Out There :: Life with Bertie Wooster

It was with some trepidation that we picked up Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (St. Martin's Griffin), called both "A New Jeeves and Wooster Novel" and "An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by Sebastian Faulks" on the cover of its new paperback edition. What-ho, old boy? (This is Wodehousian for "Sup, dawg?") I say! Author P.G. "Plum" Wodehouse has been dead lo these many years. Isn't it playing with dynamite to attempt to recreate the old Wooster magic on the page?

But the imposter Faulks has the Wodehouse lingo and sly sense of humor down pat. "Little did I know," he writes in the voice of Bertie Wooster, "as I set fire to an after-breakfast gasper in the cottage garden, what the lead-filled sock of fate had in store for me." As usual, love complicates. "At this moment, Georgina took my hand in hers. My heart, already skipping the odd one from the prolonged eye contact, now began to beat the sort of rhythm you hear in the Congo before the missionary gets lobbed into the bouillon."

Plum's classic comic novels - "Stiff Upper Lip," "Jeeves; The Code of the Woosters," "Aunts Aren't Gentlemen," etc. - are nothing but pleasure to peruse. Still, upon reflection, their politics weren't very good. True, the cast of lords and ladies could be daffy dimwits and boorish battle-axes, but in the end the class system is firmly upheld as the natural order of things. Jeeves, quite the superior intellect, defers to his young master Bertie, a total buffoon. Now that the US is becoming more and more a feudal society - it's the upper class vs. everybody else - should we really be celebrating the 1%?

In the circs, chappies, it's important to have a good laugh. And Faulks, doing his best Wodehouse, more than supplies the chucks. "Farmer Niblett turned out to be a fine specimen of west country manhood, his face, neck and arms tanned to the colour of a ripe cobnut." You won't get a description like that outside of Wodehouse, or faux Wodehouse.

Teen Trauma

"Alice + Freda Forever - A Murder in Memphis" by Alexis Coe (Pulp) is a thorough account of a true story from Memphis in 1892, when 19-year-old Alice Mitchell, thwarted in her plans to pass as a man and marry her 17-year-old true love Freda Ward , stole her father's razor and set off to slash her lover's throat in broad daylight. She succeeded.

It's all pretty shocking stuff, and it's illustrated with recreations of love letters (discovered, the impetus for keeping the two teenagers apart), maps, courtroom scenes and historical documents. Coe, a research curator at the New York Public Library, did her homework and includes an appendix of letters, a bibliography, footnotes and a helpful index. Newspaper accounts give a window into turn-of-the-century America: early headlines emphasized "how confounding the very idea of same-sex love was in the first place. Reporters relied heavily on words like 'unnatural,' 'strange' and 'perverted.'" The murderess was diagnosed with "erotomania," declared insane, and locked away in an asylum, where she died a few years later. It's a tragic tale, but told in a captivating way.

Antiquarian Riches

Sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the 48th California International Antiquarian Book Fair takes place this weekend (Feb. 6-8) at the Oakland Marriott City Center. The three-day event is the world's largest antiquarian book fair, with nearly 200 booksellers from the US and around the globe. On offer is a rich selection of books, manuscripts, maps and other printed materials, including incunabula (the earliest printed materials), literature from all centuries and nationalities, fine bindings, children's and illustrated books, ephemera, and antiquarian books on dozens of topics. Two items caught Out There's discriminating eye.

The First English Sex Manual, from 1684: "Entitled 'Aristotle's Masterpiece,' although not written by Aristotle or a masterpiece, this 17th-century primer provides practical advice on copulation, conception, pregnancy and birth. Needless to say, this was an extremely popular book in its time, going through more than 100 editions over two centuries. While not intended as pornography, the graphic nature of the book caused it to be printed and sold under the table. One wonders how many teenaged English boys kept a copy hidden under their bed!" (from Jeremy Norman , HistoryofScience.com, Booth 809, $65,000)

An Overdue Bar Tab Invoice for Jimi Hendrix, from 1969: "Even the world's greatest rock guitarist can forget to pay his tab once in a while. Hendrix spent a Halloween evening at The Scene nightclub in New York in 1969, and apparently skipped out on his tab. The invoice for $44.25 is from owner Steve Paul, stating that 'The Scene needs the money badly. Your beverage tab is Past Due.' Hopefully, he left a tip!" (from Schubertiade Music & Arts LLC, Booth 106, $1,200)

Remember: "There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more." - Morrissey. More info on the fair can be found at cabookfair.com and abaa.org.