GCL Wodehouse Society?

While looking into online resources on P.G. Wodehouse, the beloved British author of the Jeeves books, for a forthcoming review in the Sentinel Record's Senior Scene supplement, I ran across a startling statistic. Not only does Arkansas regularly place near the bottom in surveys of literacy, education and health, it does not have a single chapter of the Wodehouse Society.

The U.S. branch of the society was founded in 1979 by the late Captain William Blood, who retired from the U.S. Army to Pennsylvania. It has grown over the years to include over 700 members.

According to its constitution, the Wodehouse Society is "an association of agreeable human beings who share an admiration of Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse and the rich products of his imagination. Our members include everyone from lifelong fans to people who have only recently discovered Wodehouse's works, from serious rare-book collectors to academic scholars of literature, and from those who go around warbling his songs to folks who didn't even know he was involved in musical theatre. The only generalization we can make is that people who appreciate Plum tend to have a genial outlook on life and a high fizziness of spirit, which leads to quite a bit of fun whenever and wherever they congregate."

Plum, by the way, was Wodehouse's nickname.

There are currently two chapters in Texas (it is a large state, after all). I think the least we can do to reverse this downward spiral is to start one here at the Garland County Library. Do we not have a genial outlook on life and fizziness of spirit here in the Spa City?

By far the most impressive Wodehouse Society, at least to judge by its website, is, surprisingly, the Russian one. It's a treasure house of Wodehouse information, e-texts, photos, bibliographies, book cover scans, and much more. I read once that Wodehouse was very popular in Soviet Russia because his work was so far removed from the Socialist Realism mandated by the state. In what ways is the Jeeves/Wooster relationship emblematic of the Marxist power struggle? Ah, we'll leave that one to the Wodehouse Society to discuss. I realize that the Cold War is over, but at least on the Wodehouse front, the Russians seem to have won.

If you're interested in the Wodehouse cause, leave a comment below and we'll get to work on a local chapter. It will be the fizziest.