Wodehouse on authors: the splendid short story “The Clicking of Cuthbert” exposes how much PG Wodehouse hated wannabe authors forcing themselves on him. Wannabe authors, take note.
The Clicking of Cuthbert
The eponymous hero of The Clicking of Cuthbert is in love with Adeline Smethurst. Wooing her, he describes her thus:
- ‘Anybody who was content to call you fairly good-looking would describe the Taj Mahal as a fairly nifty tomb.’
But Adeline refuses Cuthbert’s proposal, on the grounds that:
- ‘You waste all your time playing golf. I admire a man who is more spiritual, more intellectual.’
The frontispiece of my Folio edition of “The Plums of Wodehouse”
“More Russian than any other young English writer”
Cuthbert is a champion golfer. But Adeline instead yearns after Raymond Parsloe Devine, a “promising young novelist”, of whom Adeline enthuses:
- ‘The critics say that he is more Russian than any other young English writer.’
Cuthbert has no interest in literature but, in the hope of impressing Adeline, joins the local literary society. “With my feeble powers of narrative,” Wodehouse writes, “I cannot hope to make clear to you all that Cuthbert Banks endured in the next few weeks.” To make matters worse, Cuthbert then finds Adeline is together with Raymond. Adeline enthuses that famous Russian writer Vladimir Brusiloff will visit the literary society.
- ‘I shall be very glad,’ said Raymond Devine, ‘of the opportunity of meeting Brusiloff.’ ‘I’m sure,’ said Adeline, ‘he will be very glad of meeting you.’ ‘Possibly,’ said Mr Devine. ‘Possibly. Competent critics have said that my work closely resembles that of the great Russian Masters.’
Wodehouse on authors
Eventually Brusiloff appears. Wodehouse describes him sympathetically:
- Doubtless with the best motives, Vladimir Bruseloff had permitted his face to become almost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair, but his eyes were visible through the undergrowth, and it seemed to Cuthbert that there was an expression in them not unlike that of a cat in a strange backyard surrounded by small boys. The man looked forlorn and helpless, and Cuthbert wondered whether he had had bad news from home.
But Wodehouse reveals that it is not the course of the Russian civil war that is depressing Brusiloff:
- What was wrong with [Brusiloff] was the fact that this was the eighty-second suburban literary reception he had been compelled to attend since he had landed in the country on his lecturing tour, and he was sick to death of it. When his agent had first suggested the trip, he had signed on the dotted line without an instant’s hesitation. Worked out in roubles, the fees offered had seemed just about right. But now, as he peered through the brushwood at the faces round him, and realised that eight out of ten of those present had manuscripts of some sort concealed on their persons, and were only waiting for an opportunity to whip them out and start reading, he wished that he had stayed at his quiet home in Nijni-Novgorod, where the worst thing that could happen to a fellow was a brace of bombs coming in through the window…
The perils of wannabe authors
Brusiloff’s worst fears are realised when the hostess introduces Raymond Devine, ‘whose work I expect you know. He is one of our younger novelists.’ Brusiloff is unimpressed:
- The distinguished visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner through the shrubbery, but did not speak. Inwardly he was thinking how exactly like Mr Devine was to the eighty-one other younger novelists to whom he had been introduced at various hamlets throughout the country.
The voice of Wodehouse on authors’ woes when confronted by wannabe writers could not be clearer.
The Clicking of Cuthbert: denouement
The rest of The Clicking of Cuthbert is elegant. Raymond Devine attempts to ingratiate himself with Brusiloff by praising the (imaginary) Russian writers, Sovietski and Nastikoff (sic). Brusiloff responds brusquely:
- ‘Sovietski no good!… I spit me of Sovietski… Nastikoff worse than Sovietski… I spit me of Nastikoff...’
The revelation that golden boy Devine has been studying the wrong Russian writers leads to his instant humiliation in the literary society:
- Women drew away from his slightly, holding their skirts. Men looked at him censoriously. Adeline Smethurst started violently, and dropped a teacup… the bottom had dropped out of the market, and Raymond Parsloe Devine Preferred were down in the cellar with no takers.
Wodehouse on authors: golf is the answer
It then transpires that Brusiloff’s true passion is golf:
- ‘Let me tell you one vairy funny story about putting. It was one day I play at Nijni-Novgorod with the pro against Lenin and Trotsky, and Trostky had a two-inch putt for the hole. But, just as he addresses the ball, someone in the crowd he tries to assassinate Lenin with a rewolwer… and the bang puts Trotsky off his stroke…’
When he discovers that Cuthbert – winner of the French Open – is in the room, Brusiloff worships him. This leads Adeline to change her allegiance:
- A rush of tender admiration for Cuthbert Banks flooded her heart. She saw that she had been all wrong. Cuthbert, whom she had always treated with a patronising superiority, was really a man to be looked up to and worshipped. A deep, dreamy sigh shook Adeline’s fragile form.
What to do next
The key lesson of this story is not that golf, rather than literature, is the best way to impress members of the opposite sex. It is this: if you are a wannabe author, or even a successful one, and meet a more famous author, you should not press your own efforts on him or her. as Wodehouse observes:
- You get a following as a celebrity, and then you run up against another bigger celebrity and your admirers desert you. One could moralise on this at considerable length, but better not, perhaps.
Wise words.
If you like PG Wodehouse, you may like to browse my archive of over twenty PG Wodehouse posts and reviews.
If you enjoy comic writing, you could consider trying my own efforts in the second edition of my Seven Hotel Stories.
