House party

[sartorias]

Jennifer Stevenson on the house party farce. These are so much fun to read when they work!

I think my favorite is by Wodehouse, one of the many house party comedies of manners involving Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. My usual inability to remember titles gets whacked especial with these. I think it might be Right Ho, Jeeves, but it contains my

Comments

[hand2hand]

I remember a trashy fifties novel called "House Party" which was kind of a matriarchy plus romance, and ended with a big surprise. I don't want to spoil it for you if you run across it.

I remember reading it at the summer cabin as a teenager and being all o.0 and wondering why my grandmother had such stuff in the house!

[houseboatonstyx]

Something that often overlaps with the 'house party' story, is what I'd call 'chess pieces'. Just as every chess game has a king, queen,rook, bishop, etc, the same group of 'pieces' shows up in many old Christies. The squire, the educated housekeeper, the black sheep, the ingenue, the village professional doctor or lawyer. But the functions are shuffed differently each time: victim, murderer, witness, innocent accused, etc.

A tv series that used the same sort of design was "Rosemary and Thyme".

ETA: Another metaphor would be the same set of planets (squire et al) shuffled into different astrological signs and houses and alliances/oppositions. Limited diversity in infinite combination.

[sartorias]

Some of those shade over into math puzzles--intellectual games. I tend not to be drawn to those, unless the interpersonal dynamics are very, very well done.

[houseboatonstyx]

I don't like the puzzle kind. Five Red Herrings (which seems quite cosy, almost a house party on slightly larger scale) bored me as a book. It was only in the film that I could tell the characters apart!

The thing I'm seeing in the Christie recurring archetypes appearing with different functions affects me more like music or design. Like Propp's fairy tale categories.

[sartorias]

Yes, about Christie's recurring archetypes!

[aberwyn]

Wodehouse's "Blandings Castle" house party farces are very funny. I'd recommend A PELICAN AT BLANDINGS or HEAVY WEATHER to start with.

My favorite Jeeves and Bertie in the country house is CODE OF THE WOOSTERS, which includes the unspeakable Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts fascists. All the good shirt colors were taken . . .

[sartorias]

CODE OF THE WOOSTERS is my second fave!

[anna_wing]

Kerry Greenwood's "Murder In The Dark", and "Urn Burial", two of her Phryne Fisher mysteries set in late 1920s Melbourne. Greenwood describes Phryne Fisher as "Simon Templar's Younger, cleverer sister." They're very good.

[sartorias]

I read one and enjoyed it!

[6_penny]

I've just started listening to her newest - Murder and Mendelssohn, I detect an homage to Sherlock Holmes (Said character is annoying Phryne exceedingly!)

[sartorias]

It is never a good idea to annoy Phrynne!

[harvey_rrit]

Wodehouse rules.