http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:32:59 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/01/12/213259.php scaramoucheAfter watching the spectacle of James Frey, a man who earned mega-bucks even though he fabricated a significant portion of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, I'm thinking of writing my own story. It will be all about my unfortunate childhood when, bullied by the gym-teacher's sadistic daughter, I took comfort in food and was compelled to shop in the "chubette" department for several years. Of course, to make my plight sound extra-pathetic, and appeal to Oprah (who we all know, has had her own issues with weight), I may have to resort to a few "embellishments." Like the time I was tossed out of fat camp when I organized a food fight. And the time I scarfed down a dozen cream puffs at one sitting. And that black day when I stole my mother's credit card and ate my way through the neighbourhood deli. Then, at the point when I hit rock bottom, I enroll in a twelve-step program and, slowly, painfully, come to terms with my debilitating addiction--a story I will detail in a "memoir" called A Million Jelly Donuts.Like James Frey's acclaimed story, it will be sprinkled with lots of four-letter words--to show how impassioned and genuine I am. And like his, it will have a smattering of truth--enough so that I can legitimately call it a memoir. All that's important is that people find my story sufficiently inspiring to prompt them to change their lives, like fans of James's book say his book has inspired them. James, a stubborn individualist who supposedly came through the rigors of therapy by giving practically everyone the finger, even has a two-word motto which his fans have taken to heart: "Hold On." I, too, have come up with a pithy saying designed to inspire my readers: "Don't Eat."On Larry King Live last night, James--who so far has raked in 3.5 million from his harrowing saga, and has written a sequel so he can rake in even more (you gotta strike while the fire's still hot, after all)--says the truth of individual events in his tale is incidental. As far as he's concerned, what counts it that it's faithful to the essence of his story. Oprah, who selected the memoir for her book club, thus boosting it into the stratosphere of bestsellerdom, phoned in to Larry's show in its closing moments to say that James is still aces with her. Even though the veracity of his book is questionable, what's important, says Oprah is that this document, fraudulent though it may be, continues to inspire countless numbers of desperate and despairing people. I am convinced that A Million Jelly Donuts--a similarly bogus work--has the potential to do the same.Look for it soon at a book store near you. And look for me on Oprah. I'll be the skinny white chick with the hungry look in her eyes. Books42207@blogcritics.org Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:32:59 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/10/161911.php scaramouche My significant other is between jobs at the moment. But I have no doubt he will find something soon. He's highly respected professional, has a wealth of experience in his field, and has a most impressive resume. Anyone who hires him can be assured he will perform his job with skill and sense, drawing upon the knowledge he has acquired over the years.Unlike, say, the next employer of defrocked FEMA head, Michael Brown. Brown, who was recently relieved of command of the New Orleans relief effort by the Commander-in-Chief, had no experience in the field, and thus, had acquired no discernable skills. Anyone perusing his resume would have immediately been struck by what it didn't include, most notably, anything which might have equipped him for the job. However, thinking ahead, the ambitious Mr. Brown decided to plug the gaps with some judicious (or, as it turns out, injudicious) padding.Even so, there is no disguising the fact that Mr. Brown's sole previous experience for helming America's emergency rescue body was his 11 years as--and I couldn't possibly make this up--"the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association".That's right. The guy who was supposed to co-ordinate and manage the rescue of victims of hurricane Katrina used to work with horses. And he wasn't even in charge of the whole horse organization, only one of its branches.But maybe I'm being hasty. Maybe supervising horse judges for 11 years was a really rigourous job which put Mr. Brown's managerial skills to the test every day. Maybe keeping tabs on the disparate facets of horse judging was an extremely challenging task which sharpened Mr. Brown's judgment and honed his ability to make quick decisions in difficult circumstances--decisions upon which the lives of horse judges and their judged horses depended. Let's go directly to the source, shall we, and see exactly what the job involved. Here's how a spokesperson for Mr. Brown's former employer described the position to a reporter from the Boston Herald:"We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records."Wow. They even keep records. That alone would ensure Mr. Brown a top spot on my short list of candidates.But wait, it gets better. Not only did Brown have no qualifications for running FEMA, not only did his sole managerial exptertise entail looking after a bunch of horse judges, he couldn't even do that job properly. According to the Boston Herald, "Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures."So how, with no skills or experience and with an unimpressive (to put it mildly) employment record did he manage to land such an important position? Simple. His roommate in college was the previous FEMA chief, and when George W. was casting around for a replacement, he looked no further than that. In other words, Brown, like Kojo Annan, another underexperienced job-seeker who found himself in hot water, got the job through connections (or as some of the tribe like to call it, shlep). Now, it could be that even with an experienced FEMA chief, New Orleans would have turned into the same catastrophe, more or less. Maybe the die was already cast: a mayor also out of his depth (no pun intended); a lawless populace armed with guns; a corrupt police department and state government; underfunded levees, each of which functioned under a seperate authority; a city which should never have been where it was--in a bowl under sea level. But maybe, just maybe, an adept FEMA chief might have mitigated at least some of the horrors. Maybe he or she could have saved a few more lives.Tragically, we will never know. We do, however, know this: the people of New Orleans may have paid an exceptionally high price for George W. Bush's ill-considered decision. And now, fittingly, so has George W. Bush. Politics35906@blogcritics.org Sat, 10 Sep 2005 16:19:11 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/14/072953.php scaramoucheSaddam Hussein, who has always harboured literary pretensions (and has written several novels that were obligatory bestsellers in Iraq) is said be working on his memoirs.The deposed tyrant, now cooling his heels in jail, has plenty of time to pursue his literary activities, which are said to also include writing reams of poetry. I emailed the prison, and one of Saddam's guards was kind enough to send me a snippet from the autobiography-in-progress: ...I couldn't believe my good fortune when Kofi informed me that I would be the one to decide who could be in the program. "But Kofi," I said, "what about the sanctions?" "Don't worry, my friend," said Kofi. "I trust you'll make the right decisions, especially since you've demonstrated, again and again, your warm regard for nepotism. Wink, wink, 'nuff said." After that, the shekels poured in like the River Euphrates. "This is freakin' fabulous," I said to myself, as I made plans to spend my windfall. Mosques, palaces, a new Turbo Carrera for Uday--it was like winning the lottery. Only much better, because I could pretend it was for humanitarian purposes, all the while secretly sticking it to The Great Satan... Synopsis of next chapter: George Galloway visits the palace and tells me a mirthful joke about a cat on a roof. Politics29483@blogcritics.org Sat, 14 May 2005 07:29:53 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/10/103057.php scaramoucheGeorge W. Bush attended the military parade held in Moscow every year to commemorate V-E Day, the first American president to do so. Seeing the pictures of Bush and Putin standing side by side surveying the procession, one couldn't help but by struck by some dissonances.First, there is the parade itself, a relic of a time when the Soviet Union liked nothing so much as to parade its military might before the world, the better to intimidate those conquerered and yet-to-be-conquered who might seek to oppose it. There is something a bit pathetic in a Russia, now shorn of empire and influence, resorting to this reflexive exercise, like a puny Wizard of Oz hiding behind a curtain, trying to impress everyone with simulated bravado. Second, there is the commemoration itself. Yes, the Russian people suffered incalculable losses during WWII--what was it, something like 27 million casualties? But, tragically, their sacrifices did not bring them any closer to freedom. They traded one kind of totalitarianism for another, the sole consolation being that Stalin, unlike Hitler, was at least a homegrown commodity. In reality, cold comfort indeed. And finally, there is the enigma of Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB chief who finds himself at the helm of a much-diminished ex-superpower, unsure as to whether to move forward and continue in the path of democracy, or to revert to old tried-and-true habits of previous Russian despots. At this point, he could go either way. On one hand, Putin is making the right noises. During the memorial, for example, he made this stern warning about the dangers of toxic but compelling ideologies that threaten both Russia and America alike: "History teaches us that states and peoples must do everything possible to prevent their eyes closing to the emergence of new lethal doctrines, to anything that can become fertile soil for new threats. The lessons of the war send us the warning that indifference, temporizing and playing accomplice to violence inevitably lead to terrible tragedies on a planetary scale." On the other hand, the Soviet Union's post-war occupation of the Baltic States remains a sore point, and Putin's commitment to democracy seems a bit shaky. Putin is unwilling to acknowledge the historical wrong of Baltic conquest, and Bush's stop in Latvia en route to Moscow left the Russian leader fuming. Then again, it may be hard to come to terms with unpleasant history when another Vladimir--Lenin, the founder of the whole murderous enterprise--lies on permanent display near the parade route. The problem for Putin: are Russians to continue paying homage to the embalmed leader, frozen now in his triumphant eternal sleep, or are they to seal him up in a tomb, and continue moving forward into the light? Politics29271@blogcritics.org Tue, 10 May 2005 10:30:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/10/080850.php scaramoucheIran has been stringing us along for a while now, teasing the world with suggestions that it is moving two steps forward, one step back, in its bid to become a nuclear power. Now it has confirmed that it has advanced to the final stage before commencing production: It has converted 37 tons of raw uranium into gas, said to be good for at least five nukes.Many in the West have been puzzled by Iran's actions over the past couple of years. Its announcements and pronouncements have been confusing, to say the least, and the EU and UN (in the guise of its toothless nuclear Chihuahua, Mohammed ElBaradai, known in the Hip Hop world as Mo El Bee) have been scrambling to find a way to forestall what seems to be inevitable and would, inevitably, be calamitous: atomic weaponry in the hands of crazed religious totalitarians. After much head-scratching and research, I am pleased to announce I have finally figured out what the mullahs are up to. And it's as simple as that old joke about a cat on the roof. You might remember it: A man calls his brother, who's looking after his cat while he's on away on vacation, to ask how his pet is doing. "Well, actually," says the brother, "your cat fell off the roof. It's dead." "Whadya mean it's dead?" says the cat owner. "That's a terrible way to tell a person something awful has happened. You have to prepare someone for catastrophe. For example, when I phoned today to ask about Mr. Fluffles, you should have said, "Mr. Fluffles climbed out the window, but we think we can get him down from the ledge. Then, next time I called, you should have said, "Mr. Fluffles managed to climb from the ledge to the roof, but he seems to be staying put, and we're calling the Fire Department to come get him down. Then, next time you should have said, "Well, the Fire Department sent up two of its best men, but Mr. Fluffles managed to jump out of their grasp and fell off the roof. I'm really sorry, but he didn't make it. That's how you prepare a person for the unthinkable." "You're right," said his brother. "That was very insensitive of me. I promise it won't happen again." A few weeks later, the owner of the deceased cat is away on business, and, unable to contact his mother, he phones his brother to find out if he's heard from her. "I've been trying to get hold of Mom," he says. "Have you spoken to her?" To which his brother replies: "Mom's on the roof." And if you're wondering what Mr. Fluffles has to do with the meshuganeh mullahs, it's this: replace "cat" with "nukes" and, voila, their inscrutable actions suddenly become clear. The nukes are on the roof, and the world had better pay heed before they jump off. Politics29268@blogcritics.org Tue, 10 May 2005 08:08:50 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/09/185357.php scaramouchePakistanis are up in arms about a cartoon that appeared the other day in the Washington Times. The Bill Garner cartoon was intended to commend Pakistan for its role in nabbing the al Qaeda's reputed #3, Abu Faraj al-Libbi. It showed a dog labelled "Pakistan" holding al-Libbi in its mouth while an American soldier pats it approvingly on the head. "Good going," says the soldier, "now, let's go find bin Laden."Oops, looks like Garner has stumbled into a major cultural chasm. He assumed that the "dog is man's best friend" credo extended to the Muslim world, and had intended, in all innocence, to convey American's gratitude by making this canine comparison. An enlightened editor might have pointed out that, for several reasons, likening Pakistan to a dog would be taken as a grievous insult by Pakistanis. As someone who is perhaps a little more educated in these matters (maybe), I might have explained it to the editors like this: - Islam tends to view dogs much less favourably than Westerners. Oh, dogs are okay for herding your animals or guarding your property, but you wouldn't want to have a close personal relationship with a creature that can lick its unmentionables and ingest the unspeakable (like my almost six-month-old retriever puppy, who has a revolting fondness for recycling his own poopy). -The imagery of Pakistan as America's pet dog is apt to rile the Islamists, who aren't too thrilled with Pervez Musharraf's co-operation with Great Satan. They have expressed this displeasure on at least one occasion by trying to assassinate him. -Islamists are not noted for their sense of humour. In a culture which demands complete reverence at all times, irreverence is perceived as an intolerable threat. But the Times didn't call upon my consulting skills, and went ahead and published the cartoon (which, as a newspaper in a democracy, it had every right to do). The result: Pakistanis are livid. Pakistan has been defamed! Parliament must be convened! Musharraf must resign! America must apologize! This insult must not be tolerated! Memo to Pakistan: Get. A. Grip. It's a cartoon, and it didn't even appear in Washington's number one paper. Granted, it lacked sensitivity to your, er, sensitivities, but it seems a feeble reason to topple your leader. Of course, as Oprah always says when something ostensibly picayune elicits this kind of overblown reaction (my reworking of Oprah--I've never actually heard her use the words "ostensibly picayune"), clearly, something else is going on. And in this case that something else is this: the Islamists are looking to oust Musharraf any way they can. They want to install their own totalitarian Salafists in office and turn Pakistan into yet another Islamist dystopia (as opposed to what it is now: a barely-functioning secular dystopia trying to fend off the Islamists)--only one without all the oil. And if a cartoon in a Washington newspaper can help them do it, then, dammit, that's what they'll use. Sidenote: There's an article to be written about the accidental humour of spell-check. I should start keeping track of its hilariously inappropriate suggestions. For example, it just encouraged me to change "Musharraf" to "mascara". Now that really is an insult. Politics29235@blogcritics.org Mon, 9 May 2005 18:53:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/09/084546.php scaramoucheOh you wee sleek slab of white, I turn you on with such delight. And, lo, my whole CD collection, Which you've imbibed with due affection: "Cripple Creek" and Van the Man, k-os, k.d., Steely Dan, "Argy-Bargy", Jimmy Cliff. Melt when Carlos nails that riff. Be Good Tanyas, Blossom Dearie, Listen 'til I'm good and weary. Ear plugs in and sound cranked high, "'Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky". "Round Midnight" and "Five Days in May" I love to hear you play and play. Petty, Tom and Midler, Bette, Seems "It Hasn't Hit Me Yet". The Clash, The Stones, "The Mighty Quinn", I simply can't wait to begin. I spin your dial and click your middle, And, hey, it's Frank and Nelson Riddle Takin' it so "Nice and Easy", Coolish, foolish, brisk and breezy. "Hey-Ya", "Helpless", "Hearts and Bones". Heads up, Jacksoul, love "Love Jones". iPod's given me a "Fever". In a flash "I'm a Believer". Download it from your music store. Little iPod, je t'adore! Music27937@blogcritics.org Sat, 9 Apr 2005 08:45:46 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/30/095946.php scaramoucheLast week, as we all know, there were ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and, for the first time, the international body that arose from the ashes of WW2 with a mandate to prevent future genocides saw fit to acknowlege and commemorate the Holocaust. Last week, as well, Sudan's airforce attacked a village in Darfur, a regioin where a genocide has been underway for some time, and the International Red Cross issued a statement confirming that the effort to raise funds for tsunami relief had been so successful, that, thank you very much, for the moment it had all the funds it needed.These three disparate events prompted me to ponder this question: Why are we so quick to come together and open our hearts and wallets when a natural disaster occurs, but so reluctant to become involved when the disaster is man-made? Look at our response to the tsunami. The tidal wave hit, the images appeared almost immediately afterwards on our television screens, and within hours, relief efforts were underway, and funds to help the victims began to pile up. A few days later, benefit concerts were organized, schoolchildren donated their allowances, and tsunami relief boxes sprung up like mushrooms in almost every store you visited. The outpouring of support was unprecedented, as organizations amassed so much money that some, like the Red Cross, had more than they could use in the short term.This display of generosity was heartening. It demonstrated the best traits of mankind--our willingness, our inherent desire, to help those who have been felled by a natural catastrophe. While we could do nothing to help those unfortunate enough to be effaced by the giant wave, we could--and did--resolve to do everything possible to help those who remained behind. Thus, the people of South Asia benefitted from our sympathy and largesse.The people of Darfur haven't been so lucky. No tidal wave has washed them away; no natural phenomenon has blown them thither. No, their woes are decidely human in origin, and that is their greatest misfortune. Perhaps if the region could muster a really big cyclone or two, coins could be collected, songs could be sung, and relief efforts could get underway. Instead, the blighted of Darfur are cut down by bullets and starvation, victims of greed, stupidity, and a wretched ideology that considers them lesser beings unworthy of life. Meanwhile, the UN, which last week deigned to acknowledge a decades-old genocide, refuses to take steps to halt one--and by no means the only one--occurring right now. These man-made disasters--and our refusal to allay them--exemplify mankind's worst traits: our indifference to mass suffering, and our disinclination to become involved in "messy" situations that might cost us more than cash. Because at the end of the day, opening your wallet in response to a natural disaster is easy; putting the brakes on a man-made genocide, is, alas, much more difficult--because it comes, potentially, at a much higher price. Politics24887@blogcritics.org Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:59:46 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/25/101305.php scaramoucheJohn Bentley Mays, the Globe and Mail's former arts critic, offers a blistering review of the new memoir, Breaking Ground, by current architectural wunderkind, Daniel Libeskind (co-written by Sarah Crichton). Although Libeskind, says Mays, is "famous everywhere" and is currently "designing substantial projects" in North America, Europe and Asia, Mays objects to his book for a number of reasons. First, Libeskind has the audacity to attack the Gods of Architecture--no Mies, please--continued to be reverenced by mainstream devotees like Mays. The critic has no patience for those who refuse to be frozen in genuflection for van der Rohe, Gropius and their ilk.Then, Libeskind evinces excessive awe at the site of Ground Zero, a big no-no in Mays's book. For Mays, this is one of far too many "episodes of rapture, enchantment, apocalypse and so forth" in the book. It soon becomes clear, however, that what Mays is objecting to is not Libeskind's book, but to his positive reaction to the immigrant experience. Born amidst the ashes of the Holocaust in 1946 Poland, Libeskind left soon after with with his family, first to the nascent Jewish state and then to America. As an emigrant, he is so grateful to America for the life and freedom it afforded him that he still "gets teary when he hears The Star-Spangled Banner" . Such "sappy Americanism" disgusts the wised-up Mr. Mays, himself a former American: How can anyone react to America like that, especially these days, with Dubya and his loathesome cronies ensconced in the White House for another four years? But let's let the eloquent Mays speak for himself:"As an American whose ancestors came to this continent from Europe 400 years ago, I cannot know what the United States seems like to someone who arrived, as Libeskind did, from the tormented Europe of the mid-20th century. I am prepared to believe that the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty from the deck of an incoming passanger ship might be exhilarating. But in view of the recent takeover of traditional American symbols and sentiments by hard-right, bare-fanged political thugs and fundamentalists, I think it's fair to expect every thoughful American, even a new one, to beware of patriotism of the sobbing-and-cheering variety."(Pardon me a moment. I need to down a few Tums to counteract the vitriol. Feeling much better now, thanks.)You have to give Mays some credit. He manages to cram snobbery (of the "my forebears arrived on the Mayflower" variety), leftist self-loathing, Bush Derangement Syndrome and the dismissal as imbecilic of anyone whose views don't accord with his own, into a single paragraph. (The description of the Bush regime as "bare-fanged" is particulary colorful, evoking cartoon depictions of Jews in Nazi rag, Der Sturmer. I also like how he bookends "thugs and fundamentalists", because as everyone knows--or at least, everyone Mays knows knows--thugs and religious Christians go together like love and marriage--presumably not the gay kind, of course.) Applause, applause for the succinct and direct J.B. and his "thoughtful" analysis of his fetid birthplace and the dim-witted patriots who continue to cheer it. He may have provided precious little inisight into Daniel Libeskind's book, but he's certainly told us everything we need to know about John Bentley Mays. Books23627@blogcritics.org Sat, 25 Dec 2004 10:13:05 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/23/114434.php scaramoucheDuring his long and astoundingly productive life, P.G. Wodehouse cranked out almost 100 novels, hundreds of short stories, lyrics and books many Broadway and London musical comedies, and assorted journalistic non-fiction. It is fair to say that Wodehouse, who loathed his given name of Pelham Grenville and was affectionately known as "Plum", both wrote to live and live to wrote, and more than 25 years after his death at the age of 93, the characters he created--most notably, Bertie Wooster and his unflappable butler, Jeeves--still enjoy cult popularity bordering on the rapturous--along the same lines as other figures of obsessive adoration like Jane Eyre and Sherlock Holmes.A new biography by British novelist Robert McCrum details Wodehouse's long and eventful life. It was a life replete with famous characters. Wodehouse, who divided most of his time between England and the U.K., toiled for stage and screen during the Roaring Twenties and not-so-roaring Thirties. He seems to have come in contact with almost everyone in showbiz from that era; from Jerome Kern, with whom he collaborated on several Broadway shows, to George Gershwin, Irving Thallberg, Louis B. Mayer, Florenz Ziegfeld, Marion Davies, Fred Astaire, and many others. He even had a friendship with fellow author F. Scott Fitzgerald when both had homes on Long Island (no mention of if he saw the green light from there, though).At the height of his career, there was much to-ing and fro-ing across in elegant steamships across the Atlantic, as Wodehouse engaged in a seemingly endless frenzy of activity. At the centre of it all was Plum, a rather colourless, diffident, unemotional character who reserved all his vibrancy and wit for his fiction. The product of absentee parents who were off pursuing their forturne in the British Empire during its height, Wodehouse retracted into himself at an early age--the only way to survive his loveless environment. Later on, he thrived at Dulwich, an English public school, where his love of sports and way with a cricket bat brought him popularity and a sense of cameraderie; and even though Dulwich, like most schools of its type, was not exactly lavish (bad food and spartan, frequently frigid, rooms) it was a formative experience, one which Wodehouse always recalled with great fondness.Wodehouse had hoped to go on to Oxford, but his father already out-of-pocket for his elder son's tuition, refused to pay. There was no recourse but to take a job with a bank in the city. It turned out to be the luckiest break of his life. He despised the work so much that he was forced to write his way out of it. Luckily, he had a way with words, huge reserves of ambition, and, most crucial to his ultimate success, the stick-to-it-iveness required to sit hour after after endless hour at a typewriter and crank out thousands of words. More tellingly, not only to crank them out--but to derive the greatest enjoyment out of what to many writers would be an ordeal. Wodehouse probably spent most of his life putting words on a page; to him, everything else was merely a way to pass time before he could get down to the business of writing once more.But endurance alone doesn't explain his success. It was what those words added up to that counted. In book after book, Wodehouse created a madcap Edwardian world populated by dimwitted sportsmen, stiff-upperlippers, innocent young lovers, shady American gangsters and formidable aunts. These characters had names like Gussie Fink-Nottle, Stiffy Byng, the Rev. H.P. ("Stinker") Pinker, Esmond Haddock, Freddy Widgeon and Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps. (Just reading that list makes you want to suddenly break out into one of John Cleese's silly walks.) They were always caught up in convoluted and interconnecting plots that always contrived to make them look ridiculous, and as the comical capers and misundertandings piled up, one on top of the other at breakneck speed, there was always the possibility that the entire house of cards could collapse. Readers could always expect by the end, however, that everything would be wrapped up in a nice neat bow, and that, order and peace would prevail once more.It was this almost ritualistic predictablity--comic frenzy capped by a satistying resolution, that readers found so appealing. That and the immutable, unshakeable world in which these characters lived. Time marched on (and given Wodehouse vast age by the time of his death, it marched on for quite some time). Wars were fought, ideologies were fraught, but the world of Wodehouse, like a bug eternally trapped in amber, remained the same--Edwardian, innocent, unaware.Sadly, it was precisely this blitheful innocence that left Wodehouse unprepared to meet his greatest challenge--the Nazis. Wodehouse and his wife Ethel were living in France when the Second World War broke out. Rather than hightailing it out of there, they dallied until the Nazis were almost on their doorstep, and by the time they tried to escape it was too late. At first, Wodehouse and Ethel (a formidable, if frivolous woman, as pleasure-loving and extroverted as her husband was ascetic and shy) were allowed to remain in their home. But Wodehouse and the other men in the area who were considered enemy aliens were soon shippped off and interned in prisoner of war camps. Conditions at these camps, first in Belgium and then in Germany were often deplorable, but Wodehouse, accustomed to such deprivations from his Dulwich days, wasn't fazed. As long as he could do his morning excercise routine (the "daily dozen" he performed every day of his adult life until no longer physically capable) and continue to write, he was perfectly content. Indeed, he enjoyed the cameraderie of this "boys only" milieu, shades again of public school, and the experience of mixing with men from all walks of life. He might have continued to enjoy it if his identity hadn't come to the attention of his captors. When word of Wodehouse's predicament reached America, some of his influential fans there began lobbying the Nazis for his release. America was not yet entered the war and, the Nazis wanted to ensure it stayed that way. When they realized who they had in custody--the famous creator of Wooster and Jeeves--they decided to use him for propoganda purposes. Woodehouse, ninny that he was, let them, agreeing to record nine talks to be broadcast to America. The Nazis saw it as a chance to cast themselves in a more favourable ligtht; Wodehouse saw it as a way of letting his American fans know he was still in fine fettle, despite his imprisonment, and, stupidly, projected the old carefree, Edwardian, devil-may-care attitude that had brought him such success. Unfortunately, he was doing it in the context of a world war, broadcasting for an enemy doing its utmost to destroy his place of birth, and employing language and levity completely inappropriate to that place and time. Back home, his countrymen were being bombed and killed by the Luftwaffe while he waxed on, oblivious, about the comical aspects of being a prisoner of war. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. He had been branded a traitor and collaborator, defamed and reviled in the House of Commons, the press and on the BBC.To the end of his days, Wodehouse never completely understood what he had done. Oh, he knew it was awful enough to bring him shame and ignominy, and that, as a Canadian journalist (unidentified in the biography) told him after the war, he "missed a good opportunity" to keep his mouth shut. But since he hadn't intended to cause any harm, he really didn't see what all the fuss was about. Eventually, the war ended, Wodehouse and Ethel moved to America, and he tried to pick up where he left off. Sadly for him, the world had changed irrevocably by then. There was little call for his short stories--always a primary source of income--in American magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. Broadway, too, had left him behind, with musicals such as South Pacific and My Fair Lady, both of which he despised--eclipsing the sunny inanities of his own shows such as Oh Kay. He was left once more to his novels--to Bertie and Jeeves and their comforting, long-lost world in which, no matter how many times Gussie Fink-Nottle got himself in a jam, things would always be pip-pip-cheerio in the end.Wodehouse managed to outlive his shame. England finally came around and forgave him; he was even knighted by the Queen (whose mother was an avowed devotee of his novels). In the end, it was the books themselves that rehalilitated his repution--that and his essential decency. Jeeves and Bertie came to television, and new generations of readers who didn't know or didn't care how Wodehouse had spent the war, discovered the delights of his pratfalls, predicaments and often blindingly funny, exquisitely-wrought prose. That's why people continue to read anachronistic books that are light as air and can have no possible relevance to life in the 21st Century. But, like Wodehouse fans in the previous century, we are pleased to be lost for a moment in a world without worry, and to read a sublime rendering of the ridiculous by a writer who is arguably the most gifted comic prose stylist that England--and for that matter the world--has ever produced.Clearly, Robert McCrum is an aficionado of that world and, as a novelistic himself, he does an excellent job of bringing Plum and his world to life. While Wodehouse is not always the most scintillating character (after all, he spent most of his time sitting alone in a room, banging out copy) the cast of characters and events swirling around him--Plum most often being the calm eye of the hurricane that was his life--make this a compelling and absorbing biography. One measure of its success is the way McCrum deftly recounts the most shameful episode of Wodehouse's life--his broadcasts for the Nazis and the ensuing fallout--in a way that doesn't excuse this lapse in judgment, but rather, explains is in terms of a character flaw that left him unable to navigate the trickiest moral dilemma of his life. One minor quibble--McCrum spends too much time for my taste recounting Wodehouse's many income tax woes--a recurring feature of his life. While this may be of moderate interest, perhaps, to my stepfather the accountant, these passages screamed "skim" to me. I don't care who are--Donald Trump, Al Capone, Elton John or even Tony Soprano--your tax problems are probably only engaging (and then likely not in a good way) to you. Books23575@blogcritics.org Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:44:34 EST