"As with most of the giants of late 19th- and early 20th-century English literature, the vast majority of PG Wodehouse's readers today are non-white. Perhaps it was brutal colonial indoctrination that ensured the modern descendants of the aspirant imperial middle classes from Barbados to Burma, with their tea caddies, gin-stuffed drinks cabinets and yellowing Penguin paperbacks, still devour Maugham, Shaw and Kipling."
"Wodehouse's detractors are many Stephen Sondheim (archness tweeness flimsiness), Winston Churchill (He can live secluded in some place or go to hell as soon as there is a vacant passage), the Inland Revenue but for millions around the world he remains the greatest comic writer Britain has ever produced. And he clearly still sells here, as this collection of a dozen new officially sanctioned stories by writers, comedians and celebrity admirers, out in time to be a stocking filler, attests."
"It's easy to parody Jeeves and Wooster: the pyjama-clad prelapsarian sexlessness, the midnight bally-hooing and double-barrelled surnames. It's much harder to pinpoint what makes them stand the test of time the remarkable psychological insights into human nature that Jeeves displays, the inherent decency of Bertie Wooster, the gift for observation and description that never reaches too far or outstays its welcome."
PG Wodehouse maintains a vast, global readership, including many non-white readers across former imperial territories. Speculation about colonial indoctrination competes with the simple explanation of enduring literary taste. Notable detractors include prominent cultural figures and institutions, yet millions still regard Wodehouse as Britain's greatest comic writer. A new collection of officially sanctioned Jeeves stories by contemporary writers has been produced and marketed as a seasonal stocking-filler. The Jeeves and Wooster formula resists easy parody because of its psychological insight, inherent decency, precise observation, and the authorial ability to play absurd situations completely straight while keeping characters decorous.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]