April is both National Humor Month and National Poetry Month. I’ll be honoring both with prompts, tips, and guest bloggers. For my favorite story of the month, I’m featuring one of the funniest short stories I’ve ever read, “The Crime Wave at Blandings” by P.G. Wodehouse.
I wrote about P.G. Wodehouse a few years ago and featured his hysterical autobiography Over Seventy. A British writer, P.G Wodehouse created a unique comic world. He takes the British upper class of about one hundred years ago and gives it a madcap twist, along the lines of a screwball comedy or a Marx brothers’ movie.
“Crime Wave” is one of Mr. Wodehouse’s best and is often included in anthologies of his works. The opening gives you a flavor of his one-of-a-kind style”
“The day on which Lawlessness reared its ugly head at Blandings Castle was one of singular beauty. The sun shone down from a sky of cornflower blue, and what one would really like would be to describe in leisurely detail the ancient battlements, the smooth green lawns, the rolling parkland, the majestic trees, the well-bred bees, and the gentlemanly birds on which it shone.
But those who read thrillers are an impatient race. They chafe at scenic rhapsodies and want to get on with the rough stuff. When, they ask, did the dirty work start? Who were mixed up in it? Was there blood, and, if so, how much?”
This story is part of the Blandings saga, which concerns Clarence, Earl of Emsworth and owner of Blandings Castle. Not the brightest man, he longs to be left alone to putter about the ancestral estate, enjoying his roses and overseeing the care of the enormous sow he enters in the county fair. His sister, Lady Constance, constantly bullies him into acting more like a respectable member of the aristocracy.
In “Crime Wave”, Lady Constance has hired Rupert Baxter to tutor Clarence’s grandson George while the boy spends his summer vacation at the castle. Clarence loathes Baxter because Lady Constance forced him on her brother before as a private secretary with the job of making the earl act like an earl. George doesn’t like the look of Baxter, saying he “looks like a bit of a blister”. Clarence completely agrees with his grandson.
George has a BB gun and shoots Baxter to demonstrate his opinion of him. Lady Constance orders the butler Beach to take the gun away from him. During the afternoon, the gun passes through the hands of various members of the family as well as the butter, resulting in considerable confusion over who shot whom, although Baxter is usually the target.
P.G. Wodehouse stories are my literary equivalent of comfort food. In the past month, I was feeling so stressed-out. One way I handled it was to settle down at night with stories about whacky earls, wily butlers, dominating aunts, and all sorts of other nut jobs, all tied together in hilarious stories with more twists than a back country road.
What books or stories do you turn to for comfort?
Did P.G. Wodehouse write about Bertie and Jeeves, or am I thinking of someone else? My mother has an anthology of humor, and I’m thinking that a story about Bertie and his man-servant Jeeves are in it.
For comfort reading, I turn to meditations featuring nature. My favorite writer for this (and one who influences my writing) is Don Ian Smith, who was pastor, teacher, rancher. He lived in Idaho, near the Salmon River. He wrote “By the River of No Return”, “Wild Rivers and Mountain Trails”, and other books. His love for the country and wildlife was evident, and his faith in God gave him spiritual insights from living close to nature. He managed to write about those insights without being “preachy”. To me, his books are well worth the time to read them.
Yes! Jeeves and Wooster are Mr. Wodehouse’s most famous creation and I love the short stories about them. I don’t know Don Ian Smith, but I love to read about nature and faith.