suggestions for a wedding reading ?
YoungGussie
and chapesses :
Does anyone have any suggestions for extracts from PGW that would make good
readings at a wedding ? Like most of you (I presume ?) I've had a lifelong
love-affair with Plum but sadly there isn't time for me to reread the entire
canon in order to pick out a particularly good bit. The piece I'm looking for
ought to take no more than a couple of minutes to read, and have a vaguely
romantic theme, but most of all it should make everyone laugh, as there is
likely to be quite enough pious speechifying later on !
If you can think of any particularly suitable nuggets I'd love to hear your
ideas. Just quote title, chapter, a rough page number and maybe the first line
or two, and I should be able to track it down - I think I've got most of the
novels and story collections. And anyway, if I don't have the one you suggest,
its as good an excuse as any to update the old archive :-)
Pip pip
Young Gussie
Augustus Fink-Nottle
I say! I do declare that this wasn't posted by me (a.k.a. Gussie). Seeing
what appeared at first sight to be my name signed below talk of wedding
readings gave rather a nasty shock to the old system. It's like waking up
after a particularly ill-advised binge to find oneself inexplicably engaged to
some Nietzsche-reading gel called Florence or worse.
Congratulations to 'Young Gussie' all the same. I guess he must be one
of the Mannering-Phippses.
tinkerty-tonk,
Gussie (of the Fink-Nottle variety)
The Mixer
> Does anyone have any suggestions for extracts from PGW that would make good
> readings at a wedding ?
It's not at all romantic (romance wasn't a PGW forte), but you might look at the
first half of the essay "Fashionable Weddings and Smart Divorces" collected in
"Louder and Funnier".
Here is an assortment of nuggets cribbed from books by Richard Usborne and Barry
Day...but again if you're looking for something romantic, you've probably come to
the wrong place.
From Honeysuckle Cottage: He was stoutly opposed to the idea of marrying anyone,
but if, as happens to the best of us, he ever were compelled to perform the wedding
glide, he had always hoped it would be some lady golf champion who would help him
with his putting, and thus, by bringing his handicap down a notch or two, enable
him to save something from the wreck.
From Jeeves in the Offing: I was in rare fettle and the heart had touched a new
high. I don't know anything that braces one up like finding you haven't got to get
married after all.
From Honeysuckle Cottage: "You're too young to marry," said Mr McKinnon, a stout
bachelor.
"So was Methuselah," said James, a stouter.
From A Pelican at Blandings: Nothing so surely introduces a sour note into a
wedding ceremony as the abrupt disappearance of the groom in a cloud of dust.
From If I Were You: We just happened to be sitting in a cemetery, and I asked her
how she would like to see my name on her tombstone.
From Sonny Boy: The whole wheeze in married life, Bingo had come to learn, was to
give the opposite number as few opportunities of saying, "Oh, how could you?" as
possible.
From The Old Reliable: Warm though the morning was, he shivered, as only a
confirmed bachelor gazing into the naked face of matrimony can shiver.
From the play Candlelight: A woman's smile is like a bath-tap. Turn it on and
you find yourself in hot water.
From Sam the Sudden: "Love is a wonderful thing."
Mr Todhunter's ample mouth curled sardonically. "When you've seen as much of life
as I have," he replied, "you'd rather have a cup of tea."
From The Small Bachelor: Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of
love. It merely mummifies the corpse.
From the play Don't Listen, Ladies: Love is like life insurance. The older you
are when you start it, the more it costs.
Tinkerty-tonk,
The Mixer
Joseph D Levy
> YoungGussie wrote:
>> Does anyone have any suggestions for extracts from PGW that would make good
>> readings at a wedding ?
> It's not at all romantic (romance wasn't a PGW forte), but you might look at the
> first half of the essay "Fashionable Weddings and Smart Divorces" collected in
> "Louder and Funnier".
Actually, there are quite a few romances in PGW -- where marriage remains
desirable throughout the story. Gussie ought to find a number of gems in
The World of Mulliner. I also recall Bill the Conqueror as quite the
romantic tale.
-Joe Levy
Bianchi
>YoungGussie wrote:
>
>> Does anyone have any suggestions for extracts from PGW that would make good
>> readings at a wedding ?
>
>It's not at all romantic (romance wasn't a PGW forte), but you might look at the
>first half of the essay "Fashionable Weddings and Smart Divorces" collected in
>"Louder and Funnier".
>
>Here is an assortment of nuggets cribbed from books by Richard Usborne and Barry
>Day...but again if you're looking for something romantic, you've probably come to
>the wrong place.
>
Greetigs from B on the b; One does not like to quibble but these hardly seem
right for a wedding. The bride would not be amused. lady constance
Kristine Fowler
: Does anyone have any suggestions for extracts from PGW that would make
: good readings at a wedding ?
This passage from _Quick Service_ at least offers approval of the doings,
although I'm not sure it's more romantic than the others. There's a whole
lot more in ch. 18 ("So far, they've been talking about marriage. . . .The
thin one seemed to like it. The stout one didn't."), but this seems like
the most concise bit, with one excision.
"'It's the whole idea of marriage that gives me that sinking
feeling,' he said. 'It always did. When I proposed, I was thinking all
the time what a sap I was making of myself. And when she bust our
engagement, I went around singing like a lark.'
"It was not merely the nauseating thought of the other singing
like a lark that caused Joss to shudder so violently that he spilled his
beer. His whole sould was revolted by the man's mental outlook.
"'Marriage is the most wonderful thing in the world,' he cried
warmly, 'and only a sub-human cretin with a diseased mind could argue to
the contrary. . . .You should take that soul of yours around the corner,
J.B., and have it thoroughly cleaned and pressed.'"
I agree with the poster who said there are plenty of romantic parts in
Wodehouse, but they're usually not also funny.
Pip-pip.
Aurelia Cammarleigh
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
"Bianchi" <mbia...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:i75sbuk8j2khv84dj...@4ax.com...
[deletions]
> Greetigs from B on the b; One does not like to quibble but these hardly
seem
> right for a wedding. The bride would not be amused. lady constance
>
I'm sure that on average you're absolutely right. On the proverbial other
hand, if one should ever find a potential mate who would enjoy this sort of
reading at her wedding he ought to clinch the deal right then and there, as
it were.
Also, it occurs to me that even if the citations offered were never used
during the wedding they'd be rather delightfully apt for the bachelor party,
assuming grooms-in-the-offing are still given bachelor parties in this
benighted era.
--
Mortimer Rackstraw, the Great Boloni
Bianchi
>
>"Bianchi" <mbia...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
>[deletions]
>
>> Greetigs from B on the b; One does not like to quibble but these hardly
>seem
>> right for a wedding. The bride would not be amused. lady constance
>>>>>Also, it occurs to me that even if the citations offered were never used
>during the wedding they'd be rather delightfully apt for the bachelor party,
>assuming grooms-in-the-offing are still given bachelor parties in this
>benighted era.
Greetings from Blandings on the Bayou: Now they would be great at a bachelor
party if such innocent thins would happen there. LC
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
It's been my experience, both in and out of Plum's work, that bachelors are
the very essence of innocence. It's the marriage state that seems to
introduce us to the heavy hand of experience. I modestly propose myself as
the very model and exemplar of this proposition.
The Mixer
Church 'Round the Corner" from the 1920 Kern-Wodehouse-Bolton musical "Sally".
As you may know, Plum and Ethel were married in New York's Little Church Around the
Corner in 1914, so the place had some sentimental value when he penned the
following lyrics:
Dear little Church 'Round the Corner,
Where so many lives have begun,
Where folks without money see nothing that's funny
In two living cheaper than one.
Our hearts to each other we've trusted:
We're busted, but what do we care?
For a moderate price
You can start dodging rice
At the Church 'Round the Corner,
It's just 'round the corner,
The corner of Madison Sqare.
The Mixer
xpd
'Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump.
Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the
unhappy marriages come from the husband having brains.'
"YoungGussie" <young...@aol.com> wrote in message
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