Stephen Fry on P.G. Wodehouse

look at this the Woodhouse collection is just a few of them be you should be presented an ugly her back for I can take almost any one of these and tell you anything about them because I have read I've read them all because wood has to me and not just to me but to many is the supreme example of the master craftsman the master writer it was indeed evylyn war nameless novelist many people regard as far more serious far more savage pharmaceutical who called him the master of our profession it was known as the greatest living writer of the English language in his own time some people thought that extraordinary come to McKenzie heard that that had been written about him in punch and saw him in the club and see the thing they said about you in that they could do the greatest living Roger living with language what doesn't is I didn't see that this is strong anyway they must be getting on a bit there's much about him you can say one is that he never grew up that his world never grows up it's always sucked somewhere in the kind of twenties I kind of twenty that really exists in all all his output which is throughout the twentieth century from the very beginning of the twentieth century all the way through to the time he died in the 70s with the manuscript of sunset of landings on his lab he mentions the war I think once characters in Inwood house are remarkable plots he took a lot of effort over but what remains the most magical thing about him is his language very few very very few writers in the English language have mastered have mastered the ability to put one word after another with such glory and when he died there were serious literary critics who compared him to Shakespeare in that regard he really was capable of doing things with language but few others have managed and if it's partly because I suppose the the wide breadth of his learning he he read Shakespeare every year he knew Tennyson any Melton but all say was fascinated by jazz slang by sports slang by schoolboys slang and he jammed them all together so that you got these extraordinary juxtapositions of that become the withered the Woodhouse e'en style I can't tell you to reboot us I can only say to you that if you pick up the right book at the right time in the right mood I would suggest carry on Jesus sadly this British title is confusing for me because actually not entirely different in England to the for example his first Blandings novel is called something fresh in Britain but it's been considered a bit too sexy in America when word freshman hey g'day Gary don't get frightened with me so it was called something new in America of it but carry on Jeeves is where is where Bertie meets jeeps have short stories and it's where you find you first meet them and it's simply it's bliss there's no other word for it you are bathed in a bath of this so I wish you luck if if you're Woodhouse journey begins now you are the luckiest person in the world

Channel: overlookpressbooks

Views: 115,262

Rating: 4.9506173 out of 5

Keywords: Stephen Fry, P.G. Wodehouse

Id: DogZv_mWBD4

Length: 3min 6sec (186 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 20 2012