With cheerful delight, I recently started reading another P.G. Wodehouse novel. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is hands down one of the best writers in the English language, ever. He isn’t profound. He isn’t penetrating. His books are not dissected in lit classes. But his command of vocabulary and syntax is amazing and his humor is, unlikely other humorists, actually very, very funny. There’s nothing like unwinding with a little Jeeves and Wooster after a four hour elder meeting to get the old egg cracking again, what? (Take my word for it, and read Wodehouse to understand my drift).
Reading Wodehouse spin tall tales about foppish socialites and an unflappable butler is reminiscent of the best (and cleanest) episodes of Seinfeld. The stories are about nothing, but the characters are so memorable (e.g., the newt loving Gussie Fink-Nottle), and the dialogue so perfectly ridiculous (“Hello ugly, what brings you here?”), and the put-downs so ingenious (“It was as if nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment”) that you can’t help grin, chuckle, and even occasionally cackle.
The whole reason for bringing up Wodehouse though is to draw attention to his use of the Bible. I don’t think he had much of a faith commitment, but his biblical literacy is astounding. Just yesterday I came across this in the opening pages of The Code of the Woosters, where Bertie is complaining about his rough sleep the night before: “I had been dreaming that some bounder was driving spikes through my head–not just ordinary spikes, as used by Jael the wife of Heber, but red-hot ones.” When’s the last time you’ve hear Jael referenced in a sermon, let alone a novel?
Wodehouse, the product of a more biblically-versed era and, admittedly, a brilliant writer, was constantly making biblical allusions.
For example:
Here’s a clergyman wondering to Bertie, who is secretly engaged in a gambling ring betting on the length of sermons, if his message might be too long:
And then there’s this allusion to Job 39:25 (which I had to look up):
For good measure, here are few more of my favorites strung together:
And last but not least:
So what’s the point of all this? Nothing profound, just two things: read Wodehouse; read your Bible–in reverse order of course.
That’s it, and enjoy.
