My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

I discovered P.G. Wodehouse in my late teens.  It was a happy encounter.

Wodehouse's writing is a triumph of levity over gravity.  That is about the most profound thing about his works - the rest is entertaining fluff.  But what fabulous entertaining fluff it is.

If Wodehouse is remembered for anything, it is for his Wooster and Jeeves stories.  My Man Jeeves contains eight short stories, four of which feature Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves (the other four feature Reggie Pepper).  These are the earliest of the Wooster and Jeeves stories.  

Bertie is a man of independent means but with little commonsense.  He spends most of his time thinking about betting on horses and buying clothes.  Jeeves, on the other hand, has oceans of commonsense as well as vast reservoirs of experience and an impeccable sartorial taste.  The tales are usually about how Jeeves rescues Bertie from preposterous social situations, bad gambling decisions and fashion faux pas.  And that is about as deep as it gets.

The obvious joy about reading the Wooster and Jeeves stories is discovering how Bertie is dropped into trouble (and trouble, it seems, comes looking for him) and how Jeeves extricates him from it.  There is always a happy ending, and Bertie is always grateful for Jeeves' help.  A subtler joy is Wodehouse's lightness of touch.  Bertie, who is usually the narrator, tells his tales in the breeziest of manners.  His choice of phrase is a delight - for example, he describes an empty-headed friend as "unclouded".  As a result, the pages just roll by.

Entertaining, surprising and always comical, Wodehouse is a must read.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

1984 has come and gone, as has 2001.  Orwell's future vision of the western hemisphere being suffocated by a totalitarian regime didn't come to pass, nor have we sent a manned mission to Jupiter per Arthur C. Clarke's schedule for the future.  Nope, the years have come and gone.

It is now over seventy years since Isaac Asimov started writing stories about robots, and over sixty years since I, Robot was first published.  This book contains nine interlinked short stories that cover the period from 1996 to 2044.  So how has Asimov's vision of the future held up, now that some of it is in the past?

Well, he got pretty close in one respect: in Asimov's 1996, android robots serve as domestic help in suburban households; in our 2014, just 22 years behind schedule, those of us who are so inclined can buy automated vacuum cleaners.  Not an android by any means (they look like  Frisbees on wheels) but we are getting there - a Japanese corporation has developed an android that has a self-contained power unit, can walk and run with an upright gait and can talk interactively with humans.  How long before it becomes an affordable household wonder-drudge?

I, Robot contains nine short stories which are linked by a brief introduction and interludes in which Dr Susan Calvin, a  septuagenarian robopsychologist, relates her experiences with robots to an unnamed journalist who is writing an article about their history. 

As Dr Calvin is a robopsychologist she is an expert on the three laws of robotics that are hard-wired into every positronic brain and that control robotic psychology and behaviour:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Her stories relate to how some odd, amusing and even perilous incidents happened when the robots were placed in psychologically ambiguous circumstances.  For robots and humans alike, there are moral problems to be worked through. 

Asimov has been able to create a very compelling set of stories whilst remaining true to the three laws.  His style of story-telling may be a bit old-fashioned - the characters tend to be a bit 2-D, with too many of them being cranky and cantankerous - but it is still effective, and the cleverness of the stories make up for the deficiencies in the style.

The Heroes by Charles Kingsley

Once upon a time I decided to move overseas.  I was constrained by cost to whittle my possession down to as much as would fit into three tea-chests.  Oh! the decisions, and the agonising over the decisions.  What to take, and what to give away?  In the end I allocated half-a-chest to books and personal papers.  There were several books that needed no decision-making: of course I would taking them to my new home.

One of these books was The Heroes by Charles Kingsley.  It was one of the first  fiction books I read with with genuine delight.  (I started my reading life by reading science and history books exclusively, and my 5y.o. self loathed the standard kiddies classics, such as Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh - although I've warmed to these in my adult years).  Then, I found an old and battered book in a second-hand book store my mother and I used to frequent.  The Heroes.  I liked the sound of that.  So I asked Mum to buy it for me; and thus began my love affair with mythology.

Kingsley retells three tales from Greek Mythology: Perseus, The Argonauts, and Theseus.  My favorite tale in this book was (and still is) that of Perseus.  After an inauspicious childhood, Perseus becomes favoured by the Gods, and they bestowed upon him several magical items, including a pair of winged sandals which he immediately strapped on.

And Athené cried, "Now leap from the cliff and be gone" ... and [Perseus] leaped into the empty air.  And behold, instead of falling he floated, and stood, and ran along the sky ...  and the sandals led him on northward ever, like a crane who follows the spring toward the Ister fens.

I remember vividly how I felt when I first read that passage.  How I wished I too could run along the sky.  I still do.  And just as vividly, I recall the account of Cheiron the centaur schooling young Jason and the boys who would become the Argonauts, and Theseus slaying the supernatural bandits who infested the coast road from Troezen to Athens. 

It has been decades since I last read The Heroes; however, on re-reading, I found it as delightful as ever.  Kingsley's diction is very quaint and very Victorian.  He does use some high language, especially in the dialogue, but his choices are very judicious and he avoids strangling his tales with overblown and faux archaisms - unlike, say, Howard Pyle.  And for all the oddness of the subject matter of the stories, Kingsley makes it very easy for the reader to care for each hero.  Yes, it is all done with a deft touch.  Yes, it was all very enjoyable for me.  Yes, it may be for you too.

As a point of interest, my copy of The Heroes has the following printed on the information page:

REGISTERED AT THE G.P.O SYDNEY

FOR TRANSMISSION BY POST AS A BOOK

WHOLLY SET UP AND PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA BY

CONSOLIDATED PRESS LIMITED

166-174 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY

1948

If you are interested in mythology, you may like to look at these reviews: The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and Myths of Light.  Both these books are by the renowned mythology theorist Joseph Campbell.

Strange News from Another Star by Hermann Hesse

Strange News From Another Star is a  collection of eight short stories.  They take place in a world that is very familiar to us but, unlike our own, has lost none of its enchantment.  There are forces at work here above and beyond those of physics, and the tales are as much about learning to love the mysteries of nature or of one's aesthetic self as it is to uncover or conquer them.  Denver Lindley has provided us with a translation that allows the gentleness of Hesse's themes to shine through in abundance.

Hermann Hesse was a staple in my early twenties. His writings are particularly attractive to me because they explore the dichotomy between the rationalist world-view of the Enlightenment and the emotion based paradigm of the Romantics. 

Being, philosophically, an inheritor of the Enlightenment tradition, I welcome Hesse's challenge. Should we live a life ruled by reason or passion? Is there a happy medium?

Hesse's work definitely addresses the question of Truth in human affairs, while the work of other writers, such as Tolkien, addresses the question of Good and Evil. Interestingly, while Hesse was awarded a Nobel Prize for literature in 1946, Tolkien has been derided by the literati; yet neither author was reluctant to set their stories in a non-realist world. Make of that what you will.  Enjoy.

I read the Penguin Modern Classic edition published in 1985.

 

Letters from My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet

Alphonse Daudet?  I've never heard of him, either.  His Wikipedia article describes him as "one of a generation of French literary syphilitics".  Now there's a genre you don't hear much about these days.  Still, it was a real treat to come across such an evocatively titled book, and so intriguing that I decided to read it.

Letters from My Windmill is a collection of short stories written in the mid-nineteenth century.  Daudet, a long-time resident of Paris, bought a dilapidated windmill in Provence, decided to live in it and he wrote home to Paris with tales of what he found there. While most of the stories are about Provence and its people, Daudet does take us on excursions to Corsica and North Africa.

The tales vary greatly in tone, from the serious, psychologically orientated opening story, to an account of the aftermath of a shipwreck, to an endearing tale of how a good-natured donkey get sweet revenge on her promotion-seeking tormentor.

I liked this book.  It was very pleasant to read a story a day over the course of three weeks. It helps that I like tales of yesteryear, when there was no electricity, phones or mass-media, and when news was largely delivered by word-of-mouth.  It makes for a different kind of story-telling.

Stories from Letters from My Windmill were first published in 1866.  It was published as a collection of short stories in 1869.  I read an e-book version.  So much for no electricity, etc.

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Well, it's back to the cradle with this one.  I have fond memories of my first year of schooling.  Mrs W., my teacher, read one of the Kipling stories to my class every week until the book was finished.  I have a vivid recollection of the images my mind conjured up as she read "How the Whale Got His Throat".  It really was a magical time in my life, when I was so open to the wonders of the world and so eager for stories.  If I had to point to the origins of my love of reading, I think the pairing of Mrs W. and Just So Stories would be near the top of the list.

I was a bit worried about revisiting this book.  Would I be spoiling precious childhood memories by viewing the book with my now adult and, possibly, jaundiced mind?  I need not have worried.  Re-reading Just So Stories brought back a sense of the thrill of being told a tale.  

Just So Stories is a collection of 'origin stories'.  Kipling steered clear of explaining the origins of the more obvious things, like the sun and the moon or thunder and lightning.  Instead, he concentrated on more whimsical topics such as camel humps, leopard spots and elephant trunks, giving each of his explanations a highly inventive twist.  The Just So Stories are populated with talking animals, gods and highly unusual humans, yet Kipling is able to keep the reader engaged in their hijinks in such an intriguing, riddling and charming way that the suspension of disbelief is never a trial on the reader's part.  And each tale is brimming with adventure and good humour. The book is also liberally sprinkled with illustrations by the author.

If you have never read these delightful tales, and if your inner-child is still alive and well, then you could worse than to read this book.

Just So Stories was first published in 1902.  I read an e-book version. Review.

The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Here is a handful of tall tales from the creator of Sherlock Holmes.  In this volume of short stories we are introduced to Brigadier Etienne Gerard, a fictional Hussar (light cavalryman) who served in the French army during the Napoleonic Wars.

Gerard is an old man when he begins telling stories of the exploits of his youth.  A career soldier, Gerard is aware of the courage of soldiers from all countries.  They are all equally courageous, says Gerard, but the French are the bravest of them all while he himself is the bravest of the French.  

Yes, the Brigadier is a blowhard, and in his stories you find out how he saved the emperor Napoleon (several times), how he got the best of his British enemies (and of the Spanish, and the Prussians, and the Poles ...) and how he rescued damsels in distress, amongst other exploits.  The reader soon realises that Gerard is saved by good luck more often than by his own resourcefulness, and it is in this that much of the charm of these stories lie.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knows how to tell a good tale.  The plots are well thought out, the narrative gallops along, and the dialogue is crisp and clean.  The characters in the stories need to be larger-than-life so as not to be dwarfed by Gerard's ego, and Conan Doyle manages to make them so without producing stock characters.  Overall, the stories have just enough whimsy mixed in with the derring-do to make for a delightful read. 

The Brigadier Gerard stories were published between 1894 and 1903.

The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton

Father Brown is a Catholic priest who side-lines in solving criminal mysteries.  He lives in London but travels to many various locations, such as Scotland and France.  Invariably, wherever he goes there is a mystery to be solved.  Father Brown has a talent for observation and deduction, and he sees the truth where others are comfounded by details and red herrings. 

Father Brown has the ability to see into the dark side of human nature.  He explains that it is impossible to hear years of confessions without knowing what humans are capable of doing.  He also values reason as an intellectual instrument, thinking that it can be used to deduce the highest Truth just as well as it can be used to solve problems of the mundane world.  Being a priest, Father Brown is as much interested in redemption as in justice, and we see him working on the souls of the wrong-doers he meets, this being his true calling.

The dozen short stories contained in The Innocence of Father Brown are of uneven quality.  The first four or so are not very satisfying as a literary experience, but the stories that follow each improve upon their predecessors, and we can see Chesterton's style improve as he comes to terms with the short story vehicle and the mystery genre.  By the time we get to the eighth story, Chesterton is in full flight and his short stories are both intriguing and entertaining.  

Publishing details: G.K. Chesterton wrote over 50 mystery stories featuring Father Brown.  The first twelve of these were published separately between 1910 and 1911, and were collected under the title of The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911.  The version I read was an e-book with no publishing details.