Books, Arts & Manners: Uncles, Aunts, and Other Blisters

In Search of Blandings: An Investigation into the Sources That Inspired P. G. Wodehouse, by N. T. P Murphy (Salem House, 256 pp., $18.95)

Certain writers invariably provoke strong reactions in their readers; P. G. Wodehouse is a case in point. Evelyn Waugh, for example, habitually referred to Wodehouse as “The Master,” never ceasing to admire Wodehouse’s capacity for comic linguistic invention. The opposite response—centering on the perceived triviality and negligible social content of Wodehouse’s novels—is well represented by Sean O’Casey, who tried to insult Wodehouse by calling him “English literature’s performing flea.” (The insult misfired: It was gleefully adopted by Wodehouse in 1953 as the title for a collection of his letters.) Robert Graves is among the few who have refrained from comment. In Goodbye to All That, he reveals that Wodehouse and Percival Graves, the poet’s elder brother, had been friends and that Wodehouse had once given the young Robert twopence to buy marsh

HB

About the Author

Helle Bering-Jensen

Featured Tags

In Search of Blandings: An Investigation into the Sources That Inspired P. G. Wodehouse, by N. T. P Murphy (Salem House, 256 pp., $18.95)

Certain writers invariably provoke strong reactions in their readers; P. G. Wodehouse is a case in point. Evelyn Waugh, for example, habitually referred to Wodehouse as “The Master,” never ceasing to admire Wodehouse’s capacity for comic linguistic invention. The opposite response—centering on the perceived triviality and negligible social content of Wodehouse’s novels—is well represented by Sean O’Casey, who tried to insult Wodehouse by calling him “English literature’s performing flea.” (The insult misfired: It was gleefully adopted by Wodehouse in 1953 as the title for a collection of his letters.) Robert Graves is among the few who have refrained from comment. In Goodbye to All That, he reveals that Wodehouse and Percival Graves, the poet’s elder brother, had been friends and that Wodehouse had once given the young Robert twopence to buy marsh