers to bear burden of their maintenance with that optimistic vim which makes all the difference. It was one of those happy mornings."
Something Fresh page 1

I read this passage out to my very confused boyfriend. 'Stop reading Wodehouse at me' became a common phrase. This scene is perfect, word perfect, but there is something artificial about it all. One sunshine is London? Ok maybe during the Olympics. But has anyone ever seen jesting bus driver? Or a beggar with any kind of vim? Even in 1915 when 'Something Fresh' was written. For me Wodehouse is very much like soft served ice cream, it's not quite ice cream, but I still like it. Yes the great Pizza Hunt binge of 1990 did not turn me off the sugary hard stuff, only my eyes a little smaller. I will still seek out a Macers for a cheese burger and a chocolate sunday. Just like when I have read a lot of dark novels where the soul is given a closer look and left wanting, you know the kind. So when books get too heavy I seek out Wodehouse.

I am comparing Wodehouse to some pretty artificial and junky food, and I think there is more to the 20th Century author. The writing is spectacular, I had never read a full novel, only short stories, i did not realise how well plotted they were. The distinction between the upper class twists and the more snobbish class abiding downstairs servants is clever (even though repeated over and over and over and over again). There is an image of a hero bouncing a tennis ball off the large curved back of the Empress of Blandings (a fat medal winning pig) is an image that still gives me pleasure.

But there is only so many times you can read about people getting engaged then not engaged, then engaged to someone else because of bad curried eggs from the night before. Then someone stealing a creamer that was taken by someone else, and then having the Efficient Baxter (who by the way, fantastic character) throwing flower pots of the 9th Earl of Emsworth.

I should not have read the whole collection (two novels and three short stories, I should have paced myself. I would have enjoyed the second novel, 'Summer Lightening' much more than I did. But I just had to gorge myself. P G Wodehouse is that good, you want to read him until you are ill.