I gave up on Señor García Márquez, feeling that there is only so much outrage that a human frame can sustain at one time, even one as accustomed to it as mine. I'm going to hold off on further reading/ criticism until I've lived in Colombia for a while, which I hear is an important first step for proper appreciation. I'll leave the posts up as a case study in the choleric-melancholic temperament when it takes a literary turn. The choler gives rise to outrage, the melancholy to intense criticism, and the two together to strong reactions. Yes, even to me it sounds like I'm writing quotes for my future hagiographer.
This week my library bag includes two P.G. Wodehouse, two Isabel Allende, and three Henry James. I'm reading The Ambassadors right now. It hasn't taken him long to get down to brass-tacks. We're on page 21 and it is clear that this is a book about how a Yankee feels in Europe (i.e. about like a Westerner feels in the Northeast or a Southerner anywhere that doesn't involve mud and cotton, and I say this with the highest respect for these two substances, the equivalent for the Westerner being dust and weed). Slot A is "relative hick" and Slot B "relatively cultured", but with Southerners it's complicated by the fact that they're the only ones with any manners.
The two P.G. Wodehouse were The Catnappers and The Plot that Thickened, both excellent specimens of late Wodehouse (also known as his Dachshund Period, as the artist portraits of those years all involve a fat standard dachshund). I should have exercised some self-control and saved at least one for last, but instead I ignored Leah and went straight for Rachel. (Does anyone else think, "And finally for Rachel!"* when they turn their dinner-plate to the last remaining item, which is also the favorite one?)
In looking for the above photograph, I found the following libelous article from that venerable rag, Time. It is loosely inspired by a real event, which is that Wodehouse was taken prisoner by the Germans (along with all other male British subjects under the age of 60) when the Germans occupied the area of France where he, his wife, and his pekingese were living. While prisoner, Wodehouse made five broadcasts for the German radio, intending to assure then-neutral Americans to his relative well-being. The broadcasts were used in the United States as examples of brilliant subversive propaganda, being highly critical of the Germans,
One day, an official-looking gentleman with none of the Labour Corps geniality came along and said he wanted my car. Also my radio. And in addition my bicycle. That was what got under the skin. I could do without the car, and I had never much liked the radio, but I loved that bicycle. I looked him right in the eye and said 'Es ist schönes Wetter' [all he knew of German]- and I said it nastily. I meant it to sting.but in England no one knew what their content was, and that ignorance was used to stir up patriotic fever by execrating Wodehouse. The news media and politicians involved should never be mentioned again without acknowledgment of their evil deeds (William-Connor-curse-him) which caused the kindly Wodehouse much pain. In the 1970s, England seemed to feel badly about it and made him a knight. Now our savvy modern media has returned to the original judgment but with important progress: the slander of a good man no longer serves patriotism.
*The allusion is both to Genesis 29 and to Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
