By Jeeves, Anything Goes

The works of P.G. Wodehouse inspired the formation of a society dedicated to the influential writer. The P.G. Wodehouse Society biennial convention takes place Oct. 12-14 in Philadelphia.

By: Ilene Dube

"Illustration
Illustration of Jeeves by Louis Glanzman.

   Many of those who become captivated by author P.G. Wodehouse
(pronounced Woodhouse) do so while convalescing.
   "His humor helps you get better," says David McDonough, a member
of the P.G. Wodehouse Society, who first began reading the humorist when he was
10 years old and suffered from asthma.
   The Titusville resident had been given a speed-like medication
to relieve the symptoms of asthma and it kept him up all night. "It was stressful,
but then my father gave me ‘Uncle Fred in the Springtime.’ It is a wonderful thing
to discover that an author you love has written 93 books. It gives you an enormous
amount to look forward to," says Mr. McDonough, who is helping to organize the
P.G. Wodehouse Society biennial convention in Philadelphia, Oct. 12-14.
   Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975), known affectionately
to his fans as "Plum" because if you say Pelham very fast it sounds like the word
to describe the purple fruit, wrote humorous stories about amiable, vacuous, idle
rich Edwardian young men who spent their days tossing rolls at each other in their
London club, the Drones. They spent their evenings in nightclubs and their weekends
in country houses. The worry-of-the-day in the life of the protagonist is an impending
visit from a ferocious aunt.
   Perhaps Plum’s greatest creation is the character Jeeves, personal
valet to the dimwitted hero Bertie Wooster. Jeeves is there to help Bertie out
of various troubles. English majors take note: Innuendoes and digs at the Bard,
Shelley, Browning, Poe, Hardy, Dickens and others abound in Wodehouse, often as
misquotes in Bertie’s narration.
   The Wodehouse Society, with chapters on every continent but
Antarctica, strives to "keep the literary legacy bequeathed by Plum fresh in the
public mind," according to its constitution. It accomplishes this by encouraging
young readers to read his works, publishers to circulate him, and booksellers
and libraries to make the works available.
   "Most libraries have only 20 or so of his books," says Mr. McDonough,
who was forced to haunt used bookstores to find the works of his favorite author.
   Mr. McDonough is a journalist by day, but his passion is writing
short stories. Was Wodehouse his inspiration?
   "He helped," Mr. McDonough says. "I always admired writers who
use language well, who have the ability to turn a phrase. Plum was so good at
metaphor and simile, he scared others off.
   "He read so much, from the Bible, Shakespeare and Dickens, to
complete trash. His young men speak in a funny schoolboy patois; they never outgrew
their school days. Because young Plum had been left to live with relatives, his
comic villains are aunts and uncles, not parents."
   From age 10 to 18, Plum was educated at Dulwich, a middle-class
boarding school. "It was the first place he lived that felt like home, and he
flourished there," Mr. McDonough says.
   After school, at age 18, the young author went to work at a
bank in London and wrote at night. A year later, he was able to support himself
as a writer.
   "He lived to 93, and he never did anything but write to earn
a living," Mr. McDonough says.
   What kind of people are the members of Wodehouse societies?
"Obviously, they have a sense of humor," Mr. McDonough says. They are of mixed
gender, from all walks of life and "pleasant to be around." They have come from
everywhere on the political spectrum, from 1987 Supreme Court Justice nominee
Robert Bork to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and folksinger Jesse Winchester.
   In 1980, Capt. William Blood, a Bucks County, Pa., resident
who wandered through used bookstores collecting names of Wodehouse lovers, formed
the Wodehouse Society. The Philadelphia chapter, named Chapter One, is hosting
the upcoming convention.
   Just what, exactly, happens at a Wodehouse convention? Silly
games, for one thing. "When Bertie Wooster and his friends are out on the town,
and it is boat race night, they have the habit of stealing a helmet from a policeman,
which of course gets them into trouble. So we have a contest to see who is most
adroit at stealing a helmet from a dummy policeman."
   Then there’s the "Sonny Boy" game, in which four people are
tricked into getting up and singing the Al Jolson song while others toss things
at them. Just what do they toss? "Oh, something soft. The games master will choose,"
Mr. McDonough says.
   Throughout the evening, Wodehouse’s music will be played. Wodehouse
wrote 18 plays and 35 musicals, and was a prodigious Broadway lyricist, working
with Jerome Kern. Opera singer Hal Cazalet, who just happens to be Plum’s great
grandson, has recorded many of his songs.
   There will be skits, a banquet, toasts, dancing and prizes for
those who dress in the most imaginative Wodehouse costumes. Undoubtedly, someone
will come as the Empress of Blandings Castle, the pig coveted by Lord Elmsworth.
   If you can’t make it to the convention, there is the Masterpiece
Theatre series, "Jeeves and Wooster," available on VHS, and in a few weeks,
By Jeeves, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, will open on Broadway.
   Here’s what Wodehouse has to say about haggis:
   "The fact that I am not a haggis addict is probably due to my
having read Shakespeare. It is the same with many Englishmen. There is no doubt
that Shakespeare has rather put us off the stuff… You remember the passage to
which I refer? Macbeth happens upon the three witches while they are preparing
the evening meal. They are dropping things into the cauldron and chanting ‘Eye
of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog,’ and so on, and he immediately
recognises the recipe. ‘How now, you secret, black and midnight haggis,’ he cries
shuddering."
The P.G. Wodehouse Society biennial convention, Oct, 12-14, is at the Sheraton
Society Hill Hotel, 1 Dock St., Philadelphia. For information, call (609) 465-3043.
On the Web: www.wodehouse.org/philadelphia.
For information about the society and Chapter One, which meets every six
weeks in at the Dickens Inn in Philadelphia, call (609) 465-3043.