Cimorene

I finished The Frangipani Tree Mystery a couple of weeks ago, having seen multiple reviews of the series from you guys, my dw circle. I enjoyed myself a lot, and have bought the rest of the series. I started reading The Betel Nut Tree Mystery last night.

And it's apparently set in the world of PG Wodehouse.

Now, of course little references to other fictional worlds often appear in fiction. It's a popular type of Easter egg!

And of course a reference to Wodehouse is not a surprise for fiction set in the 1930s; anyone who writes fiction set in the thirties today is bound to be a fan of the period who has read and studied it widely, like me, and it would be weirder if they hadn't studied the works of Wodehouse just as much as the works of Agatha Christie.

So mentioning the hilarious character of Sir Roderick Glossop and giving him a new son only to kill this son off before the first page as her primary victim... I suppose it's the contrast in genre vibes that's stubbing my mental toe each time she mentions him.

It's not a mismatch in the way it would be to namecheck a member of Bertie Wooster's supporting cast in a work of fantasy, eg one set in a universe where the supernatural exists: Wodehouse and Ovidia Yu are both writing in a world as close to vanilla reality as possible. They don't even change the names of celebrities and public figures, the way Christie did.

But the idea that a character one degree of separation from Jeeves and Bertie could be the victim of murder just doesn't compute. Murder is a subject for mystery novels in the world of Wodehouse, not something that Pop Glossop, Tuppy, and Honoria might be personally touched by when they receive an official telegram.

In other words, Sir Roderick, the eminent loony doctor, might exist in the world of the Tree mysteries, but they can't exist in his.

‘Are you being funny, Bertie?’

'Of course I’m not being funny. If I were being funny, I’d have had you in convulsions from the outset.’

—PG Wodehouse, Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen

“I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare — or, if not, it’s some equally brainy bird — who says that it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.”

—P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest” (in Carry on, Jeeves)

‘Life is like that, sir.’


‘True, Jeeves. What have we here?’ I asked, inspecting the tray.


‘Kippered herrings, sir.’


'And I shouldn’t wonder,’ I said, for I was in thoughtful mood, ‘if even herrings haven’t troubles of their own.’


‘Quite possibly, sir.’


‘I mean, apart from getting kippered.’


‘Yes, sir.’


‘And so it goes on, Jeeves, so it goes on.’

—PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

Whatever view you might take of this fishy-eyed man, you would never call him playful.

—PG Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves

‘Quite the little lump of fun, in fact.’

‘Precisely, sir.’

—P.G. Wodehouse, “Fixing It for Freddie” (in Carry On, Jeeves)

Lucius Pim was not a man I was fond of — in fact, if I had had to choose between him and a cockroach as a companion for a walking-tour, the cockroach would have had it by a short head — but there was no doubt that he had outlined the right policy. His advice was good, and I decided to follow it.

—PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

I dug out my entire stock of manly courage, breathed a short prayer and let her have it right in the thorax.

—PG Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves

‘Jeeves,’ I recollect saying, on returning to the apartment, ‘who was the fellow who on looking at something felt like somebody looking at something? I learned the passage at school, but it has escaped me.’

‘I fancy the individual you have in mind, sir, is the poet Keats, who compared his emotions on first reading Chapman’s Homer to those of stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific.’

‘The Pacific, eh?’

‘Yes, sir. And all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien.’

—PG Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves

I was conscious of a passing pang for the oyster world, feeling—and I think correctly—that life for these unfortunate bivalves must be one damn thing after another.

- PG Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit