I wanted to take a break on classics for a long time, but couldn’t do it for various reasons. It so happened that I was strolling in landmark aimlessly one fine day, when I just bumped into P G Wodehouse collection. There were huge rows of books by him and I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to read them, since it was in the comics section. After much deliberation I decide to give it a try. But what lay ahead of me was a huge pile of collection which seemed like a series of episodes springing from a single concept. Hence I was stuck in a tedious task of picking up something which would make some sense if I were to read it for the first time. I did find a book and surprisingly it seemed like an independent story. So I bought it without a second’s hesitance. I was all excited to read something which I had never laid my hands on!
I finished “Piccadilly Jim” in a matter of 4 days, (That was the first time I finished reading a book this quick, since it usually takes ages to finish a classic) at the end of which, I declared that it was the most hilarious comedy ever written! I can hardly fathom a humour so well illustrated that which makes the reader laugh his heart out. What a sublime comedy indeed! Wodehouse was a comic genius who could just throw you into fits of laughter in a jiffy.
The books I read so far were either drama or play. After reading a comedy for the first time, I have begun to feel I should be reading more of them interspacing a comedy after every drama! It’s highly relieving and rejuvenating to read Wodehouse. His works are mainly light humor, and quintessentially British - the typical “Stiff upper lip” stereotypes. They are humorous yet subtle. It takes mighty talent to deliver a comedy that would appeal both to a literary critic as well as to a bibliophile!
There are different levels of humour that can excite a reader; rather the reader has his own levels or limits of responding to a humour. A humour that can stimulate one may not stimulate the other. Wodehouse has a profound way of writing. He has flair to capture both the morose and the witty alike. He defined a new dimension to the world of light humor which is of great significance especially during the time when humor was highly overshadowed by mainstream fiction/non-fiction. Wodehouse took a modest attitude to his own works. He once wrote:
"I go in for what is known in the trade as 'light writing' and those who do that – humorists they are sometimes called – are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at."
A normal Wodehouse plot lies in the tangled layers of comedic complications that the characters must endure to reach the invariable happy ending. His work contains a number of recurring protagonists, narrators and principal characters, including Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves; his Aunt Dahlia and Aunt Agatha, Bingo Little, friend of Bertie Wooster, Freddie Widgeon, member of the Drones Club, Gussie Fink-Nottle, noted newt fancier, Sir Watkyn Bassett, owner of Totleigh Towers, Madeline Bassett, daughter of Sir Watkyn and the likes.
From the moment I started reading Wodehouse, I was instantly drawn to see humor in a different light than before. And Wodehouse in particular will remain one of my favorites forever.
