One of life's great pleasures is discovering something you truly come to love. Like the day I was a kid and went to the New York Departement store in Santurce and bought my first Beatle album. And suddenly I wanted every Beatle album. Their music offered me a new world. A new way of seeing things.
Well, a few months ago I discovered a writer that creates a wonderful world. And now I want everything he ever wrote, luckily he wrote a lot. His name was P.G. Wodehouse. He was an English writer who writes humorous books. But not "here's another fart" type of humor. He wrote the most, elegant, witty, fun books you can find. And they are not witty in an Oscar Wilde sense, but in a lighter sense,
in a less pretentious sense.
His main creation: Jeeves, the butler who changes the life of well meaning but kind of dim witted English gentleman called Bertie. The interplay between the two of them is magical.(The relationship between butler and millionaire in the movie "Arthur" is obvioulsy based on Jeeves and Bertie). The world that surrounds them of English people with money and some pretending to have money is really cool. He satirizes that world without being mean, something that is so hard to do. There are no cheap shots in his way of portraying that world of appearances. He does it in an elegant and fun way.
But more than that, Wodehouse created "a wonderful world for us to live in and delight in". Somebody once wrote: "Reading Wodehouse always makes me feel good." And that is the key. I can be in the foulest mood, and Wodehouse changes me. He takes a sad song and makes it better.
Wodehouse books are in the Borders "Humor" section in the Plaza store.
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