The Witty World of P.G. Wodehouse

 

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Few readers of the 21st century may have stumbled upon the wit and humor of P.G. Wodehouse who wrote extensively in the 20th century. He was a British writer who mostly penned down fictional books and created beloved characters of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Psmith, and Lord Emsworth, among others. 

This English-born comic novelist, short-story writer, lyricist, and playwright, is best known for creating the witty character of Jeeves, the supreme “gentleman’s gentleman.” He has written more than 90 books and more than 20 film scripts and collaborated on more than 30 plays and musical comedies.

The Early Life of P.G. Wodehouse 

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in Guildford and was the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, he spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were more or fewer school stories, but he later switched to the comic fiction genre. 

Most of Wodehouse's fictional world is set in his native country of the United Kingdom, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He also wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, which played an important part in the development of the American musical. 

Budding Writing Career 

Instead of a university career, in September 1900 Wodehouse occupied a junior position in the London office of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. However, he was not well at the job and found the work baffling and uncongenial. But his bank job led him to later write a humorous account of his experiences at the bank, but at the time he longed for the end of each working day when he could come back to his rented lodgings in Chelsea and write his heart out. 

At first, he concentrated, with some success, on serious articles about school sports for Public School Magazine. In November 1900 his first comic piece titled "Men Who Missed Their Weddings", was accepted by a British weekly magazine called Tit-Bits. A new magazine for boys, The Captain, provided further well-paid opportunities, and during his two years at the bank, Wodehouse had had eighty pieces of his own published in a total of nine magazines. 

In 1902, he wrote his first novel titled “The Pothunters”, which consisted of school stories centered around the fictional school of St. Austin’s. In the following years leading up to 1918, he experimented with different stories and characters and wrote his most popular stories on Psmith, Blandings Castle, Bertie Wooster, and Reginald Jeeves. 

His Writing Techniques

Before commencing a book, Wodehouse would write up to four hundred pages of notes bringing together an outline of the plot. He acknowledged that it was the plot that he found so hard to work out and it took a long time to work one out. He always used to complete the plot before working on specific character actions. 

For a novel, the note-writing process usually took up to two years, and he would usually have two or more novels in preparation simultaneously. After he had finished his notes, he would draw up a fuller scenario of about thirty thousand words, which ensured that plot holes were avoided, and allowed for the development of dialogue to begin. 

Wodehouse believed that one of the factors that made his stories humorous was his view of life, and he stated that if one takes life fairly easily, then one takes a funny view of things and it is probably because one was born that way. He carried this view through into his writing, and described the approach akin to making the entire thing a sort of musical comedy without music, and ignoring real life altogether. 

Conclusion

Though P.G. Wodehouse passed away in 1975, his humor and wit are still alive in the literary world through his meticulously carved characters of Jeeves and Psmith. His existence is still intact in the pages he wrote in the 20th century. His experiences and anecdotes never fail to make the readers laugh and have the time of their lives. 

Written by Chitra Gangwani