Friday, August 26, 2011

PG Wodehouse And The Nazis

In 1941 PG Wodehouse was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was imprisoned by the Germans after they invaded France. He was living in Le Touquet and was trying to get to Spain when captured. He and his wife were imprisoned in Germany.

While there he did some broadcasts to the United States at the behest of the German authorities. He later admitted to naivety, but the broadcasts can hardly be said to be Lord Haw Haw style pro-Nazi propaganda. Indeed his humorous digs at his hosts seem to have been too subtle for them to grasp, and for some of the left-wing media to grasp today. Misguided at best, but what would you do in the same position? That's it really.

But the vindictive left-wing media, particularly the Independent, are pillorying him today as the government papers around his case are released. They see Wodehouse as an upper class representative of the old imperial establishment. Perhaps if they read some Wodehouse, especially Jeeves and Wooster where Roderick Spode leads his Blackshorts in a highly entertaining parody of fascism, they could perhaps find a little objectivity.

But irony, indeed humour generally, are not particular strengths of the sanctimonious liberal left.

2 comments:

e.f. bartlam said...

Given the dregs that most of these left wingers cozy up to...you can only view this criticism at ideological...and ridiculous.

Left-footer said...

I agree entirely. Wodehouse was a comic genius.

The intellectual eunuchs of Liberaland have a problem, in that their lives are comfortable and largely free from danger, and their outlook consequently smug.

I think I know how they would behave in Wodehouse's position.