Monday, May 21, 2012

Review: Mike by P.G. Wodehouse

Somewhat early in his career, P.G. Wodehouse decided to spice up the sleepy school serial he was writing by introducing "Psmith", a character based on the son of Richard D'Oyly Carte, whom his cousin had met at Winchester College. Rupert D'Oyle Carte, according to Wodehouse's cousin, was always impeccably dressed, wore a monocle, and was known for replying to questions about his health with a tragic "Sir, I grow thinnah and thinnah."

I know all this because I read Wodehouse's introduction to Mike and Psmith, which is technically only the second half of this book repackaged. (The book comprises two separate stories, the first of which was republished as Mike at Wrykyn.) I read several chapters into Mike and Psmith, liked it in a half-hearted way (mostly was disappointed that it wasn't more Jeeves and Wooster), then realized that it was only the second half of a complete book and, being a purist, decided to begin at the beginning. And I think it's only through reading the entire volume that the reader can truly appreciate what a literary crapshoot Wodehouse is taking--intentionally or not--by letting Psmith invade the second act.

So, from the beginning: Young Michael Jackson (really!), better known as "Mike", is shipped off to Wrykyn, the school attended by his older brothers, all of whom are renowned cricket enthusiasts. Mike himself, who lives and breathes cricket, is a natural. He ends up subbing for absent players a lot, and eventually gains some kind of position on the team. Along the way, characters engage in various schoolboy stunts. Hushed meetings are held in dormitories, a young upstart convinces the entire school to go on strike, and certain of the student body sneak out at risk of expulsion and haunt the grounds after-hours.

In other words, it's the quintessential British school story. If it reads like Harry Potter without the magic, that's because Harry Potter was written as a magical take on books like Mike. (To the modern reader, cricket may prove more mysterious even than Quidditch.) Wodehouse's literary ability is in evidence, though not in full bloom--he comes off as a lesser Mark Twain, commenting wryly on the politics of schoolboyism. Reason is very much on its throne--nothing happens that wouldn't happen in reality, and no one's allowed to engage in the kind of Blandings Castle-esque hijinks that would become the author's forte later on. Then, too, the stakes never get much higher or more poetic than the occasional "caning" or "writing lines". A few boys teeter on the brink of being expelled, and one likable chap goes over, but you never really care, at least not in the way you do when Bertie Wooster is in panic mode and it's vital for Jeeves to intervene.

In attempting to analyze Mike himself, I can only say that he is what he is. Wodehouse didn't want to create a saint or a scholar, or even a comedian; he wanted a boy who could play a good game of cricket, because in a school story that's all that really matters. "Except on the cricket field, where he was a natural genius, he was just ordinary", the narration in the second half remarks, and rightly. "He resembled ninety percent of other members of English public schools."

But curiously, as the same passage takes care to point out, he does have one standout quality: "He was always ready to help people. And when he set himself to do this, he was never put off by discomfort or risk." Then there's the incident in which he throws a carry-on bag out a window at a train station, assuming someone left it when he got off the train--only to be accosted by the owner, who's still on board after all. Perhaps Bertie Wooster really is in development, hidden under the habit of a sullen, and by all accounts ordinary, cricket ace.

Be that as it may, it's not until the second half--a separate story entirely--that things get fun. Several years have passed and Mike, now clothed in glory as a veteran of Wrykyn cricket, is forced, to his horror, to switch to a small private school on account of his failing grades. Enter Psmith. And cue Reason, if not totally being dethroned, at least taking a beating and being declared unfit for service.

As the only character Wodehouse ever drew directly from real life, Psmith represents the perfect transitional figure between the realistic school stories and the far-fetched comedy stories for which he became famous. My theory is that before Psmith Wodehouse still found himself hampered by the reigns of reality, and hearing his cousin's story gave him permission to unleash the absurdity of which he was capable on the world. Later he would cheerily admit that he didn't give a hang for realism in his writing, but in Mike he implies that it still had a hold on him. What right had any reader to call a nutcase like Psmith unrealistic if he was based on a real person? "The advice I give to every young man starting life is 'never confuse the unusual with the impossible'," says Psmith--and the subtext whispers, Unlikely though I seem, I really could exist.

Dicken's Mrs. Fezziwig was one vast substantial smile; Psmith is one vast substantial wink. He and his author seem to have an understanding. Eerily enough, he's divined that he's in a school story, and sees somewhat dissatisfied with his lot. (Meeting Mike for the first time: "Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?") But more subtle (psubtle?) is the use of the silent P he's affixed to his name. He humbly requests that everyone spell it this way in writing. It's rarely brought up again, but the issue persists: everyone else, including Mike, refers to him as "Smith" in dialogue, but he himself always uses the "P"--and so does Wodehouse. See? The author understands.

Another aspect of the wink--that monocle. What starts as a stereotypical bit of eccentricity becomes a trademark aspect of Psmith's character: he makes a point of digging it out of his pocket to inspect people, establishing over and over that he's not a part of the story, but is merely there to enjoy the view. Pippi Longstocking, as I wrote in my review of that book, was the only character in her story--everyone else was an audience member. Psmith is equally out-there, his schoolmates as unremarkable as Pippi's friends, and yet it's Psmith who plays the audience to all the other characters. He regards everyone and everything with a condescending smile and a barrage of commentary. But no one ever comments on him--beyond a few stray acknowledgements of the oddness ("You are a chap!" a giggling boy named Jellicoe reiterates, and one feels that it takes far less than Psmith to impress him), he merely coexists. Neither a figure of awe nor an outcast, he is comfortably and casually mad, and his schoolmates treat him in the same way they treat Mike. While delighted to have a friend at his new school, Mike himself scarcely gives a moment's thought to Psmith's quirks. It's as if a character from a sitcom moved into a slice-of-life series without making waves. This is a refreshing approach to the whole concept of the outlandish outsider, in my opinion--after all, do we really need to be told how to react to Psmith? It's the reader's job to gape, laugh and cheer, not Mike's.

The rest can be guessed at, but it has to be read to be enjoyed. Much cricket is played, a study is stolen, a small mystery is set afoot, and, in a delightfully quiet running gag, a mantlepiece is leaned on. (Some moments, without being laugh-out-loud funny, are just little gems--as Mike and another boy poise on the brink of a fight, Psmith stares at the mirror and eloquently laments the state of his health.) And, without spoiling anything, our commentator does eventually break out of his glass box and get his hands messy with the story, with enjoyable results.

This relates to aspect three of the wink: Psmith, oddly enough, is the ultimate ally. Many Wodehouse fans on the internet mourn the absence of a Jeeves in their lives, and I don't doubt that he'd be useful--he's usefulness incarnate. But when you're in a new place, when things look gray and boring, when reality is reality and when you want, not omniscient intervention, but merely someone in the same situation as yourself--someone who likes you and is on your side--Psmith is your man. Psmith in the City elaborates on this, and I might review it another time.

In the meantime, I think I'll lean on a mantlepiece. Talk to you later.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Tranio's Course of Studies

A few links to help me with the acting of Tranio, supposed Lucentio.

Mostellaria, a play by the Roman playwright Plautus; the source of Tranio's name and nature.
Supposes, the source of Shrew's subplot; English playwright George Gascoigne's adaptation of the Italian play Suppositi.
Ars Amatoria (Ovid's "The Art to Love", a favorite of both Tranio and Lucentio--here are two translations)

Friday, May 18, 2012

On staring down the Timeline

One of the things I like about this blog is that it gives me a chance to get away from Facebook when I write. Facebook is the refrigerator of the Internet. You open it a million times a day and stare into it hungrily, finding only yesterday's leftovers.

There's also something scary about the "Timeline" feature. It implies that we're in this Facebook thing for the long haul. Is this what the future holds for the human race? Changing our relationship statuses the second when we get married, adding kids to the "family" area the way we'd add pegs to the little plastic cars in The Game of Life--and then what? We check in at the Pearly Gates?

When I scroll all the way down my Timeline I find my birthdate, accompanied by "Allie Gunther was born." Okay, nice. Next update: "Allie Gunther joined Facebook", which apparently was the moment my life began really and truly. And from thereon in, Facebook is the play-by-play record of my existence. It tells when I went to a party or met a new friend, whether I really want it to or not. Anyone can see it. And Facebook is utterly confident that I'll never leave. It seems to be just licking its lips for the day it can write "RIP Allie Gunther." I have only a fleeting mortal existence, but Facebook gives the smug impression that it's settled itself down for eternity, and that bothers me.

I like the close communication with my friends and family, but it all falls into such a template that intimacy, such as can be gained through email and even online chat, is elusive.

Now, the blog is my own. It doesn't pull knowledge out of my pockets or try to figure anything out for me; it lets me do the thinking. I hope it stays that way.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Gilded Volumes and Beat-Up Paperbacks

[Note: The following post was written around this time last year. I had planned to put it on my old blog, but it slipped my mind. Still, this saves me having to think of something new.]


I felt the need to write a blog post answering this question, because as soon as I saw that picture of the messy, damp book lying in the grass, my heart began to expand with nostalgia. I was always forgetful, even (especially) as a kid, and I had a good-sized collection of books with wavy pages from a night spent out in the rain. It was always a little disappointing when it happened, but as long as I could still turn the pages and read the words, it didn't matter.

As I grew older, I became more careful. I hid books that I particularly liked. (And promptly forget the hiding places.) And I learned to treasure big volumes with silk bookmarks, gold-edged pages. Books like that were almost like bibles. I admit to eyeing my family's new copy of The Complete Chronicles of Narnia with an especial reverence, even if I did wish there was some kind of Deep Magic available with which I could scramble the books into written order.

(The first Narnia books I ever owned were a paperback set I bought at about age six or seven with a Barnes & Noble gift card. The inside covers all say something that's supposed to be my full name--first, middle, and last--but it's in a crippled combination of cursive and print, and it dips down the page because there's not enough room. My mom smiles every time she happens upon one.)

And I definitely have the books I'm all hoighty-toighty about not ruining. Especially my Pelican Complete Works of Shakespeare. It was given to me as a gift by my Shakespeare director. It had a silk bookmark and a thread cover with a perfect little paper patch, like a plaque, that bore the title. As soon as I got it home from the cast party and out of the plastic wrap, I started getting all obsessive over it, thinking every little shadow that fell on the cover was a stain. Keeping it out of the sunlight, checking the pages for creases. I knew, I just knew, that something horrible was going to happen to it. It was hanging over me. The inevitable.

And then it happened. I put it on the round coffee table in my hallway for an airing, and my little brother plunked a big old cup of his favorite drink on it while he read, as Fate would have it, another book. A book lover jumping in another book lover's grave, completely unintentionally. The irony was bitter and apparent, and it pricked at my skeleton like static even as he apologized. I wished he hadn't. It would have been so much more relieving to be mad at him.

But you know what? Life is about attitude, and since it's been a couple of days, I've managed to get over the initial trauma and give the stupid thing a wry smile every time I've seen it. It's at the top of my bedroom closet at this moment, safe from the cuffs and cups. But I feel as if that Shakespeare book and I have finally broken the ice. I won't be afraid to actually read it now--sprawl it across my lap and turn the pages with my oh-so-human fingers without wincing. This could be the beginning of a deep and beautiful friendship.

Paperbacks are inherently different. A bad paperback is the one that stays all shiny and barely bent, lounging around on your shelf or counter until you wonder why you're still keeping it there and throw it out. A good paperback has a worn and weathered cover. When you've had it for a month it's beaten up. When you've had it for a year--especially if all your siblings have read it--it's cracked like lightening from corner to spine, and the only way to make it lie flat is to put a bunch of stuff on top of it to stop it springing open. Paperbacks are friendly, paperbacks are cheap. You can buy a paperback at the grocery store with your extra money. Paperbacks, if the New York Times is to be believed, are rapidly becoming obsolete thanks to ebooks. Not that I don't love my Kindle. But there's something nice about owning something that's going just a little bit out of style. Like a typewriter, a paperback is a relic of the not-so-distant literary past. I feel cool having one around.

In my notes for the novel I'm currently attempting to write, I find this frenzied aside:

"They'll sell it in paperback at CVS and in book stores on the subway. People will read it over and over, until it's tattered."

And if they also care to use it as a coaster while they read some other author's worthy effort, let them.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

A somewhat sappy series of thoughts

Everyone's childhood memories should contain the following:

1. A staticky, half-remembered black-and-white cartoon, full of swing jazz and ghosts.
2. Speaking of swings, a swing. Preferably one you could ride in your bare feet.
3. A 5 to 1 clover/dandelion ratio for every haul you brought in.
4. Certain songs that were sung on repeat that you thought everyone's parents sung. Now that you're older, you suspect that it was only your parents.
5. The tragedy that resulted when you gave your heart to a bug.

Monday, May 14, 2012

"Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray."

This morning, after I got back from Daily Mass--which always spurs me to be productive as well as spiritual--I jotted a list down in my diary of Things that Wanted Doing. After looking it over, I realized that I didn't have as much time for pleasure-reading as I thought.

Which is actually a bit of a relief, since I've been rationing my Bertie Wooster books against a period of starvation. Yes, I know, technically they're Jeeves books, but I read them for Bertie Wooster. One of the things that makes him appealing as a character--besides his eccentric narrative style, which is really the main thing--is his utter helplessness. People, especially misguided girls, want to help him even in-story, although they do him more harm than good--forcing him to read Nietzsche to improve his mind, for example. Even Jeeves is implied to be doing what he does because he just feels sorry for the poor, hapless lad.

I wonder if that's the way Tranio feels about Lucentio. Lucentio has the opposite problem--he's too scholarly and stable, he'd probably read Nietzsche for pleasure, and, bottom line, there's not enough excitement in his life. Poor fellow, maybe setting him up with Bianca will help.

At any rate, I'll see. Signing out for Shrew rehearsal now. Allie is changed into Tranio. (And Tranio is changed into Lucentio.) :)

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Swamped in Shakespeare

"They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention."
- Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene I
Let me just think about this:

- For several months, I've been rehearsing for the role of Tranio in the Front Lawn Player's production of The Taming of the Shrew. (Which, by the way, is some pretty multi-layered acting. The entire show is a play-within-a-play, which means I'm an actress playing an actor who plays a servant who spends the whole play pretending to be his master, Lucentio. Forgive me if I suffer from identity confusion.)
- Over the weekend I went to my first rehearsal for a parody sketch show of sorts called I Hate Shakespeare!
- And on Monday I get back together with my beloved Blackfriars to start directing Julius Caesar.

These next few months should really indulge my bardolatry.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

"You're as pleasant as the morning and refreshing as the rain..."

Just got back from a beautiful, highly uplifting morning Mass in Latin. So, despite the influx of rain these past few days, I had to share more love for Mary and May. This little article inspired my mom to set up quite a gorgeous May Altar in our living room:


Title of this post comes from "Scatterbrain" (alternately written as "Scatter-brain" or "Scatter Brain"), my new favorite goofy old 1930s song. Look it up on YouTube if you want it, I can't really pick a version. But don't confuse it with the Radiohead song "Scatterbrain (Dead as Leaves)", which is only good if you're actively seeking a depression injection.