Source of book: I own this
Ah yes, my annual “beach read.” Actually, didn’t get much of a chance to read it at the beach because I did too much boogie boarding with my kids. Such is life. So, I had to read most of it at home.
Young Men In Spats is Wodehouse’s classic 1936 collection of short stories about members of the Drones Club. For those not familiar with it, it is a fictionalized posh London club inhabited by thoroughly useless but independently wealthy young men. Basically, Bertie Wooster and his friends. The stories tend to be about love affairs - both successful and, more commonly, unsuccessful.
Featured in this book are some familiar characters: Freddy Widgeon, the feckless young man who never lands the girl; “Barmy” Fotheringay-Phipps, who is clueless even by Drones Club standards; and “Pongo” Twistleton- Twistleton, nephew to Uncle Fred. And a few others, of course.
There are eleven stories, at least in the original British edition. For the US version, two were omitted (so they could be published in magazines first) and three of the golf stories were substituted. My edition is a re-issue in the US of the original British version, which is good, because I already own the complete golf stories - which are a total gas, even if you are not a golfer.
As I mentioned, the stories are about the guy who gets the girl, or, more often, who makes a fortunate escape from the girl. The Drones are bachelors, after all, and the wise(r) ones remain unentangled.
While the main characters are given names, the framing stories feature various other members, who are referred to in some of the stories by the monikers “Eggs,” “Beans,” or “Crumpets.” In others, the nondescript members are referred to by their preferred adult beverage. In addition to the young men, there are a few older sorts that make their appearances. Uncle Fred, of course. And Mr. Mulliner, who tells a number of the stories.
To even try to describe the stories ruins the fun. If you haven’t experienced Wodehouse, you really should, and this book isn’t a bad place to start.
I do want to quote some of the best lines, of course. First, a couple from “Fate.”
“Old Freddy’s back,” he observed.
Some moments elapsed before any of those present felt equal to commenting on this statement. Then a Bean spoke.
“Freddie Who?”
“Freddie Widgeon.”
“Back where?”
“Back here.”
“I mean back from what spot?”
“New York.”
“I didn’t know Freddie had been to New York.”
“Well, you can take it from me he has. Or else how,” argued the Crumpet, “could he have got back?”
The Bean considered the point.
“Something in that,” he agreed. “What sort of a time did he have?”
“Not so good. He lost the girl he loved.”
“I wish I had a quid for every girl Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost,” sighed an Egg, wistfully. “If I had, I shouldn’t be touching you for a fiver.”
“You aren’t,” said the Crumpet.
The bean frowned. His head was hurting him, and he considered that the conversation was becoming sordid.
And this one:
And a man who is engaged to be married and who, already, is not any too popular with the bride-to-be, shrinks - automatically as it were - from blue-eyed, golden-haired females in pink negligees picked out with ultramarine love-birds.
And this passage from “Tried in the Furnace”:
If there’s one thing Barmy hates it’s being conspicuous, and conspicuous is precisely what a fellow cannot fail to be when he’s in a motor coach with sixteen women of mature ages who alternate between singing ribald songs and hurling volleys of homely chaff at passers-by.
“I say! I mean, I say. I say, dash it, you know. I mean, dash it,” said Barmy, feeling, even as he spoke, that the rebuke had not been phrased as neatly as he could have wished.
“The Amazing Hat Mystery” is perhaps the silliest of the stories, the plot turning on the mixing up of hats (which the inane characters insist has a supernatural cause.) But the line about the posh milliner is pretty funny.
People can say what they please about the modern young man believing in nothing nowadays, but there is one thing every right-minded young man believes in, and that is the infallibility of Bodmin’s hats.
Oh, and I shouldn’t forget this one, from the same story.
“She is so small, so sweet, so dainty, so lively, so viv - what’s-the-word? - that a fellow wouldn’t be far out in calling her an angel in human shape.”
“Aren’t all angels in human shape?”
My second kid took exception to this statement, by the way - she is a mythology buff - and pointed out that truly biblical angels don’t sound remotely human.
Any conversation between characters in an Uncle Fred story is bound to be peculiar. Like this one.
“Yesterday, Claude and I arrived in London from our Bexhill home to give Julia a pleasant surprise. We stayed, naturally, in the boarding-house where she has been living for the past six weeks. And what do you think we discovered?”
“Insects.”
“Not insects. A letter. From a young man. I found to my horror that a young man of whom I knew nothing was arranging to marry my daughter. I sent for him immediately, and found him to be quite impossible. He jellies eels!”
Finally, this one, from “The Code of the Mulliners.”
I do not know if any of you gentlemen have ever watched a retired Colonial Governor at his evening meal. I have not had the experience myself, but Archibald tells me it is one fraught with interest. He begins, it seems, in a spirit rather similar to that of the lion of the jungle at feeding-time, growling fiercely over his soup, absorbing his fish to the accompaniment of a series of muffled snarls. It is only with the entree that a softer mood starts to manifest itself. Then, and through the joint and sweet, one is aware of a growing geniality. The first animal hunger has abated. Repletion has done its kindly work. With the dessert and port, the now mellow subject leans back and starts to tell stories.
As usual, Wodehouse delivers good fun, utter silliness, and a loving satire of the Edwardian aristocracy in decay.
***
Previous Wodehouse posts:
Introduction to P. G. Wodehouse
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (aka The Cat-Nappers)
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