Looks like War brings great change to the regular guy doesn't it - just as Babi you said, change to, as the Brits call the working class and as you identified them, the 'lower class'.
I remember being astonished how before WWII in the US only 5% of the population went on to Collage and after the war because of the G.I.Bill, we had an explosion of Collage students that continues to this day.
Lucky what a fun on-line name - looking forward to your take on the story -
But to our story Babi earlier, you said,
I think one of the things I like most about Bertie is that he quite cheerfully acknowledges Jeeves superior taste, intellect and sources of information. Wouldn't dream of ‘putting him in his place', as so often happened with upper class and servants.
This is making me wonder - everything I have ever read describing the Wooster Jeeves stories labels them as Satire - reading up on Satire it says the reader must know and understand the social and political history of the time to catch the Satire.
Well I can see Wodehouse using witty dialogue that appears to us as an affected way of talking and is fun to hear and read.
In fact it reminds me of a bunch of teenage girls - that is how they cluck to each other commenting on the clothes and manners of other girls - and like a teenage girl, they are still dependent on their parents and so they are not carving out their future so much as obeying what is expected therefore, their little jabs at each other is all the battles they can participate which all reminds me of Bertie Wooster who acts dependent on Jeeves and even less like an independent guy carving his own financial future as compared to Bingo Little of the liniment manufacture is engaged in creating his successes.
After reading the difference between Wit, Satire, etc. ]in a book I picked up called "Writing Humor"] I am wondering if this is a story that would fit better under the sub-title of a 'Comedy of Manners' - Like the American story, the "Philadelphia Story" - a great movie and the one that comes to mind was with Katherine Hepburn version - Hepburn gave an edge to the dialogue - Grace Kelly's version was almost too patrician.
All to say I am beginning to see Bertie in a new light - a man without a self-made future - a man who's every need is taken care of by either money, custom, and now Jeeves. The word Dilatant comes to mind -
An otherwise boring word used artistically by Iggy Pop to reference people who make a bigger deal out of something than it really is, in order to demonize it.
I need to go back and read the difference between Bingo Little and Bertie Wooster – the difference between Bertie and Jeeves Wodehouse made it is easy for us to see.
