Source of book: I own this
I have made it my goal to read one P. G. Wodehouse book every year, even though I know that at that rate, I will never finish all his books - he lived a long life, and wrote an incredible number of books.
I have written a lot about Wodehouse on this blog, starting with my introductory post. I will list all of the book reviews at the end of this post, should you wish to explore more.
Money in the Bank dates to the 1940s, when Wodehouse was suffering from some unpopularity due to his boneheaded (although likely coerced) broadcasts from Nazi-occupied France during the war. I have discussed this a bit in my review of The Code of the Woosters. Wodehouse was not a fascist or a sympathizer - and none other than George Orwell - an OG of antifa to be sure - came to his defense. Indeed, in the runup to the war, The Code of the Woosters mocked British fascists such as Sir Oswald Mosley, parodying him in the character of Roderick Spode, one of the finest villains in Wodehouse’s work.
With Money in the Bank, Wodehouse avoids politics altogether, instead choosing to parody his usual bumbling aristocrats, but also private detectives and American con artists. And really, Wodehouse is hilarious when he takes on us Rebel Yanks and our unique shady elements.
This book also does not contain any of the usual recurring characters - it is a stand alone story - but it does contain Shipley Hall and Lord Uffingham, who appear in a later book, Something Fishy. Shipley Hall was patterned after Fairlawne, a country house that Wodehouse’s daughter lived in after she married.
As with any Wodehouse book, the characters and plot are complicated and filled with, um, complications. Let me see if I can set this up in a way that makes sense.
Lord Uffingham is highly eccentric, and has just placed all of the family fortune (except for Shipley Hall) into diamonds, which he then hides in various places around the house. This goes wrong when he is in an accident which affects his memory. Now, he cannot find the diamonds, and has no way to pay his bills.
Enter Clarissa Cork. Ms. Cork is a one-time adventuress, hunting game in Africa, who has now turned to the “health” industry as her profession. She rents Shipley Hall from Lord Uffingham to use as a vegetarian resort.
Lord Uffingham’s niece, Anne, is Ms. Cork’s assistant, and negotiates the contract, which has the unusual term that the butler, Cakebread, must stay on. “Cakebread,” it turns out, is Lord Uffingham in disguise, and he stays on both to cosplay the butler and to search for the diamonds.
But there is more! Anne is secretly engaged to Ms. Cork’s nephew, Lionel Green. Ms. Cork suspects the relationship, and does not approve. Lionel wants her to lend him money for the interior decorating firm he is trying to start, but she withholds the money until she is sure that he is not after Anne. Thus, Lionel insists Anne keep the engagement secret.
As if this weren’t enough, there is a pair of shady con artists at the retreat, Soapy and Dolly Malloy. They are Americans from Chicago (of course!) who hope to get Ms. Cork to buy their fraudulent stock shares. But then, Soapy seems to be flirting with Ms. Cork, and Dolly suspects infidelity. (Although in reality, Ms. Cork is also being courted by Mr. Trumper, another guest.)
Meanwhile, Ms. Cork catches Cakebread searching her room, and asks Anne to engage a private detective to watch him - she suspects he is trying to rob her. Dolly suggests her old buddy, J. Sherringham Adair, a private detective (and that isn’t his real name, either - it’s Chimp Twist…)
When Anne goes to hire Adair, due to a series of humorous circumstances, Chimp is hiding in the cupboard, and Jeff Miller, a young attorney who has recently broken up with his fiance (to his great relief) and is coincidentally trying to apologize to Chimp, is mistaken for Chimp/Adair. Suddenly smitten with Anne, he impersonates Chimp/Adair in order to be near Anne.
Oh, and it turns out, he is an old school enemy of Lionel Green. And Chimp shows up at Shipley Hall after he hears about the missing diamonds from Dolly, and….
Well….complications.
And hilarity, of course.
Will the diamonds ever be found? Who will win the hand of Anne, Lionel or Jeff? Will Chimp, Dolly, and Soapy get away with a heist? Can they even get along for long enough to pull anything off?
I guess you will have to read the book.
As usual, I have a bunch of witty lines to share. Some may be spoilers, so you can feel free to stop here and read the book first if you like.
First, from Mr. Shoesmith, Jeff’s intended father-in-law (before the engagement is broken a couple chapters in.)
Jeff had his little circles of admirers, but Mr. Shoesmith was not a member of it. About the nastiest jolt of the well-known solicitor’s experience had been the one he had received on the occasion, some weeks previously, when his only daughter had brought this young man home and laid him on the mat, announcing in her authoritative way that they were engaged to be married.
He had said ‘Oh, my God!’ or something civil of that sort, but it was only with difficulty that he had been able to speak at all.
For that matter, Jeff isn’t at all sure he wants to marry Myrtle Shoesmith.
He was still quite at a loss to understand how the ghastly thing had happened. The facts seemed to suggest that he must have let fall some passing remark which had given the girl the impression he was proposing to her, but he nad no recollection of having done anything so cloth-headed. All he knew was that at a certain point of time in an evening party he had been a happy, buoyant young fellow, making light conversation to Myrtle Shoesmith behind a potted palm, and at another point in time, only a moment later, or so it seemed to him, he was listening appalled to Myrtle Shoesmith discussing cake and bridesmaids. The whole thing was absolutely sudden and unexpected, like an earthquake or a waterspout or any other Act of God.
This is, of course, a recurrent trope in Wodehouse - the accidentally trapped bachelor. But somehow, he manages to find a new and hilarious way of telling the story, with yet another witty and well turned sequence of words.
The description by Dolly of the vegetarian retreat is also good.
“It’s a sort of a crazy joint. You eat vegetables and breathe deep and dance around in circles. It’s supposed to be swell for the soul.”
Wodehouse usually finds at least one place in every book to sneak a ridiculously long and rare word, often in the most unexpected place. Here is the moment in this book.
Anne Benedick had been waiting in the hall of Lord Uffingham’s club some ten minutes before his lordship finally appeared, descending the broad staircase with one hand glued to the arm of a worried-looking Bishop, with whom he was discussing Supralapsarianism. At the sight of Anne, he relaxed his grip, and the Bishop shot gratefully off in the direction of the Silence Room.
If you are enough of a theology nerd to recognize the reference to Calvinist doctrine, congratulations.
For Jeff, one of his biggest problems is that, since he is impersonating someone, he needs to find a way to keep those who know either him or Chimp from blowing his cover. For Lionel, even though they are enemies, he is able to use a carrot and a stick to keep him in line. (I won’t spoil it.) And he keeps his promise.
He had never been fond of Lionel Green, and saw little prospect of being fond of him in the future, but there are moments when common humanity makes us sink our prejudices.
Not that he is entirely successful in his quest. Dolly, for one, would prefer he meet his demise. Jeff finds he respects her.
And in addition to her psychic gifts, it now appeared, she had also this remarkable capacity for direct and rapid action. True, after swallowing most of his cigarette and looking up with a jerk that nearly dislocated his neck, he had not actually observed her leaning over the banisters, but an ormolu clock, last seen on an antique chest of drawers on a first floor landing, does not descend into the hall of its own volition, and he had no hesitation in assuming that Dolly’s was the hand which had started it on its downward course. He might be wronging her, but he did not think so.
There is also this later passage, a musing by Soapy.
Dolly had always been the brains of the firm. He himself, he was aware, had his limitations. Give him a sympathetic listener, preferably one who in his formative years had been kicked on the head by a mule, a clear half-hour in which to talk Oil and plenty of room to wave his hands, and he could accomplish wonders. But apart from this one talent he was not a very gifted man, and he knew it.
Chimp Twist gets his own fun line later, when he decides to show up at Shipley Hall, not expecting what he will find.
The hour of seven-fifteen found Chimp Twist at the main gates of Shipley Hall, humming a gay air beneath his breath and feeling that God was in His heaven and all right with the world. He surveyed the rolling parkland, and admired it enormously. He listened to the carolling of the birds, and thought how sweet their music was. Even an insect, which got entangled in his moustache, struck him as probably quite a decent insect, if one had only got to know it. His mood, in short, was one of saccharine benevolence.
I appreciate the reference to Browning there. This moustache comes in for a bit of further action later, in this exchange between Chimp and Lord Uffingham - I quote just the highlights, because it goes on for a full page.
‘That moustache. Had it long?’ he asked, like a doctor making the preliminary inquisition concerning some rare type of disease. ‘When did you first feel it coming on?’
…
‘Sometimes I use wax.’
‘Beeswax?’
‘Just ordinary wax.’
‘And that’s what makes it stick out?’
‘Yessir, that’s what makes it stick out.’
‘Well, it looks bloody awful. If it was mine, I’d have it off at the roots.’
Ironically, here it is Lord Uffingham who gets the subjunctive mood wrong. Later, he takes Anne to task for it, after she storms out of the room saying “I wouldn’t marry Mr. Miller if he was the last man on earth.”
‘Not “was”. “I wouldn’t marry Mr. Miller if he were the last man on earth.” Dash it,’ said Lord Uffingham, driving home his point, ‘the thing’s a conditional clause.’
People hiding in various places are another recurring situation both in this book and in Wodehouse generally. Chimp takes refuge in a wardrobe, which, unfortunately, turns out to be in Mr. Trumper’s room. But before that, he sees Chimp dash up the stairs.
Thoughts of burglars flashed into Mr. Trumper’s mind. Then he dismissed the idea. Burglars, he reflected, were creatures of the night and would not be likely to put on what amouinted to a matinee performance. Nor did they, it occurred to him, skim up stairs in this volatile fashion. They prowled and prowled around, like the hosts of Midian, but always, or so he had been given to understand, at a reasonable pace.
Mr. Trumper’s character can be summed up in this line about what he did when he heard Chimp sneeze.
Eustace Trumper had no objection to danger to the person, provided it was some other person.
Anne is, to put it mildly, slow to warm to the idea of loving Jeff rather than Lionel. Lord Uffingham is on Jeff’s side, at least. I loved this explanation of why Uffingham thinks Anne picked Lionel.
‘That,’ he concluded, becoming profound, ‘is the whole trouble with fellers like Lionel Green. If you see one without actually wanting to kick him, you think, “This must be love.”’
It is predictable what will happen, if you know your Wodehouse.
In the relations of Lionel Green and Anne Benedick, there had always been on the part of the former something a little superior, a shade condescending. A charming girl, he had felt, but one who required moulding. He had looked on himself as the wise instructor with the promising pupil. And now, all of a sudden, she had changed into something formidable and intimidating.
I myself just went ahead and married the formidable and intimidating woman. Which was a wise choice.
And, speaking of weak, insecure men, here is another appearance by Soapy.
At his least appearance in this chronicle, it may be remembered, Soapy Molloy was far from being in debonair mood. Introduced to the pistol which he was now bearing with such a flourish, like a carefree waiter carrying an order of chipped potatoes, he had quailed visibly, as if he had found himself fondling a scorpion.
Finally, at the risk of spoilers, this hilarious exchange.
‘You were kissing me? It was not just a lovely dream?’
‘No. I was kissing you. You see, I thought you were dead.’
Jeff paused. They were approaching the nub. From this point, he would have to follow her answers very carefully.
‘Do I have to be dead for you to kiss me?’
‘Not at all. I would prefer it otherwise.’
Jeff’s brain was still a little clouded.
‘I don’t quite follow this.’
Good stuff. As always, I recommend Wodehouse for classic British humor.
***
The Wodehouse books:
No comments:
Post a Comment