Just Laughing, no Gas
One of the major themes in every P.G. Wodehouse novel, aside from unwanted engagements, domineering relations, and broken hearts, is the subject of mistaken identity. In these times, of course, it would be quite preposterous to simply show up and somebody’s house pretending to be an expected guest. Somebody would surely have seen your picture, and see through the ruse. I’ve often thought that a great deal of what comes of “polite society” generally proceeds from notions of privacy which have become all but meaningless in the age of communication. Without the internet we experience people at a distance, in their formal mode, before we discover their innermost thoughts. Online, its innermost thoughts, tastes, and beliefs first, the rest second. A desperate telegram to a lover might be rewritten a dozen times. A drunk text message that you discover in the outbox of your cellphone at two p.m. the next afternoon, containing a distraught plea to an ex-girlfriend in the form of an obscene Limerick, has only become possible with technology. We are, all of us, a great deal more exposed.
Recently I’ve begun to read “Laughing Gas,” which is a Wodehouse novel that profoundly touches on this subject of mistaken identity in a way that no other work of his I have experienced does. A ten year old child star from Hollywood ends up in the same waiting room as an English Earl on a visit to prevent his cousin from entering an unfavourable marriage. During the application of the gas, which makes them unconscious so that their tooth's can be removed, their souls switch bodies, and each wakes up in the other’s flesh.
What I respect most about Wodehouse’s writing is the fact that he has a distinct formula, and he’s always playing with that formula, finding new twists on it, and producing novels that bring a sometimes extreme focus on particular aspects of it. The formula itself is a parody, obviously from the discussion of literature within the text, of intended-to-be-serious popular novels of the day that he has lost patience with and decided to lampoon. This particular effort, containing as it does an element of the supernatural that I see nowhere else in Wodehouse’s writing, is certainly worth looking into.
Recently I’ve begun to read “Laughing Gas,” which is a Wodehouse novel that profoundly touches on this subject of mistaken identity in a way that no other work of his I have experienced does. A ten year old child star from Hollywood ends up in the same waiting room as an English Earl on a visit to prevent his cousin from entering an unfavourable marriage. During the application of the gas, which makes them unconscious so that their tooth's can be removed, their souls switch bodies, and each wakes up in the other’s flesh.
What I respect most about Wodehouse’s writing is the fact that he has a distinct formula, and he’s always playing with that formula, finding new twists on it, and producing novels that bring a sometimes extreme focus on particular aspects of it. The formula itself is a parody, obviously from the discussion of literature within the text, of intended-to-be-serious popular novels of the day that he has lost patience with and decided to lampoon. This particular effort, containing as it does an element of the supernatural that I see nowhere else in Wodehouse’s writing, is certainly worth looking into.