Wodehouse's People: The Good, the Bad & the Goofy

It will help a humorous novel if your characters were funny. That is an understatement, gross, even.

"The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. " - Wodehouse

Wodehouse's characters are sillier, freakier, funnier than life, and their priorities are all skewed up. They gamble like hell, staking their precious possessions at times, said possessions frequently being their butler or cook. They are not above committing minor crimes, and bribing or blackmailing the representatives of the law when caught. These are usually the good guys.

In the world of Blandings, imposters are good guys and the law-abiding victims are the baddies. In 'Leave it to Psmith,' Psmith is the hero who steals Lady Constance's pearl necklace, while Baxter, the loyal and efficient secretary, is the villain. Baxter has a suspicious nature, which is at cross-purposes to whatever the 'good' guys, who, apart from being imposters, plan to do. Pinching paintings, pearl necklaces, pigs or whatever happens to be the treasure of that particular Blandings story.

Rupert Baxter, the Earl of Emsworth's indefatigable private secretary, was one of those men whose chief characteristic is a vague suspicion of their fellow human beings. He did not suspect them of this or that definite crime; he simply suspected them. He prowled through life as we are told the hosts of Midian prowled.

 - Something Fresh

In serious literature, the treasure would be gold, a peace treaty, an emerald, the Holy Grail or the Philosopher's Stone. As any good writer, or reader, knows, it could be anything as long as the main characters attach value to it. In Wodehouse, the treasure could range from normal treasure like necklaces or bonds to eccentricities like pigs, scarabs or cow-creamers. Or objets de blackmail like diaries, letters or photographs.

"Well, see here . . . I collect scarabs. I'm crazy about scarabs. Ever since I quit business, you might say that I have practically lived for scarabs."

"Though it sounds like an unkind thing to say of anyone," said Ashe.

- Something Fresh

My point is that, in a tightly-plotted Wodehouse story, one wouldn't know which came first: the character or the plot. The character dictates the plot, and the plot dictates the choice of characters.  If it's a plot using his favourite 'imposters vs guardians' motif, Wodehouse would pick an efficient imposter from his range of heroes or their minions: Galahad, Ickenham, Psmith ...

For a good guardian, he would turn to his rogues gallery: Baxter, Aunt Constance, Spode,  or any other unpleasant 'authority figure.' Priorities, as I mentioned earlier, being all skewed up.  This 'unpleasantness' is the key to understanding  the morality of a Wodehouse novel. His villains are unpleasantly authoritarian, snobbish, and most are hypocrites. Wodehouse was at heart a public school boy, and he judged virtue and vice on public schoolboy scales. Bertie Wooster's code is just a version of the unwritten code of the schoolboy.

The avuncular masters at school were the good guys while the stiff and starched ones were the baddies. Boys who stick on side are absolutely barred. Though sneaking out after lights out was fine. It was okay for boys to flout the official rules, but only an absolute rotter would snitch. You could pinch food, but not money. Wodehouse's morality for his characters is all about good form and bad form.

Even after having grown to man's estate,  Wooster and other heroes keep the schoolboy code. They pinch policemen's helmets but never cold cash. They may enter a castle under false pretences and pinch a pig or two but will never do the dirty on a pal.

Q. But why did Wodehouse always have a tricky, witty and bold hero to foil the establishment?
A. The literary secret is that, to defeat a villain in power you require a trickster type of hero.  Wit and audacity are perfect foils to authority and order.  The villain goes by the rule book; the trickster goes by the joke book. Krishna from Indian Mythology and Odysseus from  Greek are famous examples;  Robin Hood who takes on Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham is from English legend.  Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel are trickster heroes in literature.

Wodehouse has three brilliant tricksters up his sleeve: Psmith, Galahad and Ickenham.  They have much in common: they are unorthodox in their methods; they are not above doing something illegal; they are socialists mingling freely with all, and they talk, talk, talk. Now you know why it is impossible to have more than one of these in the same story. One is quite sufficient!

'Who are you?' snapped Mr Rossiter, turning on him.

'I shall be delighted, Comrade—'

'Rossiter,' said Mike, aside.

'Comrade Rossiter. I shall be delighted to furnish you with particulars of my family history. As follows. Soon after the Norman Conquest, a certain Sieur de Psmith grew tired of work—a family failing, alas!—and settled down in this country to live peacefully for the remainder of his life on what he could extract from the local peasantry. He may be described as the founder of the family which ultimately culminated in Me. Passing on—'

Mr Rossiter refused to pass on.

'What are you doing here? What have you come for?'

'Work,' said Psmith, with simple dignity. 'I am now a member of the staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests. Psmith, the individual, ceases to exist, and there springs into being Psmith, the cog in the wheel of the New Asiatic Bank; Psmith, the link in the bank's chain; Psmith, the Worker. I shall not spare myself,' he proceeded earnestly. 'I shall toil with all the accumulated energy of one who, up till now, has only known what work is like from hearsay. Whose is that form sitting on the steps of the bank in the morning, waiting eagerly for the place to open? It is the form of Psmith, the Worker. Whose is that haggard, drawn face which bends over a ledger long after the other toilers have sped blithely westwards to dine at Lyons' Popular Cafe? It is the face of Psmith, the Worker.'

'I—' began Mr Rossiter.

'I tell you,' continued Psmith, waving aside the interruption and tapping the head of the department rhythmically in the region of the second waistcoat-button with a long finger, 'I tell you, Comrade Rossiter, that you have got hold of a good man. You and I together, not forgetting Comrade Jackson, the pet of the Smart Set, will toil early and late till we boost up this Postage Department into a shining model of what a Postage Department should be. What that is, at present, I do not exactly know. However. Excursion trains will be run from distant shires to see this Postage Department. American visitors to London will do it before going on to the Tower. And now,' he broke off, with a crisp, businesslike intonation, 'I must ask you to excuse me. Much as I have enjoyed this little chat, I fear it must now cease. The time has come to work. Our trade rivals are getting ahead of us. The whisper goes round, "Rossiter and Psmith are talking, not working," and other firms prepare to pinch our business. Let me Work.'

Two minutes later, Mr Rossiter was sitting at his desk with a dazed expression, while Psmith, perched gracefully on a stool, entered figures in a ledger.

 - Psmith in the City

Wodehouse & the Needlessly Elaborate Scheme.

We lesser mortals can't aspire to write like P. G. Wodehouse, but we can learn from the Master and improve our craft. Especially if we are alleged humorists, like me. I may not be the greatest expert on Wodehouse around, but I am known as his biggest fan in the circles I move in.

A good writer is a great reader. The best fiction-writing lessons are not available in writing workshops or how-to books, but in the very novels  and stories we read. And the authors of these novels are our best teachers, even if they wouldn't want to, or don't have the time to, teach us. I learnt the craft of writing, and specifically how to write humour, from Wodehouse. 'Leave it to Psmith' was my primer.  LITP is a textbook of brilliant plotting, witty dialogue-writing and amazing style.

Wodehouse was, among other things, the master of the complex plot. And in many of his complex plots, especially in the 'Jeeves' stories, he makes his characters involved in an unnecessarily complex plan. Unnecessary and dangerous to the character's wellbeing, but absolutely necessary to the kind of laugh-a-minute farce Wodehouse wrote. While the main character or characters hatch a complicated plot, supporting characters take the already unlikely scheme to new, surreal heights.
 The plan isn't foolproof, just optimistic. And a realist may question the plan, cutting through the elaboration to put his or her finger on the nub. But it is highly unlikely to find a realist in a surreal story. The average Jeeves story is comfortably formulaic. Bertie Wooster, a man of private means and negligible intelligence, would have led a life that is one round of pleasure, if not for dominating aunts or aunt-like girls who rope him into perilous projects and situations, that get worse when Bertie takes matters into his own hands. The Code of the Woosters makes it impossible for Wooster to defy friends and females. If there is a possibility of escape, then they blackmail him into submission, blackmail being the favourite weapon of the fairer sex, who can be notoriously unfair when it suits them, which is most of the time. In a Jeeves novel, I mean. By midnovel, soup would be lapping at our hero's ankles, with him being in danger of being thrown into jail, or worse, engaged to a girl, a consummation devoutly to be missed. Fortunately for Bertie, his supervalet Jeeves, sometimes in one strategic move, rescues Bertie, and everybody else from their respective soups. To prolong the suspense, Wodehouse may create temporary hostilities between valet and master, or Bertie would choose to solve problems without involving Jeeves. Or a goofy friend or aunt may do something extra goofy. For example, in a typical Bertie and Jeeves story, Bertie's Aunt Dahlia may ask him to steal something for her, the stolen article being the means to make her disgruntled husband, Tom Travers, a bit ungruntled enough to fund the magazine she runs. Our realist may ask, "Why doesn't she do something else legal, less dangerous and simple? But that is not how characters in a farce, worthy of its name, behave. And Wodehouse's typical Jeeves plot is an elaborate scheme in itself. But it is legal and only dangerous if you are prone to die of laughter.

 In 'Right Ho, Jeeves,' one of the storylines, just one of many storylines in the complex plot, has Bertie helping his fish-faced, shy friend, Gussie Fink-Nottle woo the whimsical idealist, Madeline Basset. Aunt Dahlia, who usually starts the crazy ball rolling in a Jeeves story, starts this one by inviting Bertie to distribute the prizes at the local school. Defying his aunt would mean foregoing the pleasures of the palate, dished out by her masterchef Anatole. Bertie, in a clever attempt to eliminate two avian targets with one projectile, sends poor Gussie to his aunt, pitching it strongly to that shy wooer that this was an admirable opportunity to impress the object of his affections. To add fuel to a sure fire, Wodehouse makes Bertie think it a good idea to lace Gussie's orange juice with some species of alcohol. Bertie brags about his plan to Jeeves, just before things go wrong:

 "It must have been rather an eye-opener for you, watching me handle this case."
"Yes, sir."
"The simple, direct method never fails."
"No, sir."
"Whereas the elaborate does."
"Yes, sir."
"Right ho, Jeeves."