Friday, August 3, 2007

Review: Something New by P G Wodehouse

I saw a video of a Rube Goldberg machine the other day, (called a Heath Robinson contraption in this part of the world), and was reminded of the plots of P G Wodehouse. Perhaps it was the other way around. Anyway, bear with me.
The point is, there are number of objects, the behaviour of which is perfectly understood, and is unremarkable. A marble, or a domino, say. And these objects are put together in an absurd and amusing way. A marble rolls, a domino falls over, exactly according to its nature, but the sum of these mundane and predictable acts creates a symphony of movement, leading inevitably to a predictable conclusion. But the destination is the least important part of the process. The journey is what makes it all worthwhile. And the more circuitous and torturous the route, the more wonderful the machine is.

And in this one, P G turns philosopher at the end: "Life is nothing but a mutual aid association." he declares, and I couldn't agree more. So thanks to Debra Lynn for making this recording, and adding to the great mutual aid society that is LibriVox.

Next: An International Episode by Henry James

3 comments:

Kara Shallenberg said...

That's good old P.G.! I never thought of it that way, but you're exactly right.

Kara Shallenberg said...

Oh, and International Episode is one of the first things we completed. No attention was paid to recording quality, proper id3 tags, or any of those other pesky details :) Hope it sounds ok.

ChrisHughes said...

Yes - I wanted something early to celebrate the second anniversary!