New Statesman -- historical memory -- June 7
 

Wins this week for Basil Ransome-Davies, Adrian Fry, and Bill Greenwell. An hon mensh for me.

No 4230 Set by Leonora Casement
We want chatty descriptions – as they look back through the mists of time – of major historical events that took place under any still living former British PM, except Tony Blair, who, in his autobiography, has almost entered this comp already. An entry in the 1950s of a similar comp on Clem Attlee read as follows: “[Stalin’s] habit of scribbling vigorously on a pad with a red pen reminded me of my old English master” – his own take on the Yalta conference.
Max 140 words by 7 June comp@newstatesman.co.uk

They weren't looking for verse, then. (Sounds of gnashing teeth, the shredding of paper, and the pouring of medicinal whisky.)

Lefties can't versify. Actually that isn't true but I feel it OUGHT to be.

But John, I'm not a lefty, I'm a right-of-centre anarchist.

congrats Chris. what or where is your entry?

Brian, did I say that? Of course you aren't. And you versify with great panache. I would have thought that all anarchists were right of centre though they often don't know it. Left in my book means being forced to be free i.e. under the control of the beneficent state.

But you do love the benificent state's socialized medicine, right?

Roger, there was indeed a time when the National Health Service was the envy of the world, but that was before Mrs Butcher thatchered it.

That's laying a lot at Meryl Streep's doorstep, Brian.

Roger, the word is control. Free medicine has nothing to do with control. The deal is I pay in a lot when I am young and healthy and collect when I am old and sick. I'm busy collecting. I don't know what Mrs Butcher has to do with it.

Years ago, Beyond the Fringe did a sketch in which one Briton is explaining American politics to another: "There's the Republican Party, which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party, and the Democratic Party, which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party."

It seems to me that practically every Englishman to the left of Oswald Mosley is a socialist by U.S. standards. And any nation where Warren Buffet and Barack Obama can be regarded as pinkos is clearly a bird that flies on one wing, and not the left one.

Since Chris mentioned Oswald Mosley, I'm going to put the link to this article full of wonderful Wodehouse exerpts here.

Thanks, Frank, for calling attention to this article, which refreshingly acquits PGW of being an unworldly simpleton (he certainly was far from that when it came to royalties). That of course makes him more responsible for what was hardly his finest hour in wartime, but Orwell never found it necessary to get on his case & neither do I, though I am not an uncritical admirer of his writing, far from a cultist, & believe that he always did best in short story form. He taught me a lot about writing short stories, though a million miles away in sensibility, & of course in talent.

Has anybody else remarked on the similarities between Wodehouse and Joyce? Joyce was trapped in 1904 and never went back to Ireland. Both erected style above content. In fact style BECAME content. Aswith Flaubert but let's leave that alone because the guy was French. Frankly I think Wodehouse's achievement the greater. But I CAN see there might be another view. Held by the great Anthony Burgess for instance. But Evelyn Waugh would be of my opinion. Wodehouse's tenacity about royalties should make him the hero of all writers everywhere.

And Wodehouse was not quite as innocent as some think. His treatment of Lord Emsworth is not entirely forgiving. And Bertie's description of the black shorts' leader Spode is worth looking up.

quelle surprise
 

I have always suspected you of being an Evelyn Waugh groupie, John.

Not guilty. Bazza. I ended a quite lucrative innings in the Speccie back half by being very rude about 'Brideshead Revisited'. They don't like it up 'em, but who does? However, I do like 'Decline and Fall'. 'The Loved One' and 'Helena'. Also a short story called 'Mr Lovejoy's Little Outing'. But Kingsley Amis is much funnier in my opinion. Joyce? My daughter went to the greyhound racing at the weekend. She said, 'I'm glad I went but I shan't be repeating the experience.' My feelings about Joyce in a nutshell.

I liked the early heartless satires and Pinfold was a hilarious portrait of paranoia, but when he waxed sentimental with the Brideshead/Crouchback/Sword of Honour bollocks... pass the sickbag.

You were a regular reviewer for the Speccie?

I was. Novels mostly. I panned 'The Shipping News' which was a spectacular own goal. I went to two or three of the famous parties. Enoch Powell looked quite as mad as I might have expected.

'Black Mischief' is pretty funny. Being set in Africa, I suppose it could be described as the third-world Waugh.

Yup. Black Mischief is funny. And 'Scoop'. All the stuff when he's not trying to be a great novelist. He was a terrible bully at prep school, did you know that? Made Anthony Blunt's life a misery. He was a brave officer but all his troops hated him. They wanted to kill him. I can sympathise with that.

I'm no literary expert, but I love Waugh's earlier satirical novels. The almost Pythonesque absurdity of Decline and Fall or Vile Bodies appealed to me as a teenager, but A Handful of Dust is a masterpiece because it combines that humour with an utter bleakness. Was he the first writer to shrug off the long-winded formality that dominated English literary style? Probably not, but I'd like it to be so.

Samuel Butler is your man. If you haven't read 'The Way of All Flesh' you should. Shaw obviously took lessons, but of course you have to like Shaw in the first place. But how could you NOT like a man who wrote a long essay to show why HIS Cleopatra was better than Shakespeare's?

Cyril Connolly has some useful discussion of 'mandarin' & 'vernacular' prose styles in Enemies of Promise.

Thanks for the book recommendation, John.

Let us know what you think of it, Adrian.