By Charles Champlin

“I believe there are only two ways of writing a novel，” Pelham Grenville Wodehouse once said. “One is mine， making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether； the other is going right down deep into life， and not caring a damn.”

Never did an author describe his work so well. The adventures of Bertie Wooster and his valet， Jeeves， ignored real life about as totally as it could be ignored over the course of decades when they filled several novels and dozens of short stories， and they also became a PBS series，1 Jeeves and Wooster.

今年是英國幽默小说大师P. G. 沃德豪斯诞辰138周年。阿加莎·克里斯蒂、乔治·奥威尔、道格拉斯·亚当斯等人都是他的忠实读者。《万能管家吉夫斯》系列是他的代表作，更是英式幽默的典范，其影响力已经超越了文学领域，成为了英语世界的文化现象。

P. G. Wodehouse （pronounced Woodhouse） died in 1975 at the age of 93 after an astonishingly prolific2 life. He published 96 books，several of them collections of his 300 short stories. He collaborated on 16 plays and 28 musical comedies and for Hollywood wrote the scripts of 6 movies.3 In his early years he wrote under so many pseudonyms that his total output will probably never be known.4

Wodehouse sold his first article before he was 20 and received 10 shillings and sixpence for it.5 He was typing away on yet another novel， Sunset at Blandings， on the morning of the day he died. It was published posthumously6 in its unfinished form， with his notes for the rest. The world could never get enough of Wodehouse.

Wodehouse also wrote the lyrics for dozens of songs， and one of them， Jerome Kerns “Bill，”7 has become a standard.

Yet it was the Wooster-Jeeves stories that assured Wodehouse immortality， read and re-read in English and translated into many foreign languages. The character who became Bertie Wooster made his first appearance as Reggie Pepper in a story in 1915 and appeared under his own name in a collection titled The Man with Two Left Feet two years later. By then， Wodehouse was already in his mid-30s and well-known as a humorous writer for both print and the theater.

The stories seem to arise in the late Edwardian world of the British upper-class， in Mayfair flats and country houses， a time when rich and foolish young men thought about work without ever actually having to do any， and the young women they cavorted with were equally rich and foolish but also beautiful and desirable.8

It was， of course， a world Wodehouse created—and sustained in its airy distance from the real world—through two wars and a global Depression.9

Jeeves apparently got his name from a cricket10 player Wodehouse admired. His traits as the consummate valet， shrewder by several dozen IQ points than his amiably feckless master， may have been partly inspired by the displaced valet， Ruggles， of Harry Leon Wilsons American novel， Ruggles of Red Gap.11

Bertie Wooster， his brain a vast interstellar vacuum crossed by occasional wandering notions， was a dazzling invention， a farcical enlargement of every foolish chap， serenely selfassured with precious little justification.12

Wodehouse indeed worked with a kind of stock company of generic characters： Young Men， Young Women， Imperious Aunts， Pompous Aristocrats，13 all linked of course to The Perfect Servant.

Wodehouse had a dreadful14 early life. He was sent back to England at age two from Hong Kong， where both his parents were colonial workers， to be raised by two aunts （neither said to be the model for the awful Aunt Agatha in the TV series） and by a grandmother. He saw his parents every four years on their home leave.

He was shipped off to boarding school at five， thence to a public school and Dulwich College.15 Wodehouse and his wife spent the last 30 years of his life in Remsenberg， Long Island，and he became an American citizen in 1955. But he continued to write of the musical comedy version of England that he had created and populated so well. He was knighted16 by Queen Elizabeth only a few weeks before his death.

He was admired by writers as various as Hilaire Belloc， Evelyn Waugh and Isaac Asimov，17 and by readers in at least 80 countries. But he remained indefatigably modest， referring to his writing as “my stuff，” and pouring his self-deprecating views of himself into，18 of all people， Bertie Wooster.

In an interview Michael Phillips （an author and editor） said about P. G. Wodehouse， “In my opinion， he is the wordsmith and writing technician par excellence of all time.19 I could conduct a complete writing seminar using nothing but his books， and as works of fiction， they are also having eternally redeeming value.”

P. G. Wodehouse is inimitable20. His British humor defies21 description： It can only be experienced. The tales are filled with eccentric aunts， quirky characters，22 and crazy plots. And in between， youll encounter pure literary genius. He wields his pen with such skill that you are taken aback by the dry wit where you least expect it.23 He creates characters as alive as they are unusual in personality. And the word pictures are as ironic as they are memorable. While there may not be much of moral virtue within their pages， Wodehouses tales should be read for the sheer pleasure of having read them.

1. valet： 贴身男仆；PBS： 即Public Broadcasting Service，美国公共广播公司。

2. prolific：（艺术家、作家等）多产的，作品丰富的。

3. collaborate on： 在……方面合作；script：（戏剧、电影等的）剧本。

4. pseudonym： 笔名，假名；output：输出量，产量，这里指作家的作品量。

5. shilling： 先令，1971年前的英国货币单位，20先令為1镑；sixpence：六便士。

6. posthumously： 于死后，于著作者死后出版地。

7. lyric：（常用复数）歌词；Jerome Kern： 杰尔姆·克恩（1885—1945），美国音乐剧历史上重要的作曲家之一，被誉为“现代美国音乐剧之父”和“美国剧场音乐的先驱”。

8. 故事发生在英国爱德华七世时代晚期的上流社会，那时，在伦敦梅费尔的豪华公寓和郊外的乡间别墅里，富有而愚蠢的年轻男子想着工作却实际上碌碌无为，与其一道寻欢作乐的年轻女子也同样富有和愚蠢，却也美丽而迷人。Edwardian： 英王爱德华七世时代的；Mayfair： 梅费尔，伦敦的上流住宅区；cavort： 嬉戏，寻欢作乐。

9. sustain： 保持，维持；airy： 快活的，无忧无虑的；Depression：大萧条（指1929年至20世纪30年代早期的世界性严重经济萧条）。

10. cricket： 板球。

11. trait：（某人性格中的）特性，品质；consummate： 完美无缺的；shrewd： 精明的，机灵的；amiably： 亲切友好地；feckless： 没有决心的，没出息的；Harry Leon Wilson：哈里·利昂·威尔逊（1867—1939），美国小说家、剧作家，代表作为 《风雨血痕》（Ruggles of Red Gap）。

12. 伯蒂·伍斯特的大脑如同一个巨大的星际空间，零碎的思绪飘荡其中，这可谓是一个绝妙的人物塑造，以滑稽荒谬的方式放大了每一个愚蠢的人，这样的人凭借着一点点可贵的理由坦然地维持着自信。interstellar： 星际的；vacuum： 真空，空间；farcical：滑稽的，荒唐的；chap： 家伙，小伙子；justification： 正当的理由。

13. generic： 非特有的，普通的；imperious： 专横的，傲慢的；pompous： 浮夸的，华而不实的；aristocrat： 贵族。

14. dreadful： 糟糕透顶的，令人不快的。

15. boarding school： 寄宿学校；thence： 从那里。

16. knight： 授……以爵士品位。

17. Hilaire Belloc： 希莱尔·贝洛克（1870—1953），英国著名作家、历史学家；Evelyn Waugh： 伊夫林·沃（1903—1966），英国著名讽刺小说家，代表作为《故园风雨后》；Isaac Asimov： 艾萨克·阿西莫夫（1920—1992），美国著名科幻小说家、文学评论家。

18. indefatigably： 不知疲倦地，不屈不挠地；selfdeprecating： 自我贬低的，谦逊的。

19. wordsmith： 语言艺术家，词语大师；par excellence：杰出的，出类拔萃的。

20. inimitable： 独特的，无法效仿的。

21. defy： 使成为不可能。

22. eccentric： 古怪的，反常的；quirky： 奇特古怪的。

23. wield： 使用，掌握；take aback：（常用被动语态）使吃惊，使困惑；dry wit： 冷面幽默。