Plummy thoughts and ramblings of tea.
Jul. 22nd, 2003 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
castaliaArgh, today was a bit of a frustrating day. Drove to Dalton in order to go to their Kroger (I had a gift certificate to get rid of), specifically hoping they might have the tea I want. No tea, but I did discover they sold both duck *and* lamb, so I got a duck and will attempt to cook it, perhaps this Thursday.
Tried the Fresh Market, where they did have a sample of teas from the "Republic of Tea" company, but no Maté Latte. I did, however, get a strainer for loose-leaf tea so I can make it when I find it. Finally headed back to Rembrandts, where I tried the tea in the first place, but they too only had a few kinds of tea available for sale. They told me they can order it for me, though. It's either that or order it straight from the company's website, so it looks like a bit of a wait either way. Oh well. I did get some tea for take-out and was quite happy about it.
I found a copy of the Modern Library compilation Selected Stories by P.G. Wodehouse at the Chattanooga library. Mostly stuff I'd already seen, but there are two short stories I hadn't yet read and a cute foreward by Plum himself. Thoughts behind the cut...
I've come to admire PG Wodehouse just as much as I love Bertie and Jeeves. He's just so articulate and funny, and seems to love his own characters as much as we do :) He writes..."And the craving still grips me. Carpers may say that enough is enough, and cavilers may back them up in this opinion, but I doubt if I shall ever be able to fight against the urge to write Jeeves stories. People keep telling me that there are no Jeeveses in England now and that Bertie Wooster is probably trying to make do with a woman who comes in Tuesdays and Fridays to clean up and wash the dishes, but I ignore them."
The introduction to this book, however, by one John W. Aldridge, is complete tripe. Well, perhaps that's too harsh. He does apparently love to read Wodehouse, so that's a good trait, and there are some good bits in his intro. He seems to be rather fond of Jeeves. However, his attitude towards Bertie is, for me (and I'm admittedly biased, since I've been told being utterly in love with a character constitutes a slight bias), utterly unforgivable. He slights Bertie's fashion sense, calling it "outrageously bad taste in wearing apparel", which it wasn't. A few less-than-conservative choices does not bad taste make. When speaking of Bertie's lack of desire for "the prompt assumption of a deadly adulthood", this ass gives the reason as "...a cretinous lack of talent for such an enterprise...". He calls him a dunce, opines that even the Drones are smarter than Bertie ('ha jolly ha, with knobs on!' to that, says I), and concludes that without Jeeves, Bertie would seem "pallid and one-dimensional." That rankles, it does.
I'm not going to hold much stock in Mr. Aldridge's opinions. He's tried to be clever, but has insulted my Bertie, not to mention made the blunder of referring to Tuppy Glossop as the son of Sir Roderick Glossop, when we all know Tuppy was Sir Roderick's nephew. An ass, I say.
The stories, however, were excellent :) "Clustering Round Young Bingo" was a real treat, as much of the plot of this story is recalled by Bertie in many of the later stories. This is where Bertie writes the article, "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing", for the Milady's Boudoir (Jeeves even smiles slightly when he reads Bertie's passage about socks, of which he approves), and where Aunt Dahlia acquires Anatole from Bingo and Mrs. Little. Bertie is adorable in this one, as usual. Bingo is once again asking him for favors (breaking and entering, no less!), and of course Bertie can't say no. Jeeves is his usual brilliant self, fixes the outcome for everyone, and gets his way in the end.
"Bertie Changes His Mind" (which I'd skimmed before while in a bookstore, but hadn't gotten my hands on it for any length of time until now) is a special one, b/c it's the only time Jeeves gets to narrate the story. He has an intelligent, competent writing style, although he does have a tendency to ramble off on tangents :) Poor Bertie has just gotten over influenza, and so is a little cranky, and, even scarier, is contemplating adopting a child or asking his sister (with her daughters) to move into a house with him. Jeeves, naturally, oposes this. He has a great quote at the beginning, when he fears Bertie might be considering matrimony: "It disturbed me, therefore, I am free to admit, when Mr. Wooster addressed me in this fashion. I had no desire to sever a connection so pleasant in every respect as his and mine had been, and my experience is that when the wife comes in at the front door the valet of bachelor days goes out the back."
He also compared employers to horses, saying they require managing. I'm not sure how Bertie would feel about that metaphor :)
In order to get rid of Bertie's notion of having children about, Jeeves fixes it so that Bertie has to speak to a group of girls at a school, which of coures, bombs. To ensure Bertie does not just hop in the car and escape, Jeeves uses some rather impressive cunning, explained in this amusing quote:
"It was a good car, and appeared to be in excellent condition, but somehow I seemed to feel that something was going to go wrong with it - something serious - something that would not be able to be put right for at least a couple of hours.
One gets these presentiments."
We also discover that Jeeves smokes on occasion. He and Bertie both should know better.
As often as Jeeves puts Bertie through embarrassing situations, it seems he's not always eager to do so. When lying (or, prevaricating, as he'd likely say) to Bertie that the car is broken, Bertie gets upset and...
"I am fond of Mr. Wooster, and I admit I came very near to melting as I looked at his face. He was staring at me in a sort of dumb despair that would have touched anybody."
I thought it sweet. Makes up for the fact that he called Bertie "mentally negligable" again earlier in the story.
Everything works out in the end, of course, with Jeeves safe in his employent and no children in sight :)
It was fun to see things from Jeeves' perspective, and I wouldn't mind if we had more stories narrated by him. Not quite as amusing as Bertie's POV, but still good.
Btw,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rosabuddatchery, I received the sheet music yesterday. "Nagasaki" looks difficult, but I look forward to trying it out :) Thanks again!
Tried the Fresh Market, where they did have a sample of teas from the "Republic of Tea" company, but no Maté Latte. I did, however, get a strainer for loose-leaf tea so I can make it when I find it. Finally headed back to Rembrandts, where I tried the tea in the first place, but they too only had a few kinds of tea available for sale. They told me they can order it for me, though. It's either that or order it straight from the company's website, so it looks like a bit of a wait either way. Oh well. I did get some tea for take-out and was quite happy about it.
I found a copy of the Modern Library compilation Selected Stories by P.G. Wodehouse at the Chattanooga library. Mostly stuff I'd already seen, but there are two short stories I hadn't yet read and a cute foreward by Plum himself. Thoughts behind the cut...
I've come to admire PG Wodehouse just as much as I love Bertie and Jeeves. He's just so articulate and funny, and seems to love his own characters as much as we do :) He writes..."And the craving still grips me. Carpers may say that enough is enough, and cavilers may back them up in this opinion, but I doubt if I shall ever be able to fight against the urge to write Jeeves stories. People keep telling me that there are no Jeeveses in England now and that Bertie Wooster is probably trying to make do with a woman who comes in Tuesdays and Fridays to clean up and wash the dishes, but I ignore them."
The introduction to this book, however, by one John W. Aldridge, is complete tripe. Well, perhaps that's too harsh. He does apparently love to read Wodehouse, so that's a good trait, and there are some good bits in his intro. He seems to be rather fond of Jeeves. However, his attitude towards Bertie is, for me (and I'm admittedly biased, since I've been told being utterly in love with a character constitutes a slight bias), utterly unforgivable. He slights Bertie's fashion sense, calling it "outrageously bad taste in wearing apparel", which it wasn't. A few less-than-conservative choices does not bad taste make. When speaking of Bertie's lack of desire for "the prompt assumption of a deadly adulthood", this ass gives the reason as "...a cretinous lack of talent for such an enterprise...". He calls him a dunce, opines that even the Drones are smarter than Bertie ('ha jolly ha, with knobs on!' to that, says I), and concludes that without Jeeves, Bertie would seem "pallid and one-dimensional." That rankles, it does.
I'm not going to hold much stock in Mr. Aldridge's opinions. He's tried to be clever, but has insulted my Bertie, not to mention made the blunder of referring to Tuppy Glossop as the son of Sir Roderick Glossop, when we all know Tuppy was Sir Roderick's nephew. An ass, I say.
The stories, however, were excellent :) "Clustering Round Young Bingo" was a real treat, as much of the plot of this story is recalled by Bertie in many of the later stories. This is where Bertie writes the article, "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing", for the Milady's Boudoir (Jeeves even smiles slightly when he reads Bertie's passage about socks, of which he approves), and where Aunt Dahlia acquires Anatole from Bingo and Mrs. Little. Bertie is adorable in this one, as usual. Bingo is once again asking him for favors (breaking and entering, no less!), and of course Bertie can't say no. Jeeves is his usual brilliant self, fixes the outcome for everyone, and gets his way in the end.
"Bertie Changes His Mind" (which I'd skimmed before while in a bookstore, but hadn't gotten my hands on it for any length of time until now) is a special one, b/c it's the only time Jeeves gets to narrate the story. He has an intelligent, competent writing style, although he does have a tendency to ramble off on tangents :) Poor Bertie has just gotten over influenza, and so is a little cranky, and, even scarier, is contemplating adopting a child or asking his sister (with her daughters) to move into a house with him. Jeeves, naturally, oposes this. He has a great quote at the beginning, when he fears Bertie might be considering matrimony: "It disturbed me, therefore, I am free to admit, when Mr. Wooster addressed me in this fashion. I had no desire to sever a connection so pleasant in every respect as his and mine had been, and my experience is that when the wife comes in at the front door the valet of bachelor days goes out the back."
He also compared employers to horses, saying they require managing. I'm not sure how Bertie would feel about that metaphor :)
In order to get rid of Bertie's notion of having children about, Jeeves fixes it so that Bertie has to speak to a group of girls at a school, which of coures, bombs. To ensure Bertie does not just hop in the car and escape, Jeeves uses some rather impressive cunning, explained in this amusing quote:
"It was a good car, and appeared to be in excellent condition, but somehow I seemed to feel that something was going to go wrong with it - something serious - something that would not be able to be put right for at least a couple of hours.
One gets these presentiments."
We also discover that Jeeves smokes on occasion. He and Bertie both should know better.
As often as Jeeves puts Bertie through embarrassing situations, it seems he's not always eager to do so. When lying (or, prevaricating, as he'd likely say) to Bertie that the car is broken, Bertie gets upset and...
"I am fond of Mr. Wooster, and I admit I came very near to melting as I looked at his face. He was staring at me in a sort of dumb despair that would have touched anybody."
I thought it sweet. Makes up for the fact that he called Bertie "mentally negligable" again earlier in the story.
Everything works out in the end, of course, with Jeeves safe in his employent and no children in sight :)
It was fun to see things from Jeeves' perspective, and I wouldn't mind if we had more stories narrated by him. Not quite as amusing as Bertie's POV, but still good.
Btw,
rosabuddatchery, I received the sheet music yesterday. "Nagasaki" looks difficult, but I look forward to trying it out :) Thanks again!![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2003-07-22 09:17 pm (UTC)John Aldridge does not appear to know anything about anything. "Pallid and one-dimensional"? Has he been reading the same books as we have?! Bertie's one of the most (if not THE most) charming, vibrant, and lovable narrators I've ever encountered. As for his intelligence, that's such a mis-reading. With a combination of his good nature, self-deprecating narration, and Jeeves's staggering intelligence, unenlightened readers will be fooled. I could quote Stephen Fry here, but I know you're familar with the quote I'm talking about. :)
I have Carry On, Jeeves from the library. I need to go read "Bertie Changes His Mind" RIGHT NOW.
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Date: 2003-07-22 09:26 pm (UTC)Good luck with the duck--that's awesome that you can cook difficult things! I'm v. impressed.
"And the craving still grips me. Carpers may say that enough is enough, and cavilers may back them up in this opinion, but I doubt if I shall ever be able to fight against the urge to write Jeeves stories."
I wonder if Plum knew that his readers would feel the same way about reading Jeeves stories...
Argh. That introduction makes me quite angry. "Pallid and one dimensional" are awful terms that come nowhere near to describing Bertie. Plus, if he can't see Bertie's brillance, why is he writing an intro??!! I mean, really, Bertie is the one who uses so many of those wonderfully worded descriptions and everything...
Wow. I so want to read those stories now. I wonder if they're in my books of the short stories. Will have to look before beginning Thank You, Jeeves!!!
Have fun with "Nagasaki"!
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Date: 2003-07-23 03:31 pm (UTC)Serious ranting ahead--yes, dash it, being in love with the character constitutes a bias, but this is libelous and we all suffer of the infatuation:
What a fatheaded intro. How can someone even claim to like the Jeeves books if they don’t like Bertie? I mean, gorblimey, he’s the main character; the books are all about him. Sure, Jeeves is a great character, also, but he is a secondary one. I feel a need to scream out an emphatic “god dammit!” to strike it home, but I won’t. Since when do intros bash the characters in the pieces they're written for? And he’s not stupid. My god, if he has a vice it's that he’s too kindhearted for his own good seeing how he knows that half the time he’s getting trapped into fatheaded schemes--it’s always to rally round his moronic friends. He’s a bit of a pushover also, but never stupid.
Tuppy Sir. Roderick's son, eh? Whatever, every word discredits this Aldridge.
So many angered emotions boiling over...must cease.
Isn't that "Bertie Changes His Mind" story fab? I read that one in Carry On, Jeeves--third the recommendation, btw--and didn't realize straightaway that Jeeves was the narrator. I thought something like, "gee, Bertie sounds different" and then read some dialogue exchange or something and became quite excited. You know what was interesting and made me smile because even Plum, I guess, couldn't keep track of everything all the time: In one of the books--I think The Cat-Nappers--Bertie mentioned not having any siblings. What-ho! What about the sister with three daughters? ;p
See, you're making me gush--love "Clustering Round Young Bingo" also as we learn the origins of "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing." It's so cute when Bertie refers to that in the novels, calling himself an author and whatnot. (Want to squeal, but won't.)
This stuff makes me so happy and gushy.
Glad the music arrived safely. If you have any questions about "Nagasaki," I'll be more than happy to try answering them, but I think you'll be fine. :) It’s not as nice as the arrangement Hugh had, but we take what we can, right?
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