

Hugh Laurie: Wodehouse Saved my Life (1999) - pclark
http://www.pgwodehousebooks.com/lauriesaved.htm

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swalberg
If you have not watched Laurie and Fry's TV Series "Jeeves and Wooster", make
it a point to do so. It's really a funny, intelligent series. The use of
language is clever and the two have their characters nailed down. My wife and
I just finished going through it for the 3rd time.

Wooster is a rich nitwit, Jeeves is his valet. They get into impossible
situations usually involving Wooster or one of his inept friends getting into
trouble with the law or a woman and have to get bailed out in some equally
impractical way.

~~~
vixen99
Yes but then read the books. Wodehouse was a supreme prose writer. Carve up
those words, as must happen in adaptations, and you lose an immense amount of
the fun. Just try it if you don't believe me. Joy in the Morning is one of my
favourites.

The amazing thing about Wodehouse is that his stories came almost entirely out
of his head and secondhand sources. By no means did he lead the kind of life
described in his peerless stories.

~~~
aptwebapps
But please don't read "Ring for Jeeves" as your first Wodehouse book. I don't
know what happened to that one, but it's several notches below the rest, IMO.

~~~
kranner
I'll vote for 'Psmith in the City', 'Joy in the Morning' and 'The Code of the
Woosters'. Also there is the somewhat obscure 'Laughing Gas'.

It's interesting that you say "notches below the rest." That literally may
have been true, given that Wodehouse measured how many times he'd revised a
page by pasting it higher and higher on his study wall (or some wall
somewhere, don't remember exactly what I read). Pages started at the bottom
near the floor. A page was ready to release when it had attained a certain
height.

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miles
Strange and wonderful to see this on the front page. If you haven't read
Wodehouse, I'd highly recommend starting with "Leave it to Psmith":
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Psmith>

Some of the earlier Psmith stories are in the public domain:

<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6753> <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2607>
<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10586>

~~~
dbaupp
Just searching now, it seems there is actually a verylarge number of Wodehouse
stories on PG: <http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a783>

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alan_cx
I have to know: What do those Americans who only know him as House think when
they see his earlier stuff? Is it a bit of a mind blow?

While people are recommending stuff, yes watch J & W, and Fry and Laurie's
comedy shows, both are brilliant, but do not miss Blackadder. (Well, skip
season 1 until and if you become a hard core fan as even us UK fans find that
one a bit hard going.) Worth watching S2,3,4 as not only are these two in it,
but you're going to see Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean and Jonny English) at his
arguably best, and many other brilliant UK comic actors. (Actually, IIRC, S3
and S4 are the ones that bring him to the fore. In fact Im not sure he was in
S2 at all. Cant remember.... Im old!!!!) Blackadder S4 is truly an awesome
comedy series. Its worth watching fully and properly just to see how they
ended it. Do not skip the series for the ending, you will ruin its power. Let
it build up, then tear you to pieces.

Personally speaking is cracked me up when House first started and the US
treated him like a proper normal actor, while we in the UK knew his comic
roles. But, brilliant for Hugh as he could almost start a new career as a
serious proper actor with out the "baggage" of comedy. You guys, if you
haven't already, now have the sheer delight of checking out his back
catalogue.

I was going to add some YouTube links, but as I was going through the site
looking for some gems, I realised I would end up adding so many links I would
look like an automated spammer. So, you know, hit YouTube, search, and loss a
few (un)productive hours laughing :)

Oh and thank you America for giving him a chance to be a proper actor. I don't
think it would have happened in the UK. Type-casting and all that.

~~~
jmj42
Interestingly, I was introduced to Hugh Laurie by way of Blackadder.

When I wan in high school our local public television satiation (WILL) would
run episodes of several 1970s and 80s british sitcoms. Among them were
Blackadder, Are you being Served? and Fawlty Towers.

~~~
JadeNB
> our local public television satiation

That is a beautiful typo.

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biggfoot
I also recommend reading what Stephen Fry has to say:
<http://www.pgwodehousebooks.com/fry.htm>

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danabramov
I'm so used to reading PG as Paul Graham I forgot I actually read PG Wodehouse
earlier.

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woodchuck64
Lots free on kindle on amazon:
<http://www.amazon.com/P.-G.-Wodehouse/e/B000AQ2CYQ>

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oscar_wilde
I love the Jeeves and Wooster books and TV series. My first Django project
was: <http://jeevesandwooster.eliseratcliffe.co.uk/>. This is a website with
information about the Jeeves and Wooster TV series. By the way, I'm very much
a beginner programmer so would really appreciate any feedback on the site.

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RaSoJo
I just HAD to log in to upvote this. (Should the emphasis be on the "just" or
on the "had"?)

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erre
On the had, the just shall me emphasised in Heaven!

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hcarvalhoalves
I'm trying to understand why this is on the front page, and what it means.

~~~
djt
Your comment makes me feel old

Most older nerds grew up around comedy like monty python, stephen fry plus
books, D&D, Warhammer etc etc. Even if you didn't watch much of them you at
least knew of them and had heard the catch phrases etc.

We used BBS's for communicating but i was really expensive as it was a phone
call, often interstate.

There was no such thing as reddit or the internet, the memes were catch
phrases from these collective activities and back then it wasn't cool to be a
nerd. No such thing as BroGrammers back then.

Hugh Laurie was a major influence for a older generation of nerds, which is
why it is front page.

~~~
hnriot
I'm from that generation. You forgot The Well, by the way. But Hugh Laurie
wasn't an influence for me, not in the same way say, Douglas Adams was.

~~~
rat87
Douglas Adams on Wodehouse

""" Who are your favorite authors? Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Kurt
Vonnegut, P. G. Wodehouse, Ruth Rendell.

...

Master? Great genius? Oh yes. One of the most blissful joys of the English
language is the fact that one of its greatest practitioners ever, one of the
guys on the very top table of all, was a jokesmith. Though maybe it shouldn’t
be that big a surprise. Who else would be up there? Austen, of course, Dickens
and Chaucer. The only one who couldn’t make a joke to save his life would be
Shakespeare. ...

We Wodehouse fans are very fond of phoning each other up with new discoveries.
But we may do the great man a disservice when we pull out our favourite quotes
in public, like “Ice formed on the butler’s upper slopes,” or “. . . like so
many substantial Americans, he had married young and kept on marrying,
springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag
to crag” or (here I go again) my current favourite, “He spun round with a sort
of guilty bound, like an adagio dancer surprised while watering the cat’s
milk” because, irreducibly wonderful though they are, by themselves they are a
little like stuffed fish on a mantelpiece. You need to see them in action to
get the full effect. There is not much in Freddie Threepwood’s isolated line
“I have here in this sack a few simple rats” to tell you that when you read it
in context you are at the pinnacle of one of the most sublime moments in all
English literature.

Shakespeare? Milton? Keats? How can I possibly mention the author of Pearls,
Girls and Monty Bodkin and Pigs Have Wings in the same breath as these men?
He’s just not serious! He doesn’t need to be serious. He’s better than that.
He’s up in the stratosphere of what the human mind can do, above tragedy and
strenuous thought, where you will find Bach, Mozart, Einstein, Feynman, and
Louis Armstrong, in the realms of pure, creative playfulness. From the
Introduction to Sunset at Blandings (Penguin Books)

"""

~~~
gruseom
Marvelous quote, but what an odd thing to say about Shakespeare.

~~~
primitur
I believe you missed the point. Shakespeare rarely made a joke to save a life,
but rather: to take one.

~~~
gruseom
I believe I'm still missing the point.

~~~
primitur
Read more Shakespeare, then.

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el_cuadrado
align=center.

MY EYES, MY EYES!

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Snoptic
Posted by grellas (and ignored) 4 years
ago<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=689223>

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officemonkey
Holy 1997, that's an ugly webpage.

~~~
chris_wot
You know, Wodehouse would have put that much better.

~~~
ableal
_“She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by
someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that
season.”_

There's also the litmus test of the Wodehouse phrase: _"The unpleasant, acrid
smell of burnt poetry."_

Quotes filched, after a short search, from
<http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7963.P_G_Wodehouse> , which holds some
pages of good ones. Unfortunately, a few are poorly sourced and look like
cuckoo eggs to me.

