Robert McCrum

As a writer, P.G. Wodehouse was something of a Jeeves, his most famous character. He came up with outrageous solutions to outrageous problems. He even out-jeeved Jeeves by inventing the problems in the first place. Wodehouse said his novels usually began with an absurd situation. Then he just had to figure out a way to get his characters into that situation and out of it again by the last page.

Otherwise Wodehouse was more like Lord Emsworth (Clarence) of his Blandings novels, the character show more he most identified with according to Robert McCrum, author of the superb 2004 biography “Wodehouse.” Clarence gives every appearance of being a befuddled old man. Actually he is just preoccupied. The only thing he cares to think about is his prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings. On that subject he is always alert, always on top of things. Everything else just goes over his head. Wodehouse was that way. It was his writing that drew his focus. Most everything else he preferred to let his wife, agent or somebody else handle for him. When his wife gave parties, he would make a brief appearance, then suddenly disappear to return to his work.

It was this Lord Emsworth quality that led to the biggest crisis of Wodehouse's life, to which McCrumb devotes several chapters. Wodehouse was living in France when the Germans invaded early in World War II. He made no attempt to leave, although in fairness it should be noted that many other British citizens also stayed in France, assuming the Germans would be stopped just as they were in the first war.

The Nazis kept coming, however, and Wodehouse was soon their prisoner. Wodehouse being Wodehouse, he kept writing his funny stories and making light of a bad situation. When the Nazis, recognizing his propaganda value, offered him his release in exchange for doing a series of radio broadcasts, the writer viewed it as an opportunity to connect with his fans and assure them he was alright. In Great Britain especially, many saw it as betrayal, a collaboration with the enemy.

Wodehouse lived in the United States for the remainder of his long life, never returning to England because of his shame and, for many years, fear of prosecution. He was eventually knighted, but by then he was too old to travel and probably would not have returned to his home country even if he could have.

Most of the biography, if not as light as Wodehouse's novels, is at least lighter than most biographies. McCrumb describes the plots of much of his best work, and so much of his work was terrific. For about 70 years he was an important writer, not just of books but also of short stories, pieces for magazines and newspapers and even Broadway plays and Hollywood movies. For a number of years, in fact, his was one of the biggest names on Broadway, teaming with the likes of Jerome Kern and George Gershwin. His books remain in print and loved around the world. I have seen a couple of his musicals performed in recent years, and they are still entertaining.

Even though Wodehouse remained productive while a Nazi prisoner, for about five years after the war he found it difficult coming up with anything funny. Eventually he put his embarrassment behind him. Wodehouse fans would be kind to do likewise. show less

I recently finished Robert McCrum's Wodehouse: A Life. If you aren't afraid that knowing a whole lot more about Wodehouse personally might take away some of the inimitable lightness you get from reading his stories, I highly recommend it. McCrum has researched essentially everything that is known about Wodehouse's life, including some (perhaps many) illuminating details not previously reported by anyone. For example, McCrum found and interviewed (still living, retired in the south of Spain) show more a then-young German journalist (and pre-war Wodehouse fan) who in 1942 dissuaded an interned Wodehouse from trying to hire a German attorney to commence a legal action in England against English newspapers for libel over their attacks on him for the broadcasts he made on German radio in 1941. If all that sounds as implausible as one of Wodehouse's stories, well, that's just why you might enjoy the real story of his life.

And there is much that is enlightening and revealing about Wodehouse's early life. For example (and as you may already know), Psmith in the City is heavily built on Wodehouse's own experiences (much exaggerated of course) when he was sent to work at the London branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. It was an unusual bank in the City in that it's young staffers were in training to be sent out to more responsible positions at branches in Asia. (Wodehouse didn't want to do that, and broke away to try -- and succeed at -- full time writing before it was time for him to go out East.)

A couple of caveats:

Turns out that Wodehouse in real life was an intensely private person, so there is much that can never be known about what he really thought and felt at key points in his life. That, however, doesn't always stop McCrum from speculating from insufficient evidence. You can enjoy the facts presented without always accepting McCrum's inferences, of course.

In a similar vein, McCrum aspires to psychobiography, and here too the lack of sufficient evidence doesn't always stop him. These passages stand out easily, though, and again you don't always have to accept his speculations.

The 100 page section on the period of Wodehouse's internment by the Germans reads almost like a thriller. I found myself turning the pages to find out what strange twist of fate came next.

For me, the bio has deepened my appreciation for Wodehouse's immense literary achievement. Wodehouse the man was more complex than I had thought (I should have expected that), and I can see that some of his literary virtues (never taking anything too seriously) are related to some of his real life vices (the refusal to take anything other than his writing very seriously). show less

Having suffered a stroke myself, aged 27 (half a lifetime ago), this book was particularly interesting and poignant. It took me back to my own struggles, physical and psychological, and the devastating effect it had on not only my life but my husband of 7 months. McCrum was one of the lucky ones - his marriage survived, but as he observed many don't and mine was one of those. However I was (am) fortunate that my physical recovery was about 95% - though no thanks to the NHS: in hospital for show more nearly 4 weeks then kicked out and left to my own devices to relearn to walk, talk and write. Could I drive? When should I return to work? What should I expect as I recover? As a private patient, McCrum's experience here was very different as he is well aware, but he describes so much that I remember: the inability to get a limb to respond, the enormous tiredness, the anger and frustration, the very great self-involvement.

I intend to recommend this book to my GP for any stroke patients she might have. Although it is particularly relevant to "young strokes" and their friends, family and carers, there is much that will inform anyone who has anything to do with stroke victims of any age. show less

This book is best suited to researchers and truly obsessive Wodehouse fans. For those readers who have simply enjoyed a few Bertie and Jeeves or Psmith novels, this biography will be a struggle.

The problem is that PG Wodehouse was a person of rigid routine who had only a handful of interests (cricket, his old high school, pekinese dogs, and his own writing); he was also a workaholic. This makes for pretty dull reading, but the author did his best with it and managed to wring a real show more doorstopper out of it all. We learn how many words Wodehouse writes per day, how many words each book contains, how many words were written up in the initial plot outlines, and how many words had to be scratched out from the final copies of every book. Each year's articles, short stories, poems, Broadway show lyrics, script revisions, and books are faithfully reported. His daily routine is laid out in both short and long forms in 21 of the 26 chapters, even though this routine does not change for sixty years.

In fact, we learn a lot about the minutiae of Wodehouse's life without really learning much about the man himself. The overall picture is of a brilliant writer who saves everything for the page, leaving nothing for life itself. Affable and harmless, he comes off as rather simple-minded in this book. This last characteristic leads to the only interesting event in his life, the "Berlin Broadcasts", when he gave a series of radio broadcasts on Nazi radio during WWII. The biographer attempts to justify Wodehouse's conduct by claiming that he is "ill-equipped to deal with the challenge confronting him", and that when asked by friends-turned-Nazis to do the broadcasts Wodehouse "behaved as he always did when confronted by difficult or complex choices, which was to let others take care of the arrangements" (p. 304). For my part, I take the side of Harold Nicolson, who wrote, "I resent the theory that 'poor old P.G. is so innocent that he is not responsible'" (p. 316). It was hard to look at this episode with my modern eyes and feel anything but incredulity at Wodehouse's conduct, and rightly or not it did sour me towards him. As much as the previous chapters had been a slog, at least I was on his side. Afterwards and all throughout the rest of the book I wasn't sure if I liked him at all. show less