Post AkbSpOVdcqQR6BVSee by dougfort@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by dougfort@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AkbNtW3wz6CVuehZdQ by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T21:11:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
One of the weirdest things reading essays about Wodehouse is how many people (all of them so far either British or Canadian) who love his early books set in British public schools for boys. They strike me as boring and trivial and all I can figure is that I just have no cultural bone in my body that is fascinated by what cricket-loving British boys talked like in boarding schools circa 1890. Yet apparently it fascinates people.
(DIR) Post #AkbO0eT48Iv40Xqs9A by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T21:12:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
People will often say it captured a certain ambience, which always seems bizarre to me since the characters (as typical of Wodehouse) lack any real depth. That apparently fits with the affectations common in the time and place, but I guess I don't see what anyone is supposed to get out of portraying it. It seems to me like writing Harry Potter without wizardry or mysteries,
(DIR) Post #AkbO7naqbRMoKxtqHQ by mogul@hachyderm.io
2024-08-03T21:13:43Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith Feels like boarding school nostalgia is a genre all by itself.
(DIR) Post #AkbOCSjLb8sv516D9U by brennen@federation.p1k3.com
2024-08-03T21:14:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith boarding school stories are maybe the weirdest genre to have attained the sort of fascination and cultural dominance that they exhibit.
(DIR) Post #AkbOJKj3l1mCHUEzqa by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T21:15:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@brennen It is genuinely astonishing to me! I mean by about 4 books in he was doing a better job of adding interesting characters and jokes and things, but mostly nothing happens unless you really care about the outcome of an imaginary cricket match between imaginary schools circa 1895.
(DIR) Post #AkbP0uEJd6fIqadb3g by segv11@mastodon.online
2024-08-03T21:23:40Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith I still have Wooster's random terms of endearment come back to me at odd times. It's easy to find him a completely worthless upper-class leech on society, but it's tough not to find him at least a little endearing. I suppose shallow characters are just part of Wodehouse's style.
(DIR) Post #AkbP2mdUpnjTsHJLPc by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T21:24:19Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@segv11 Wooster is much much later though -- that's mature Wodehouse, not juvenile boarding school stuff.
(DIR) Post #AkbP71P3s9SKpfa1vU by StrangeNoises@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T21:25:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith the only English Boarding School books of any worth are the Jennings series. No, I'm not that old; these were books my Dad grew up with, and [formative memory alert] he would read them to me and my sister at bedtime, often having to stop in paroxysms because he'd just read ahead to another funny bit... but that was ok because the anticipation paid off when he was finally able to get it out.
(DIR) Post #AkbPqKXhYkQTDuE5se by katfeete@wandering.shop
2024-08-03T21:33:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith About the only boarding school book I found fascinating was Kipling’s Stalky & Co. Though not so much for the content as the realization of “oh, that’s why Kipling was Like That. He had British Empire boarding school PTSD. “
(DIR) Post #AkbSpOVdcqQR6BVSee by dougfort@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T22:06:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith Did you read "Stalky & Co"? Also, C. S. Lewis who went to a really horrible school said that the good thing about the army was you weren't required to like it.
(DIR) Post #AkbWOXLR4E6IV1BPoe by robz@toot.robzazueta.com
2024-08-03T22:46:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith ... is Wodehouse just "Sweet Valley High" for old Brits?
(DIR) Post #AkbZwGL769OJT0o1A0 by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T23:26:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mathew @segv11 I don't know that I agree. In private writing, Wodehouse is astonishingly non-political. And in fact he seems to often talk and think like Wooster, with their main differences being that Wodehouse is more fond of animals and cricket.
(DIR) Post #AkbgRrgatVnnzsJ0Cm by DMakarios@theres.life
2024-08-04T00:39:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith I like Psmith. Any book with Psmith in it is worth reading. Wodehouse's non-Psmith school stories I can take or leave. I think in Over Seventy he said he wrote them to start with as there was a big market for them at the time.
(DIR) Post #AkbiB0Y6t7AcTGQWlE by klepsydra@wandering.shop
2024-08-04T00:58:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith Wodehouse had the great good sense to realise that he’d struck a seam of gold in the form of Psmith, and promptly had him first shoulder aside the original hero, and then leave school to star in his own right, yea, even unto crossing over into the Blandings series.Is it any wonder that Wodehouse’s non-Psmith school stories pale in comparison?
(DIR) Post #Akbl8AnKdesnEyt25w by pdcawley@mendeddrum.org
2024-08-04T01:31:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith I have to agree. They're interesting to read, in an "oh, that's where he started" kind of way, but his work is so much better once his horizons expand. Psmith In The City and Psmith, Journalist are great though – a weird mixture of realism and comedy. The stuff about the New York slums in 'Journalist' in particular.
(DIR) Post #AkbloHImporNaLg0Tw by pdcawley@mendeddrum.org
2024-08-04T01:39:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ZachWeinersmith @mathew @segv11 I get the feeling he started off as a bit of a firebrand, but very rapidly developed into the kind of contented Tory that purports to be apolitical while supporting the establishment.
(DIR) Post #AkchD2k3nhsz3SNoQ4 by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-08-04T12:22:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@klepsydra My understanding is Waugh said Psmith was when you see Wodehouse suddenly get good, but I think in the early school stories, every now and then when he lets a boy behave just a little badly, you see it coming. I think Psmith is just when he finally went all in.