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- Newsgroups: alt.fan.wodehouse
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!The-Star.honeywell.com!umn.edu!deci!karnik
- From: karnik@cs.umn.edu (Neeran M. Karnik)
- Subject: Re: Thoughts on Wodehouse
- Message-ID: <karnik.727836094@deci>
- Sender: news@news2.cis.umn.edu (Usenet News Administration)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: deci.cs.umn.edu
- Organization: University of Minnesota
- References: <AMATHUR.93Jan21120006@thunder.EEAP.CWRU.Edu> <1993Jan22.000000.26062@news.nd.edu>
- Distribution: alt
- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 00:41:34 GMT
- Lines: 39
-
- In <1993Jan22.000000.26062@news.nd.edu> dwalton1@bach.helios.nd.edu (david walton) writes:
-
-
- >After about the seventh-sixth story of the headstrong young woman who
- >gets sent to Blandings because she loves a poor minister but is then
- >rescued by Gally who introduces her lover to the Castle under the
- >pretense that he's portrait artist Reginald Spaulding who's come to
- >paint the Empress of Blandings, yes, the plots do begin to seem a bit
- >similar. Ditto for most of the Mulliner and Bertie & Jeeves stories.
-
- Yes indeed, I'm currently reading "Galahad at Blandings" and
- the story is remarkably similar to the Blandings love affairs of other
- books. But as you said later, it simply doesn't matter! The beauty is
- in the language, the sentence construction, and dialogue. I don't
- really read Wodehouse for the plot.
-
- >One of the best Wodehouse purchases I made in recent years was The
- >Pothunters (I think that's it), which is a collection of related short
- >stories set in two English public schools. While many of them are
- >still predictable, the characters and the plots make a refreshing
- >change from the usual Wodehouse fare (which I admit I still enjoy
- >tremendously). I think these stories are better than the other stuff
- >chiefly because the plots aren't simply rehashed from earlier stories;
- >the characters seem more real (!) because they're in situations that
- >are both believable and different from what we've seen before.
-
- Agree completely! I think "The Pothunters" was his first book,
- or at least, one of the first. Also, "A Prefect's Uncle" from about the
- same time, is another superb book based in a public school. Has a lot
- of cricket in it as I remember, which might make it difficult for
- Americans to appreciate as much :-)
-
-
- >{ David Walton Mail to dwal@midway.uchicago.edu }
-
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Neeran Karnik ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Dept. of Computer Science, | Email: karnik@cs.umn.edu
- University of Minnesota | karn0001@student.tc.umn.edu
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-