Book Excerpts: Meet Mr. Mulliner by PG Wodehouse

If you are yet to read a Wodehouse, there is no particular book to get started on, it could be any of the several he wrote. For a PG Wodehouse book is meant for the laughs, laced with an apt treasure house of vocabulary, impeccable English, historical references, ice thin plot and a stage full of eccentric British and (sometimes) American characters. As Wodehouse himself said, "I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn."

It's been a decade since I read these sugar-baked eternal sunshine stories of honeyed romances, dim-witted young men, their intelligent butlers, pigs, awe-struck pig owners, misplaced tonic bottles and crossword puzzle solvers. I seem to have lost patience for the novels - stretched and repeated as their obscure plots go (despite the sparkling never-failing humour), but a well-written Wodehouse short story is another thing altogether.

Here is an extract of a tale from my favourite Wodehouse short story trilogy, one that features a certain Mr. Mulliner, Anglers' Rest bar-parlour regular, and a teller of seemingly tall 'truthful' tales about other denizens of the Mulliner family. Mulliner's bar narratives have been collected in three books - Meet Mr Mulliner (1927), Mr Mulliner Speaking (1929) and Mulliner Nights (1933).

The following lines are from The Romance of a Bulb-Squeezer (Meet Mr. Mulliner):      

Statistics show that the two classes of the community which least often marry are milkmen and fashionable photographers - milkmen because they see women too early in the morning, and fashionable photographers because their days are spent in an atmosphere of feminine loveliness so monotonous that they become surfeited and morose.   

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Murder Mysteries: Curtain: Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie

The clues undoubtedly lead us to the fact that Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is a humdinger of a mystery novel. It is certainly among Christie's best.

More than 20 odd years post their first appearance at Styles (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) -  Poirot and Hastings reunite in literary convenience at Styles - which is now a faded hotel.The now middle-aged Hastings (also the Watson-like story narrator) is disheartened to see his old friend in a wheelchair. But his mood changes when the detective soon makes his purpose clear - He is here to hunt down a killer. One who has killed so frequently and expertly, that no doubt has been raised against the person, ever. 

Frustrating as it is for Hastings, Poirot won't reveal the murderer's identity. Instead, Poirot wants his friend to be his 'eyes and ears'. So Hastings meets up with other denizens of Styles, including the aged owners, a nervous bird watcher,lady with a shady past, a rich lonely man and finally Hastings' younger daughter, her employer, his invalid wife and a nurse. Among this mix of visitors, Hastings wonders who will kill and why. Time is fast running out, as Poirot points out, a killer who has killed many will kill again.           

There is a continuous anticipation running through the book. This is no routine mystery where the crime is done and the suspects are questioned. Like many great crime novels, various shades, characters, atmospheres inhabit these pages. 

Yet what is a murder mystery without a satisfactory tying of the threads? Christie simply blows us way in that department.There couldn't be a more devastating full stop to what is a senile detective's last case. 

An exceptional treat for all mystery novel readers - Poirot fans or not. I may yet stumble to say - Those who have known Poirot and his peculiar ways may end up enjoying this one a bit more.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Non-Fiction Reads: Going Solo by Roald Dahl

 

A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones. An autobiography must therefore, unless it is to become tedious, be extremely selective, discarding all the inconsequential incidents in one's life and concentrating upon those that have remained vivid in the memory.  

- Introduction, Going Solo by Roald Dahl 

Going Solo is the second part of Roald Dahl's memoirs.

It is as vivid and engaging as Boy, Dahl's astonishingly well-written account of his childhood.

Cumulatively, the two part memoir gives us the first 25 years of the writer's life in gripping episodic narration.

An 'extremely selective' approach also means that the book is scandal free and safe enough to be published under the Penguin children's book imprint Puffin. Yet war, death, nudity, empire builders, aflame fighter planes, sinking ships and charred bodies make it to the book. 

Each incident is aptly and chronologically placed in a new chapter.Again, Dahl's detailing and uncanny knack to take the reader along clinches the deal.

The ink that flows in his spontaneous writing can't be pinned down to any style. A lively document of life recalled as it was lived; by the looks of it Dahl seems to have nailed it all in the first draft, except for corrections or deletions, probably. 

Going Solo starts off where Boy wrapped up.

It is 1938 and the writer under a three-year contract with the Shell Oil Company is aboard a ship taking him from England to Africa.

Apart from hilarious proceedings on the ship, Dahl starts with the joys of a long journey - Nowadays you can fly to Mombasa in a few hours and you stop nowhere and nothing is fabulous any more...  

Arrival at Dar es Salaam, tales of deadly snakes, lions and his African staff are a storyteller's pride, the blaze of World War II only adds more intensity to the proceedings. The wrath of Germany is everywhere and consequently Dahl asks leave from Shell in 1939 to join the RAF at Nairobi.

Considering the severe caution that travelers exercise nowadays, it is exciting to read about the writer's solo marathon four-wheeler rides across deserts and jungles.

Not a word seems wasted - the book ends with Dahl's return to England in 1941, flying into his waiting mother's arms.

Few writers can claim to have faced death many times or to have had as many adventures as Roald Dahl.

There is nothing like a first hand account and Going Solo has the long-lasting sheen of experience that provides credibility to the narrative.

Interspersed with reproductions of photographs, documents and letters written during those uncertain three years, Going Solo is highly recommended.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Roald Dahl in his RAF outfit

Poetry Reads: Daffodils by William Wordsworth

Most of us went through school without wondering why in the world we had poems like Daffodils revisiting the English language textbooks every two years. 

Well, at least I did...not...wonder. 

Nobody seemed to have heard of the flower or seen it in those sans Internet days. We were probably too bored to ask among other things - what did the flower look like? While teachers read the whole thing with the assurance of a kung fu master and horticulturist mingled in one sonorous voice, we can see now (as always when it is too late) that they were earning their paychecks. 

Reading the poem now, one can see why it is popular - there is universal appeal, an admiration for all beautiful things. The benefits of lingering in a moment are many, and Daffodils is a treasure house of one such moment.     

Back to the Future? 

Throwing the reins to fantasy, William Wordsworth would probably be too distracted to write solely about daffodils in a single poem in this progressive 21st century world. Things are just not that simple in the modern world nowadays, or so is life lived or made out to be. 

Wordsworth would (probably, probably) curse the looming, flashing cell phone towers, upcoming flyovers and the shopping mall for spoiling a previously unhindered horizon. Maybe, alas, he would just miss the daffodils, the first words of inspiration whisked away by a call from a bank eager to loan him money. Thus typing away furiously on his touchscreen keypad, he would have composed dark, murderous verse on malicious lightning - graphically describing its fatal impact on pesky phone callers. Daffodils would have been a juxtaposition of human accumulation, its image flashing on Wordsworth's 'inward eye', i.e, his mega pixel equipped cell phone camera. 

Reining in fantasy to its stable, we are glad Wordsworth lived in a world when nature were queen & king, and our species its admiring subjects. For those still wondering in school, no Indian poet has written as popularly about marigold, jasmine or the fiery mayflower...yet. If anyone out there knows of poems in any language of the world that tell endearingly about flowers, do share.  

Daffodils

By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

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(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Murder Mysteries: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Unlike the sense of occasion that Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes work A Study in Scarlet has in the way Watson's narration reveals to us a detective with (literally) superhuman powers of deduction, Hercule Poirot is treated as any other character. All Holmes lacks is a superman cape, in contrast Poirot is as human as a detective gets. 

Something is not right at Styles Court, England. Even as the shadow of World War I looms, new hostilities have taken root at Styles ever since the old Mrs Inglethorp took a younger husband. Her step children, dipped in financial problems, are now wary of what will become of them. Even as the old lady's close companion leaves the house after an altercation, the visiting Arthur Hastings sees things are amiss. Soon enough, inevitably in a murder mystery, a murder is committed.  

First published in 1920, The Mysterious Affairs at Styles is an astonishing debut. Christie's Doyle inspiration is only seen in casting Arthur Hastings (Watson to Poirot) as second fiddle and narrator.

Hastings  is often piqued by Poirot's excitement, he frequently doubts that the bald headed Belgian is getting old. 

Nowhere is Poirot allowed to loom as the central figure. He has a passion for method and order; doesn't claim to have knowledge of all forms of cigar ash or of the exact origin of the earth stuck in a suspect's shoes. Instead, he has a sharp mind and common sense. 

Imbibing all that has occurred, taking in each detail, fitting in the pieces, playing a slow game of chess with his 'grey cells', Poirot unearths the truth systematically and painstakingly.

What is more chilling and awe-inspiring is Christie's genius. 

Like her British film contemporary Alfred Hitchcock, Christie had a thing for fitting in crime into ordinary, every day situations. Acute knowledge of poisons was Christie's forte, and somewhere between what seemed to have occurred and what had actually transpired, Christie built her intrigue.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Short Story Reads: Marrying Off Mother by Gerald Durrell

"When a writer is born into a family, the family is doomed." 

- Czelslaw Milosz, Polish poet

Few writers have been gifted by a wealth of source material as British writer Gerald Durrell (1925-1995) was endued with. The source material we are referring to is Durrell's family. Now, how many writers have lived a event-filled childhood with three older siblings, a widowed mother, and a motley of creatures on the Greek island of Corfu? Gerald Durrell did, between the age of 10 and 14; the four year stay leading to several books, including the 1956 memoir My Family and other Animals. 

Several Corfu short stories were also subsequently published. Durrell mentions in the collection where Marrying Off Mother appears that: All of these stories are true or, to be strictly accurate, some are true, some have a kernel of truth and a shell of embroidery. Durrell cheekily concludes the introduction with: Which of these stories is true and which is semi-true I have, of course, not the slightest intention of telling you, but I hope this will not detract from your enjoyment of them.  

The author's humorous narration makes Marrying Off Mother one of the breeziest stories you will ever read. Then there is the excellent range of vocabulary and rich descriptions of attire and appearance. Durrell himself features in the story as an adolescent Gerry along with his older siblings Larry (Writer Lawrence Durrell), Leslie and Margo. 

It is summer in Corfu and at the start we can already see the person Gerald is becoming. He keeps extraordinary company, waking up to a room filled with his troop of dogs, specimens in test tubes, tree frogs, translucent geckos and a Scops Owl, among other paraphernalia. The proceedings start at the idyllic breakfast table and it is Larry's casual comment on his mother's single status that brings in a wave of suitors to the family's door. Apart from a view of Corfu's heavenly surroundings, by the end of the story we know the entire Durrell family well enough to make their acquaintance. 

The fun never subsides in what is clearly a mix of memoir (certainly) and (probably) fiction. Gerald is usually a silent witness (who thinks a lot) to the proceedings, the quirky rejoinders are provided by his family. 

I do wonder what his family thought of Gerald Durrell's version. So many writers have found their families hostile post publication. We have no news yet of any unrest in the Durrell family. But it can certainly be concluded that easily available source material have their share of perils...

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Short Story Reads: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

There is a little bit of Walter Mitty in all of us. 

First published in the New Yorker, this 1939 short story tells of a middle-aged day dreamer who is out shopping with his wife. Walter Mitty wades in and out of dream at the wink of an eye - from manning a ship through a hurricane to saving a patient by sheer genius to playing a sharpshooter accused of murder. Mitty plays his own TV channel, getting all the kicks that his routine, boring life doesn't offer - all in in his mind though.  

One can't help identifying with Walter Mitty. Will we end up like that too, having lived an unfulfilled youth, stuck in the routine of middle age, day-dreaming through the glorious adventurous life we could have been living? Man's greatest need is to be needed and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty vents open the pores to the gap that lies between how we live and how we meant it to be.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)