Here we go with Part Four of our latest audio diversion, and our second foray into the oeuvre of P G Wodehouse, especially selected for those who thought last month's tale - about world government leading to Armageddon - was a bit short on laughs. By contrast, The Girl on the Boat is pure entertainment: a novel from 1922 about a girl, a boat, and three suitors (for the girl, not the boat).
Thank you for all your kind comments on the early installments of this tale. Richard Woodruff, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:
Mark, as a member of the North American P.G Wodehouse society, I'm always glad to find something of his I'm not familiar with. Nice story.
It will not surprise you to learn that the society is deeply concerned with rising average membership age, and declining membership.
For your next Wodehouse story, I recommend 'Pig-Hoo-O-O-O-EY!'
Actually, that does surprise me, Richard. Mainly because, many years ago, I went to interview the literary critic Lord David Cecil. Unlike 99 per cent of deployments of that particular locution in today's media, mine is accurate: he's "Lord David" because he was the younger son of the fourth Marquess of Salisbury - and thus grandson of the third Marquess, a very great prime minister. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but he was a way better PM than either David Cameron or Rishi Sunak...
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Well, after the interview, Lord David invited me to stay for dinner, in the course of which he advanced the proposition that funny books held up much better than serious books. "Example?" I asked. And he invited me to compare P G Wodehouse with John Galsworthy, author of The Forsyte Saga.
Six months later, I ran into him again and suggested that his theory was only true at the very highest level such as Wodehouse, but, as the decades roll by, the average funnyman turns out to be just as big a stinker as the average melodramatist. And Lord David conceded there might be some truth in that.
So I am dismayed to hear from your society, Richard, that Wodehouse may be fading as an exception to the rule. All my kids read him and love him, but the wider world is doing a fine job of abolishing all jokes (a point I made in Out of Time) which obviously makes PGW suspect.
That said, in tonight's episode, having surreptitiously snaffled away his cabinmate's former fiancée, Sam is forced to grill the jilted lover on what his ex-girl is actually like:
"What did she like talking about?"
"Oh, all sorts of things."
"Yes, but what?"
"Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which first drew us together."
"Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly paper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his long suit... "Any special poet..?"
"Tennyson principally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver in his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of the King!"
"The which of what?" inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and shooting out a cuff.
"The Idylls of the King. My good man ...you have surely heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the King?"
"Oh, those! Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson's Idylls of the King? Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the King? Well, really. I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by any chance?"
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Four of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
Tales for Our Time is now in its eighth year. So, if you've a friend who might be partial to our classic fiction outings, we have a special Gift Membership that, aside from nearly six dozen audio yarns, also includes video poetry, live music, our weekly Clubland Q&A and more.
Please join me tomorrow evening for Part Five of The Girl on the Boat.
