I see you have a copy of Early Havoc, a book that was a huge influence on me in high school. I recently tracked down June Havoc, who is still alive, and she gave me an autographed copy of the book -- I had lost mine over the years. Did you enjoy it? Did you know she wrote a sequel?

posted by kambrogi at 8:47 am (EST) on Apr 25, 2008

Hi,
your library contains "The Ingolsby Legends" by Richard Harris Burham. That should be "Ingoldsby. If you fix it, it will join the other copies of Ingoldsby Legends.
Regards,
Jim Roberts

posted by jimroberts at 4:58 am (EST) on Aug 13, 2007

... I am afraid that I haven't learnt the joint bank account lesson ...

Well, I never actually said that I had fully learned the lesson myself ... I merely stated that I had now been made aware by Plum's characters in Leave it to Psmith of the dangers that are inherent in being an owner of a joint bank account. As an analogy, my grammar school English teacher may have also made me aware of the dangers of using dangling prepositions at the end of sentences, but that still doesn't mean that I now never take a morbid delight in dangling some unsuspecting preposition here or there whenever I'm feeling in an impish mood. You might even say that PlumCrazy is to English prepositions what Michael Jackson is to babies. But, then again, if you know any better, you might not! :(

However, that has not always been the case. When I was younger I used to be very strict on myself with respect to the correct use of English grammar. Not once would you catch me misplacing a modifier or so much as entertaining the thought of dangling a preposition or straggling a trailing participle. But that was then and this is now. Now I'm much more lenient and forgiving ... thank you for asking. :) Today, not dangling prepositions is exactly the sort of English grammatical pedantry up with which I will not put!

WRT joint bank accounts, what my point is is that ... OMG, now I'm doubling my copulas - my old English teacher must be having conniptions! I believe the last person to double his copulas was Sir Christopher Wren ... oh, wait, maybe that was cupolas that he doubled up on. :( Aha, now I remember, it's Hollywood that I was thinking about, not Mr. Wren. First there was Francis Ford Copula, then his daughter got in on the act ... Hmmm, conniptions??? Lady Constance Pshung would make a great Wodehouse character, don't ya think? Let's see now ... Connie Pshung??? ... Connie Pshung??? I think she would probably be an American news anchor person if Plum was still writing today.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Joint bank accounts. What I was really referring to with that remark was the fact that Leave it to Psmith was not the first Wodehouse novel where the husband/wife joint bank account is used as a way to prevent a millionaire (such as Joe Keeble) from writing a cheque for a relatively paltry sum. Well it may have been the first one written by Plum, but I'm pretty certain that it was not the first one of his farces that I have read that used this particular plot artifice. Unfortunately, I have now read so many of his books that I can't remember exactly in which of his other novels Plum uses this same expedient. (There, see ... no damn danglies in dat one! :) Phew!)

However, I do suspect the fact that in real life Wodehouse held a joint bank account with his wife Ethel, and that she was in complete control of it, has a lot to do with why Plum saw both the humor (or even the humour) and plot contrivance possibilities in such a relatively innocuous situation.

I also think that "Across the pale parabola of joy' could be greatly improved with a few silent letters chucked in here and there.

That should be "Across the pale parabola of Joy"! I believe the capital 'J' is actually quite important to the parody. And sprinkling it with silent 'P's (OMG, that sounds almost naughty, doesn't it? ... the kind of prank English public schoolboys with bursting bladders would get up to in the middle of the night!) might also lessen the actual import of the parody that Wodehouse intended by repeatedly using that particular phrase. In effect, it would be a case of overloading the joke to the point that it is no longer funny anymore.

I did also want to make a comment about 'whale of a hat' hats but unfortunately this message is already far too long.

posted by PlumCrazy at 11:55 pm (EST) on Feb 22, 2007

I see that Leave it to Psmith is your favourite Wodehouse too.

Hi, lizzy, I just logged onto LT and saw your comment. Actually, Leave it to Psmith is NOT strictly speaking my favorite Wodehouse. Yes, yes, it's ONE of my many favorites - truth be known, you've gotta like almost anything by Plum, so I guess I could claim almost ALL his novels as my favorites! - but I tend to favor the later Blandings "pig-purloining" and "manuscript-stealing" novels rather than this "necklace-nicking" one. Although, I have to admit it, the secretary Baxter is one of my all-time favorite Wodehouse characters and the flower pot episode is probably the comedic highlight of this book. :)

But I do like the origins of Psmith's name. So when I saw the quoted text while surfing online I decided to cut and paste it into my profile as I hadn't written anything yet - and consequently I felt my profile to be a little naked and in need of a quick fig leaf. Plus pthe payoff of posting pthat particular piece of purple Psmith prose is pthat Plum provides appropriate pronunciation pointers ptoo!

That novel also taught me the dangers of opening a joint bank account with anyone!

posted by PlumCrazy at 11:31 pm (EST) on Feb 12, 2007

Loved your Jane Eyre review - I feel the same way!

posted by sionnac at 3:50 pm (EST) on Nov 28, 2006