Topic started by Saketh on Mon Aug 30 17:11:04 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
|
What do you think of British Humour?
|
Responses:
- From: ravi SUNdaram (@ 192.149.1.168)
on: Thu Sep 2 09:39:43
Makes good light reading. I am a big fan. Read a lot of his books. I dont see many PGW fans in US.
Heard that he had emigrated to US and wrote most of the books while living in US. Dont know if that is true.
Trivia: Only two characters appear both in Blandings Castle stories and Bertram Wooster stories. Who are they?
- From: aruvi (@ spc-isp-tor-uas-87-24.sprint.ca)
on: Fri Sep 3 22:50:55
Just finished reading my first PGW book. Goes by the name of 'Picadilly Jim'. It's very humourous but not in the sense that one can laugh out loud. Everything is taken lightly. I found that it reminded me of 'Crazy Mohan's' screenplays. A lot of 'aal maraadam' going on. Of course, this is the first book so let's see how it goes.
- From: aravind (@ iimk.ren.nic.in)
on: Sat Sep 4 11:27:52
great!!!!!
- From: ravi SUNdaram (@ ip172.pittsburgh5.pa.pub-ip.psi.net)
on: Sat Sep 4 15:37:39
aruvi: PGW is most famous for aaL maaraattam. In "Aunt's aren't gentleman" Bertram Wooster and his friend (monty bodkin?) get arrested for trying to steal a policeman's helmet during Oxford Boat Race Night. Bertie gets fined 5# and is let off. Next when his friend's turn came the judge decides to take notice of the increasing number of attempts to steal policemen's helmtets and delivers a lecture and sentences him to 1 month in jail. But the friend is engaged to the Vicar's daughter and has to be present in the village. So Bertie goes there taking his name, the girl knows him and cooperates. She has eight aunts. The friend gets clemency on the queen's birthday so decides to go to the village, but since bertie has already gone there in his name, he goes as bertram wooster. Oh my god you got to read the book. Does it remind you of the plot of a recent tamil movie?
The number of aaL maaraattams in Uncle Dynamite is just too much! Is that where a character will be living with three different false identities at the same time in the same house?
- From: ravi SUNdaram (@ ip172.pittsburgh5.pa.pub-ip.psi.net)
on: Sat Sep 4 15:44:13
Freddie Threepwood marries the daughter of the owner of Dog-Joy dog biscuits and emigrates to US. He returns and announces he is the Vice President of Dog-Joy. "So it pays to marry into the family in America?"
Freddie:"No pretty much everyone starts out as a vice president over there. If I really do well I hope soon to become a second assistance deputy salesman" (paraphrased.). He tries to get the exclusive contract to sell dog biscuits to Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, with the help of Lady Constance Keeble, his aunt. But Sir Gregory is the arch rival for Clarance, the ninth Earl of Emsworth, owner of Empress of Blandings, hoping to win the Fat Pigs Section of the Shrophshire Country Fair. Wow, so long since I read PGW. nice remniscences.
- From: Saketh (@ bing1.net107.binghamton.edu)
on: Mon Sep 27 13:41:21
Some of PGW quotes...
1. They crached into each other proving that two people cannot be at the same time at the same place
2. He went in and came back so quickly that he saw himself going in.
more later
- From: meera (@ 202.9.153.8)
on: Wed Sep 29 07:01:34
Two lovable characters at Blandings:
1.Pig-headed Lord Emsworth,who has nothing but the
prize pig that he rears on his mind all the time.
2.Uncle Galahad,the trouble-shooter at
Blandings,who pulls out all his young nephews/nieces out of the tight holes in
which they're fixed,sometimes with the able
counsel provided by his all-efficient
(inimitable,in .G.W's words)valet,Jeeves.. (Incidentally one of his policies in life is never
to turn in b'fore 4.00 in the night(morning!)every day)
Also,P.G.W's predeliction for aunts is quite overwhelming:aunt Connie,aunt Agatha,aunt
Hermione,aunt Diana...the list goes on..Every
youngster introduced is done so with a long line
of aunts trailing him/her!!
Another of P.G.W's interesting characters is
Comrade Psmith,the communist,possessor of a
profound vocabulory,who has the uncanny ability of
framing huge complex sentences out of the most
simple of statements!
(eg:Chided by a bank manager,about his intriguing
stare,he replies politely,saying:"I'm sorry if my
stare falls short in any view of ur ideals of what
a stare should be!")
P.G.W's musical comedies really do lit up a smile on even the most impassive sect of his readers..!
(Interestingly,Crazy Mohan himself once admitted
in a Vikatan interview,that his writings were inspired by P.G.W's lighter vein of writing,&
humorous color.)
- From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.125)
on: Wed Sep 29 13:15:34
meera:
That was a good write up on PGW, one of my all time fves.
- From: meera (@ 202.9.147.12)
on: Fri Oct 1 03:24:53
Thanks Ramji..nice to discover some (hard to find)P.G.W's admirers out here...
- From: vanchi (@ dail.pppmad.vsnl.net.in)
on: Mon Oct 4 06:12:36
If BW Wooster delights us with his stupidity Psmith does that with, as meera points out above, his grandiloquent style.
You should read that episode in "Leave it to Psmith" and see how he manages to find an umbrella for a strange girl who is held up in a bus-stop because of rain.
Psmith notices her stranded just as he came out of his club. He goes back to the cloak room of the club and picks the best umbrella, unmindful of the attendant's protests, and hands it over to that girl.
When it chances that he runs into her later in the same day that unknown girl thanks him and requests him to allow her to keep it until she reaches her home. He tells her not to bother about returning it. After she insisted upon returning it he gives the address to be returned as " Walderwick, ...."
The girl says "thank you Mr Walderwick" and Psmith is confused by her addressing him so and tells her
his name.
"Do you mean to say you are giving away the umbrella of another person?"
His reply is one of the best digs on communism.
"yes, While other people are content with mere talk of redistribution of property, I go one step further and practise it"
And that is not the end of that episode. When that Walderwick demands that Psmith return his umbrella
(or parasol) he consoles him saying how his name will be etched in the annals of history (by this act of donating the umbrella, although by proxy) along with the great names of people known for their kind deeds.
The whole book is hilarious.
- From: SRK (@ icache-3.doit.wisc.edu)
on: Mon Oct 4 11:17:59
I am a fan of PGW too. My favourite so far is "Code of the Woosters" - easily the funniest book I've ever read. This one is non-stop farce written in a most amusing manner. Critics have rightly described PGW as a musician of the English language.
Sun: If I remember rightly, one of Bertie's friends (is it Bingo Little) becomes Emsworth's secretary. Also, one of his n^2 fiances or her father is related to Emsworth.
- From: ravi SUNdaram (@ 192.149.1.168)
on: Tue Oct 12 15:46:56
SRK: The loony doctor Sir Roderick Glossop appears in both series. His daughter is the famour Honoria Glossop, engaged to Bertie, as usual for a book.
The secretary of Emsworth was Rupert Bauxter a mousy character very unlikely to be a friend of Bertie. But I do remember one of bertie's friends who needs 300 pounds to open a soup canteen in Picadilly circus, ends up kidnapping, nay pignapping, Empress of Blandings. so I was wrong there are more characters that appear in both series.
- From: SRK (@ icache-3.doit.wisc.edu)
on: Tue Oct 12 23:41:39
sun: True, but Baxter got dismissed. Who was the Lord's secretary after that? I guess it was one of Bertie's friends.
Sir Roderick Glossop was exactly the guy I was referring to. The scene when he comes to visit Bertie, rather to spy on his prospective son-in-law, is one of the most hilarious ones in "Code of the Woosters".
- From: ravi SUNdaram (@ 192.149.1.168)
on: Wed Oct 13 14:12:41
SRK: Bertie trying to puncture his hot water bottle with a needle at the end of a pole gets caught. Cant stop laughing just thinking about those episodes. Who was the guy who was depraved
enough to loop the last pair of ropes back and then challenge Bertie that he could not swing across the pool in Drones Club?
- From: bill markwood (@ spider-tf073.proxy.aol.com)
on: Tue Jan 4 22:38:09 EST 2000
what is Psmith's full name?
- From: C. B. K. Menon (@ hse-cha-ppp39306.sympatico.ca)
on: Fri Jan 7 12:08:46 EST 2000
P. G. WODEHOUSE! The very name is synonymous with Beauty of Language and Purity of Laughter! The amazing thing about P. G. Wodehouse is that although his language is at first difficult for non-English speaking people to comprehend fully, he is most enjoyed precisely in the non-English speaking world (outside Britain) and only rarely in the English-speaking Americas! The fact is that Indians have always enjoyed the beauty of language, whatever it may be - and PGW is a master-juggler of the English language, juggling it to the rarefied heights of comedy. Unlike so-called comedians of modern times, he does not resort to vulgarity to make people laugh. His comedy is the purest bliss! Besides, he has created a whole pantheon of characters, who, for variety and individuality, rank just below the pantheon created by Shakespeare. And that is some achievement!
- From: Diwakar (@ 206.175.177.171)
on: Mon Jan 10 16:23:48 EST 2000
What a wonderful thread!
PGW is, IMHO, the greatest writer of humour in the English language. Whenever I read his writings, the mood lightens, the blues are blown away and "all is right with the world". Not that this is anything new or unique. Just thought I will say it.
Here are a couple of his witticisms :
"I have always had the feeling that a violin solo appears to last longer than it actually does".
"He looked at her from top knot to shoe sole".
"In American companies people generally start off as Vice-Presidents and gradually become Managers".
- From: Aarthi (@ usr56k-52.rowan.edu)
on: Tue Jan 11 17:18:29 EST 2000
I agree with u guys...PGW is the best ever!Why is it so hard to find him in a library anywhere in the US????I guess we understand his humour the best, what with having been ruled by the British for soooo long.
Can u imagine my surprise when I find a brand new hard bound copy of PGW`s 5 short works in the 50% off sale shelf of my school book store.I grabbed it immediately.It was the best $12 I ever spent.The lady at the check out counter says"P.G.Wodehouse....never heard of him".You don`t know what you are missing lady,is all I could think!
- From: Diwakar (@ 206.175.177.171)
on: Wed Jan 12 13:06:47 EST 2000
Aarthi :
I think the libraries in the US stock books written by Americans or there is a mention of the US somewhere in the work :-).
I feel that is the reason that all of PGW's works are not available freely. Moreover PGW's books were also published in the US albeit with different titles.
List all pages of this thread