Wodehouse and the Psychology of the Individual by Tim Andrew
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P lum L in es The quarterly journal of The Wodehouse Society Volume 24 Number 1 Spring 2003 Wodehouse and the Psychology of the Individual by Tim Andrew MUST begin with a disclaimer. Notwithstanding the But you can look at his correspondence if you like. For I title of this article* I am very far from being qualified example this, written to Denis Mackail in 1953: as a psychologist, except through the compulsory atten dance at the University of Life that goes with being a I find in this evening of my life that my principal school principal. I did, I must confess, pretend to study pleasure is in writing stinkers to people who attack me something called “The Psychology of Education” some in the press. I sent Nancy Spain of the Daily Express a 35 years ago, but— in sharp contrast to the formal regu beauty. No answer, so I suppose it killed her. But what lations— most of us on the course regarded it as an fun it is giving up trying to conciliate these lice. It sud optional part of the programme. When the dreaded day denly struck me that they couldn’t possibly do me any of the end-of-year examination loomed, our kindly harm, so now I am roaring like a lion. One yip out of tutor advised us that if we didn’t feel we knew the text any of the bastards and they get a beautifully phrased book answer to any of the questions, we should put our page of vitriol which will haunt them for the rest of own ideas down. 1 have been using his advice as my their days.... guiding principle through life ever since and it is in that spirit that I have prepared what you’re about to read. We don’t have the space to begin to analyse what’s We seem determined to perpetuate the view that going on in that paragraph; suffice it to say that the emo Wodehouse was a sort of saint, unworldly to a fault, tions expressed are very human, completely under except of course that he had no faults since he was prac standable and not entirely saintly. tically perfect in every way, his sunny disposition In fact, to demonstrate PGW’s connection with real untroubled by the normal tensions and strife of human ity, you just need to look at what he wrote for public con relationships, untroubled indeed by the outside world. sumption. For example: Well, “Phooey!” say I. Wodehouse was far from being the dumb brick he liked— especially in later life— to pre Poets as a class are business men. Shakespeare sent himself as. He may well have been politically naive describes the poet’s eye as rolling in a fine frenzy, from and— after a year’s internment— out of touch with the heaven to earth, and giving to airy nothing a local habi world. An intensely private man? Yes. A man who so val tation and a name, but in practice, you will find that ued his privacy that he created a persona to hide behind? one corner of that eye is generally glued on the royalty Probably, and which public figure doesn’t do it? But returns. unworldly in the sense that he was disconnected from the world? I think not! If I had wanted to be really provocative, I could have To demonstrate that Wodehouse was directly con called this little piece “Wodehouse the cynic” and got nected with reality, you don’t need to read his intimate away with including that. correspondence or his letters to his agent. You don’t need His observation of the world of schools in The Little to look at his determination to pay as little tax as possi Nugget was very sharp and could be published in one of ble. You don’t even need to read Norman Murphy’s evi my trade’s publications today and still strike a chord in dence of the extent to which Wodehouse wrote from life. every staff common room in the land: It was almost as if Mr Abney [the headmaster, you will patronising good humour about her manner which remember] had realised intuitively how excellent the dis [Lord Tilbury] resented. And certainly, if Lady Julia cipline of work was for my soul, for the kindly man Fish’s manner had a fault, it was that it resembled a little allowed me to do not only my own, but most of his as too closely that of the great lady of a village amusedly try well.... ing to make friends with the backward child of one of her .. .the headmasters of private schools are divided into tenants. two classes: the workers and the runners-up-to-London. If you take just that last sentence and read it out loud Mr Abney belonged to the latter class. Indeed, I doubt if with what Bertie Wooster would have called “top spin,” a finer representative of the class could have been found substituting the name with that of someone whose patron in the length and breadth of southern England. London ising manner you particularly dislike, it comes out pretty drew him like a magnet. strongly. Success or failure for an assistant-master is, I consid er, very much a matter of luck. My colleague, Glossop, Talking of Bertie Wooster, his emotions at the prospect had most of the qualities that made for success, but no of a possible re-union with Florence Craye strike a strong luck. Properly backed up by Mr Abney, he might have chord: kept order. As it was, his classroom was a bear-garden, Honoria Glossop was hearty, yes. Her laugh was like a and, when he took duty, chaos reigned. steam-riveting machine, and from a child she had been a Teachers are making precisely those sorts of comments confirmed back-slapper. Madeline Bassett was soppy, about their headmasters all over England at this moment. true. She had large, melting eyes and thought the stars were God’s daisy chain. These are grave defects, but to do My contention is that you can’t write fiction that grips this revolting duo justice neither had tried to mould me, unless you understand human nature in all its manifesta and that was what Florence Craye had done from the tions. Certainly, you can’t write humour that hits the bulls- start, seeming to look on Bertram Wooster as a mere eye as often and unerringly as Wodehouse’s unless you chunk of plasticine in the hands of the sculptor. have real insight into the foibles of mankind. Manifestly, The root of the trouble was that she was one of those this insight is evident in his writing. So, by way of demon intellectual girls, steeped to the gills in serious purpose, stration, here are some examples, beginning with the who are unable to see a male soul without wanting to get description of a character from Heavy Weather: behind it and shove. We had scarcely arranged the pre liminaries before she was checking up on my reading, Lady Julia Fish was a handsome middle-aged woman giving the bird to Blood on the Banisters, which happened of the large blonde type, of a personality both breezy and to be what I was studying at the moment, and substitut commanding.. ..She came into the room a few moments ing for it a thing called Types o f Ethical Theory. Nor did later like a galleon under sail, her resolute chin and china- she attempt to conceal the fact that this was a mere pipe blue eyes proclaiming a supreme confidence in her abili opener and that there was worse to come. ty to get anything she wanted out of anyone.. ..Even set Have you ever dipped into Types o f Ethical Theory? ting aside her loathsome family connections, there was a ...here we are. “Of the two antithetic terms in the Greek philosophy one only was real and selfsubsisting; that is to say, Ideal Thought as opposed to that which it has to penetrate and mould. The other, corresponding to our Nature, was in itself phenomenal, unreal, without any permanent foot ing, having no predicates that held true for two moments together; in short, redeemed from negation only by including indwelling realities appearing through.” Right. You will have got the idea, and will, I think, be able to understand why the sight of her made me give at the knees somewhat. Old wounds had been reopened. Hands up the man who doesn’t identify with Bertie’s feelings! The serious point is that at the heart of the joke is a kernel of hard reality. Which of us does not, at least deep Lady Julia Fish and Lord Tilbury, as depicted by May down, entirely understand and identify with Gussie’s diffi Wilson Preston for The Saturday Evening Post in 1933 dence when it comes to declaring his love for Madeline? We 2 Plum Lines Vol. 24 No. 1 Spring 2003 would not, of course, allow ourselves to be persuaded by a gnawed by ceaseless pain. And then one night her broth sagacious gentleman’s personal gentleman to go to a Fancy er Lionel, a wild young man who had got into bad com Dress Ball dressed as Mephistopheles in an attempt to stiff pany, came to his rooms and told him he had committed en our sinews. Nor would we drivel on at such lengths and a very serious crime and was going to be arrested, and he in such detail about the mating habits of newts when we asked Mervyn to save him by taking the blame himself.