Review: Indiscretions of Archie by P.G. Wodehouse

This is my favorite Wodehouse title. Not favorite book, not by a long shot, but certainly my favorite title. (Isn't there something so evocative about that word 'Indiscretions'? It has the air of Jeeves tactfully sweeping Wooster's latest idiocy under the rug.)

This book is one of many proofs that Wodehouse's true genius lay, not in merely creating a comic idiot--which he certainly could do, for no one is more deft when it comes to daft--but in creating a noble comic idiot, an idiot that the reader loves and roots for and sympathizes with. The tragedy of this idiot--and thence the comedy--is not the fact that he's an idiot. It's the fact that no one bothers to look past his idiocy and see his pure heart and his ready humor and a hundred other qualities that your average highbrow lacks.

I recall a brief image in a Peanuts special that sums this character type up nicely. Charlie Brown gallantly throws his jacket over a puddle for a passing girl. The girl, though by no means adverse to this gesture, reacts, not with thanks, but with prim indifference--and as Charlie makes ready to go on his merry way, he slips on the jacket and falls flat on his face. Such is the fate of the Wodehouse hero, but unlike Charlie, he hasn't time to be depressed as long as there are people around that want helping.

So here's Archie Moffam (pronounced "Moom", I'm told, though that never figures into the story). He's pretty much just Bertie Wooster in a different suit, but I love Bertie too much to be overly critical. And the premise allows Wodehouse to try something that falls strictly outside Bertie's formula--Archie, bless him, is a married man, with all the trials and tribulations that come with the job description. He's head-over-heels in love with his Lucille and can't think why she condescended to wed him. Unfortunately for him, neither can her father the American hotel manager. Still more unfortunately, Archie differs further from Bertie in having barely a cent to his name. He must find a way to earn some money.

...Or just deal with whatever random crisis the author feels like dishing up in any given chapter. It was originally published as a sketch series, after all.

Therefore, we have an escaped snake. We have a bet on a ball game. We have a sausage-selling amnesiac. Anything goes.

While the pacing and format isn't close to what Wodehouse is capable of, it's always fun to read about, and towards the end moments of genuine genius begin to shoot up like so many crocuses in the spring. They don't exactly make up for the format, but at times they appear to transcend it. (I call particular attention to a poem about a pie-eating contest that would arguably have been funnier out of context. Who knew Wodehouse could write genuine American comic verse?)

The dialogue is zippy enough to beg for a sitcom adaptation. Archie in particular is eloquent, though only when he's on top of the situation (needless to say, the presence of his father-in-law reduces him to babbling imbecility). Lucille, though not terribly deep, is sweet and funny and forgiving, everything a Wodehouse hero could want in his better half (or "better four-fifths", as Archie puts it). Other characters pop up with their own quirky storylines in tow, contributing the Homer Price-like disdain for realism that would later form the bulk of the Mr. Mulliner series. It all comes to a sort-of conclusion that's extremely charming and makes you close the book with a smile.

Jeeves and Wooster it isn't, but once you've accepted that, it's great fun.

Review: Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse

I just read an article on what modern writers call the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". You know the character type--the crazy, impulsive, imaginative young lady who charges into the male main character's life, shakes it up, changes it forever, and then makes ready to go on her merry way. (Whether she actually does so or not depends on the story; she can also take a third option by dying unexpectedly but remaining forever in his heart.) The article asked the following question: Is there such a thing as a Manic Pixie Dream Guy?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have found the Manic Pixie Dream Guy. I submit to you P.G. Wodehouse's Psmith (self-invented surname, silent P, first name varies between books)--a character created to fill, not the need for an interesting romance, but the equally-pressing need for an interesting ally. In Mike and Psmith, Psmith is a young man at a boy's school; in this installment, Psmith in the City, he's aged a bit and begun to grapple with the adult business world. Book three, Psmith, Journalist, sees him ditching dull responsibility and having a battle of the wills with gangsters in New York City, just because he can. He's a man's man (not a gentleman's gentleman, though--that'd be Jeeves) in a slowly widening man's world. In the fourth and final book, Leave it to Psmith, his universe finally expands enough to include a love interest. It's like an extreme version of the masculine coming-of-age process.

The reader stand-in is Mike, a nice enough guy whose entire purpose in the series is to not be Psmith. The first two books follow a fairly winning pattern--a) Mike is stuck somewhere he doesn't want to be, b) Psmith shows up and it's not so bad. But interestingly, it's not Psmith's tendency toward bizarreness and anarchy that improves things for Mike (though that helps)--it's simply and solely the fact that Psmith is in it with him. Mike, like most of us, is an uncomplicated character at heart, and all he really wants is someone who can agree that, yes, this is a grim situation, but it doesn't have to be that bad, now let's go get something to eat. And honestly, can't we all relate? If I ever wash up in a new and lonely place, my prayer is that someone like Psmith will be hanging around saying, "You too?"

This time, Mike's parents have lost a lot of their money, and Mike has to drop out of Sedleigh and work at a bank in London. (Poor Mike--it seems it's his lot in life to clear out of a place as soon as he's gotten used to it.) It turns out Psmith is there, too, for a reason which escapes me but which is, frankly, completely irrelevant. There's not much of a plot--it's really more a series of scenes--but Psmith's commentary is always hilarious. You may find yourself tempted to apply his methods while on the job.

The problem with characters under the Manic Pixie category is that, by definition, they hold all the personality, and their poor partners get the short end of the stick. I always prefer my literary duos--whether they be couples or comedy teams--to have equally developed, but conflicting, personalities. (Wodehouse later mastered this dynamic when he wrote the Jeeves and Wooster series.) Mike is a human springboard for Psmith's dialogue, which is fine, but occasionally I get aggravated by his unimaginative responses. If I had a buddy who talked like Psmith, I'd spend all my free time thinking of witty comebacks.

Analyzing Tranio, part 1

[Explanation: I was recently cast as Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew. Character analysis is a hobby of mine, and Tranio, being particularly hard to pin down, is my latest victim. Let's see if I can figure out what makes him tick. More posts to come...]

"Tranio, since for the great desire I had

To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,

I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,

The pleasant garden of great Italy,

And by my father's love and leave am armed

With his good will and thy good company."

- Lucentio, speaking the first lines of The Taming of the Shrew (if you don't count the induction)

Shrew, as actors call it, is a tricky, multi-layered menagerie of a play. Of course, everyone now knows that it's about Katerina and Petruchio, but if you were an Elizabethan theater-goer you might start out thinking it was a play about a drunken man tricked into believing himself a lord. (That's just the frame story.) And once you were past that, you'd think that it was a play about Lucentio and his faithful servant-slash-sidekick, Tranio, scheming to set Lucentio up with the beautiful and unavailable Bianca. Well, it is a play about that, too, but Lucentio and Tranio are only the subplot, and they've got a fair chance of fading into the background if the performance they're in has a particularly good Petruchio.

I don't know how common the "tame your wife" plot might have been in Elizabethan England--my guess is that it showed up in other places besides Shrew. But the subplot, like most of Shakespeare's subplots, is lifted from every source available. Tranio represents one of the most ancient and hardy breeds of stock character ever to emerge from theater; the Plautine slave, or Servus Callidus. (Definitions of the word callidus, as given by a Latin dictionary I found online: clever, dextrous, experienced, skillful, cunning, sly. All of which more or less apply to Tranio.) In fact, his name was actually stolen from a Plautus play, where it had been appended to a character of the same type. Nowadays, when we authors reach for a Shakespeare name if we want to impart some shorthand (Puck for a tricky character, for instance, or Tybalt for one with murderous intent), it's funny to think that Shakespeare himself once did the same thing.

By the way, my recent Wodehouse obsession sprang directly from being cast as Tranio. I had a vague recollection of reading part of a Jeeves story, and Tranio instantly reminded me of Jeeves. No coincidence there--and not just because Wodehouse knew his Shakespeare, but because Wodehouse knew his theater. He spent years working in drama and writing musical comedies for the stage, which leads me to believe that Bertie's man Jeeves, if not a direct descendant of Lucentio's man Tranio, is at least a near-relative.

Lucentio is, of course, less capable than Tranio. He starts out as the absent-minded scholar and seamlessly transitions into the dreamy lover as soon as Bianca sets her foot on stage. That's not to say he isn't intelligent, but he's too busy with his thoughts to help himself at any given moment. Tranio is never too busy to help Lucentio--in fact, he's never busy with anything else. "Singleness of purpose" is his motto. (I'm reminded of Jeeves again. Dialogue from a Jeeves story: "Are you busy just now?" "No, sir." "I mean, not doing anything in particular?" "No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book; but, if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed, or, indeed, abandoned altogether.") If he's serious about his business, your trusty Servus Callidus isn't going to be doing a thing besides helping you, any more than a piece of technology would. That's Tranio--the Elizabethan equivalent of the iPhone. Can't figure out what to do from here? Tranio has an app for that.

That's not to say the Servus Callidus doesn't help himself; he'd just prefer to tie his personal plans neatly in with yours, almost as if they're an afterthought. "I am content to be Lucentio," says Tranio, disguising himself as his employer, "because so well I love Lucentio." But it's hinted that his willingness to go along with the scheme might also have something to do with the fact that being Lucentio entails wearing Lucentio's clothes, managing Lucentio's money and throwing parties at Lucentio's house. Not a bad deal, even if it's only temporary.

In a sentence: Tranio has an agenda, and he's sticking with it.

(Or, if you prefer your character analysis to rhyme: Tranio has a plan, yo.)