The other side

P.G. Wodehouse

The most English habit is ‘Not being Earnest’, or so Kate Fox tells us in her book ‘Watching the English’. And she’s right of course, being the keen observer she is.

But earnestness, or rather ‘not being earnest’, might not be the most defining character. Maybe it’s the ability of the Brits to ‘realize there’s always another side to the coin’. The English are the masters of viewing things from different perspectives. Naturally, they would not call themselves “masters” and would probably say, “somewhat skilled,’ because the Englishman’s characteristic use of understatement is also a form of relativism.

I realised this during the live performance of ‘Hommage to Happiness’, an ode to PG Wodehouse.’ The British writer died a fifty years ago in february,not entirely by coincidence on the same day The Stiff Upper Lip was first published this year.

The Hommage was one big party. That was partly due to Stephen Fry’s presentation. The writer/actor said that he owes his happiness in life to Wodehouse. “Without Wodehouse I would not be a tenth of the person I am today.” If this is also an example of the English sense of relativism, it is probably true that Fry would not be one-twentieth or one-hundredth of the exceptional man he undoubtedly is.

Fry owes some of his fame to his role as Jeeves the butler (referred to by Wodehouse as ‘best man’) in one of the most successful television adaptations of Wodehouse’s Jeeves & Wooster books. Fry only had to utter the words ‘Indeed, m’lord’ and the audience of five hundred (largely composed of “useless gentleman” Wooster types) burst into loud cheers. After all, they were real Wodehouse aficionados. Fry made short work of their cheers with a calming ‘allright, allright’.

The performance portrayed Wodehouse's life based on the thousands of letters, almost one hundred novels and short story collections and hundreds of songs Woodhouse wrote during an exceptionally productive life.

His productivity was largely due to discipline. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Wodehouse's death, I spoke to Wodehouse's grandson. Edward Cazalet. As Fry rightly noted during the show, Cazalet is the only living person who knew Wodehouse well.

Cazalet is actually Wodehouse’s step-grandchild. He’s the son of Leonora, the daughter of Ethel from an earlier marriage of Wodehouse’s wife. He remembers his grandfather’s iron discipline. "Particularly in the morning before breakfast, you were not allowed to disturb him. Then he was busy meticulously outlining what he was going to write that day."

Wodehouse’s success was also due to his belief that everything was relative, including his own fame and financial success. Once he was thrown out of Hollywood because he cheerfully admitted in an interview that he had done absolutely nothing for the fortune he earned there.

Wodehouse also knew how to keep the setbacks in his life in perspective. During the Second World War, he was captured by the Germans. Then he made the serious blunder of telling amusing, very amusing, stories about his imprisonment on the radio. As a result, he was, quite wrongly, banished from the United Kingdom for the rest of his life. But Wodehouse did not complain: “I behaved like a total idiot,” he said repeatedly.

This was even more true after the early death of his daughter Leonora. She died unexpectedly, after a routine operation. It was near the end of the Second World War and at a very vulnerable time for Wodehouse. But Wodehouse did not complain. By concentrating on his work, he managed to overcome this setback as well.

The show is called a Hommage to Happiness and there are plans to make it a Broadway/West End production. I hope they do. As far as I'm concerned, they can rename it an Ode to Relativism. After all, I suspect that keeping things in perspective is necessary condition for acquiring happiness. The English are masters at it, and Wodehouse is the grandmaster. As a Dutchman, I can say that.