Book Recommendation #2

Remember the first review-ish thingummy I wrote? It was on a tome written by Wodehouse (As in "rhymes with woodlouse.") I love Wodehouse.

We, all those desiring to be learned people, should probably be reading Euclid, or The Great Dialogues of Plato, or even The Red Pony. But I love Wodehouse.

Or I could be improving my mind on The Norton Anthology of English Literature, or the Oxford Book of Essays or Grun's Timetables of History. But I just love Wodehouse.

And I consider it my solemn duty to make you love Wodehouse too.

Something Fishy is about a bunch of multi-millionaires who create a tontine for their sons just before the 1929 crash. But it differs from usual tontines in that the money goes to whichever son marries last, not dies last.

Listen to this quote:

"Uncle George," she said, and musical though her voice was, Lord Uffenham did not like it. "Was it you who painted that moustache on Stanhope's statue?"

It was most fortunate that she should have worded her enquiry thus, for it enabled Lord Uffenham to deny the accusation with a clear conscience. What he had painted on Stanhope Twine's statue, it will be recalled, was a small imperial beard.

Does that not intrigue and rouse the excitement of your very soul? Doesn't it call you to race to the nearest library and clamor for the closest Wodehouse?

The negative aspects of this otherwise marvelous book is that there is some scarce language.

Go out and read it! However, you mustn't start it in the evening, but rather in the morning, for you shan't find yourself capable of putting it down.

Le Miserable

Okay, first let's establish that I am just being silly...

I am guilty of committing the unpardonable error! *Ahem!*When I type Unpardonable Error, I am referring to one of two things. The first is calling an Alpaca a "Llama" in the presence of an Alpaca lover. What happens when you call an Alpaca a Llama? The aforesaid alpaca lover turns slowly, with murderous eyes and gives a look that could quell Porthos if he weren't already dead. On this green earth, you will never receive such a look. These Alpaca people are dead serious when it comes to Alpacas, and it is a deadly trial to them to hear their Alpacas (of which it must be stated are much cuter) called "Llamas." (Exception: Amy! She is too nice to give murderous glances that chill the heart. Go read her blog: Sunny Sky, in my sidebar.)

The second is perhaps ten times as worse; it is to skip the 30 page description of the Battle of Waterloo in Le Miserable.

As I have laboured in the vocation of Alpaca Pasture Maintainer for almost three years, it is highly unlikely that the first fault is mine.

No, I have done the worst: I skipped that passage! With a smirk of triumph on my face, I flipped, and flipped, and flipped and flipped and flipped until finally! I came to the almost end, you know, the part where Thenarder is looting the battlefield. Then, I proceeded to read as if nothing had happened! And I don't even feel the least guilty because I am reading the tome solely for enjoyment, and that everlasting passage did certainly most NOT provide any enjoyment of mind or soul.

I guess now that I've made clean of it and made my poor gentle readers read about my lazy reading, I have ultimately decided that it is not an unpardonable error to skip the battle of Waterloo scene. There now remains only Alpaca name calling.

The Importance of Subtle Morals

Morals are only tolerable when the are subtle.
Good Example: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Bad Example: Any Aesop's fable.
Do people generally like getting hit over the head with a baseball bat? (Rhetorical question: the answer is no) Obvious, glaring morals produce a very similar sensation to that of getting hit over the head.
Anyway, I didn't start this post to teach about morals. What I wanted to do was show you the absolute worst, most glaringly garish moral ever. I found it in a book called, A Hive of Busy Bees.
It would take forever to type it all out, so here is the summary:
"Little Davy" finishes eating a delicious lunch with his friend. They decide to go fishing, but before they can leave, Little Davy's mom asks him to do the dishes.
"Awww, Mom! I don't wanna do the dishes! You do them," says Davy.
"I just don't feel very well." Mrs. LittleDavy'smom says. She "gently rubs her temple."
Davy hollers, "I don't care!" and races out the door with his friend to go fishing.
After several hours of fun fishing, Little Davy comes home. He sees his mother sleeping in a chair.
"Hey mom, what's fer dinner?" he asks, but receives no answer. "What's for dinner?"
Slightly concerned, he walks over and shakes her. "Mom? MOM!!!" Little Davy realizes that his mother is DEAD, killed by the exertion of housekeeping. In horror, Davy looks over at the counter, and there sit the dinner dishes, spotlessly clean.

THE END

Can you possibly get any worse? Anyone who ever reads that story will probably be turned off from morals forever. Did the author actually think that story would "encourage" anyone to obediance? Yeeesh. If I remember right, the book has a Bible verse at the end of each story. What a way to give Christians a bad name.

P.S. Though I may be down on "morals" in an Aesop fable kind of sense, this doesn't mean I am at all for immorality. I'm for everything morals stand for, just not cheesy stories.

Book Recommendation #1: Leave It to Psmith

I must say I have always had a sort of unhealthy disrespect for bloggers who write book reviews. This is a very negative aspect of my character and in the past, when I have debated with myself whether or not to write a book review, the negative aspect has always conquered.
But after reading Leave It to Psmith, I have overcome my unhealthy disrespect in my eagerness to share my new favorite book.

Leave It to Psmith is written by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. I can't exactly imagine why any reasonably sane mother would wish to burden her poor child with a name like that, but P.G. Wodehouse has overcome it, I believe. Anyway, listen to this wonderful advertisement that Psmith puts in the paper, and if you aren't enthralled, I shall think less of you than I did before:

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Psmith Will Help You

Psmith Is Ready For Anything

DO YOU WANT

Someone To manage you affairs?

Someone To Handle Your Business?

Someone To Take The Dog For A Run?

Someone To Assassinate Your Aunt?

PSMITH WILL DO IT

CRIME NOT OBJECTED TO

Whatever Job You Have To Offfer

(Provided It Has Nothing To Do With Fish)

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Address Applications To 'R. Psmith, Box 365

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Now doesn't that absolutely capture your intrest? This is the most absolutely hysterical book I have ever read.

P.S. By they way, "The p is silent, as in pthisis psychic, and ptarmigan"