Wodehouse was living in France when the Nazi blitzkrieg rolled through, and was captured and interned for over a year. In 1941, he made several apolitical, humorous broadcasts over German radio, and was released not long afterwards.
There was an outcry in Britain, and many vowed never to buy another Wodehouse book. But George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, among others, defended him against accusations of Nazi sympathies or collaborationist tendencies. Orwell, for instance, said Wodehouse was a “political innocent” and didn’t fully appreciate just how vile the Nazis were, or how he was being used. More recently Stephen Fry, who played Jeeves in the excellent 1990s “Jeeves and Wooster” British TV series, also stuck up for Wodehouse and said the whole thing was, in essence, a tempest in a teapot.
I just finished a wonderfully detailed biography of Wodehouse much of which was taken from his journal during WWII and it seemed to me that he was such an innocent (as if out of his own novels) that he never quite caught on that he was collaborating.
Even when he was taken prisoner while living in France (to avoid English taxes basically because he didn’t think he had to pay them [now that is innocence]) it seemed more of a lark than a serious thing to him. He talked about having to help the German soldier who had been sent to take him into custody. His time in prison camp was seen through those same rose-colored glasses. Most of the complaints he expressed in his journal about the different camps he was in were incredibly childish and innocent.
When he was moved to a nice hotel in Berlin, he seemed to think that was a natural step for all internees held by the Germans and he agreed to talk on the radio about things happening to him and to the world in general.
No, I definitely don’t feel he was a callobrator in the true sense. As Fanny Brice said of husband Nicky Arnstein, “My dope was duped, or was my dupe doped?”
He was one of those people who never wander by the real world - a complete innocent. Up until the time he was taken away to prison camp, his wife handled all day-to-day activities. She had to. He did not know what was going on in the real world.
George Orwell, who was there, so to speak, wrote a defense of Wodehouse in 1945, which one can read at The Drones’ site. It contains some quotes from PGW’s speeches in whie in internment and also discusses the English reaction to him. link
I’ll quote Orwell’s conclusion:
Also, remember that Wodehouse was granted a knighthood shortly before his death in 1975. This move is generally considered to be Britain’s way of letting bygones be bygones.
In part because I think it’s generally a wise move to agree with George Orwell.
But mostly because I think he makes a good case. I don’t see any evidence that Wodehouse was other than an innocent. Certainly not that he actually symapathized or intended to collaborate with the Nazis. He’s guilty of taking a less than heroic path. And of course, guilty of not bothering to confront the evil that was right in front of him. How much he should be blamed for that…perhaps he should be blamed, but not as a collaborator.
I seem to rememeber (I could be wrong, I haven’t read all of Bertie and Jeeves. I think I read about it in the Orwell essay) that he had a Nazi sympathizing character he pillored in his books. No it doesn’t seem like that mindset was one agreed with.
Roderick Spode, 8th Earl of Sidcup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Spode) was the leader of an organization called the “Blackshorts” (they wore something similar to a Boy Scout uniform), and apparently was modeled on British fascist Sir Oswald Mosely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_mosley), whose New Party included a paramilitary cadre of “blackshirts.”
This kind of statement indicates why there was a legitimate issue. Wodehouse might have been politically naive, but some people were going to give his statements that the Nazis weren’t all that bad credence just because he was P.G. Wodehouse without considering that being a talented writer doesn’t necessarily make someone wise. If artists want to influence the public, they should accept the responsiblity for the directions they lead people in.
This has to be the most hyperbolically inane thing Orwell ever said. The only possible mitigating factor might be that in 1945, he was unaware of the complete range of “morally disgusting” things done by the regimes supported by people such as…Ezra Pound, for example.
In 1933 he (Pound) met Mussolini, who praised his poetry. Pound became an active supporter of fascism, promoting it on radio broadcasts to England and the United States during World War II (1939-1945). In anticapitalist and anti-Semitic speeches, Pound denounced those he held responsible for the West’s decline—in particular, Jewish bankers.
Nice.
Pound, after his release from a mental hospital in '58, went to Italy, gave the Fascist salute to reporters, and kept on corresponding with Fascist buddies like Oswald Mosley.
I think I resent that a bit! I do take your point but there’s a bit of difference between thinking Orwell is worth agreeing with (because he’s a genuine intellect who has proved to be worth agreeing with) and taking as gospel the word of any random Famous Writer whether he’s likely to make sense or not.
As I said I take your point. Wodehouse should have considered his influence (never mind that someone taking political advice from Wodehouse isn’t likely to make good descisions to begin with ). But I think it’s true that he wasn’t looking to influence anyone. Which puts him in the catagory of Foolish but not Evil.
My point was that you can’t say you’re inspired by what one writer wrote without conceding that writers have the power to inspire their readers. If Orwell deserves credit for speaking out against totalitarianism, then Pound and Wodehouse deserve at least some censure for speaking out in favor of it.
I do agree that Wodehouse was more of a dupe than anything else. But at the time he was speaking, Britain was in a critical period, trying to decide whether it should continue to resist Germany when there was little apparent hope for eventual victory or should seek an accomodation acknowledging the Reich’s superiority. Wodehouse’s speeches at that time, saying that his personal experience was that living under the Nazis wasn’t all that bad, could have had a profound effect on world history.
After his unfortunate incident in GErmany, many of WOdehouse’s critics started combing through his writings, in search of some evidence of fascist sympathies.
To that, Orwell answered that he had never seen anything in Wodehouse’s writings that suggested Wodehouse was familiar with anything that had happened since 1913.
Orwell was absolutely right, of course. In Wodehouse’s imaginary world (and, I think, in the world he knew), concentration camps and genocide were unthinkable. NOBODY was really evil in Wodehouse’s world, and nothing truly terrible ever happened to people. The “villains” in a Wodehouse story are bullies, at worst, but frequently just blowhards.
Do you think Bertie Wooster could have conceived of a world in which people would try to exterminate millions of innocents? Of COURSE not! In the Wooster/Wodehouse world, everything is pretty swell, and the worst things that could possibly happen were marriage and/or employment.
In the Wooster/Wodehouse world, politicians of all stripes were simply self-important but harmless buffoons. Wodehouse chose to view the Nazis in that light. Naive? Stupid, even? Yes. But Wodehouse simply didn’t have the mean streak necessary to be a genuine bigot or Nazi, or even to comprehend that there were peopel who DID have such a mean streak.
Jackmanii - I think Orwell’s point was that the politicians denouncing Pound & Wodehouse caused more problems with their appeasment of Hitler than a couple of artists giving speeches. If I read that correctly, I think Orwell was castigating the politicians for holding similar, sympathetic, views themselves at one time while acting all upset now.
Still hyperbollic, I agree, but I think Orwell is correct to say the real blame lies with the sympathetic officials. At any rate, nothing Wodehouse did compares to Pound, who sounds like a true believer.
Little Nemo, Wodehouse never spoke in favor of totalitarianism. If you read his speeches, (link above) you’ll see he just prattles on in that Woosterish way about his experiences as a prisioner. He makes a joke of the whole thing, but it’s still pretty grim in parts. Not as grim as some people had it of course, but bad enough for someone his age. At one point, he discusses his reason for agreeing to the broadcast, which he said were meant to reassure people who were worried about him.
So while it’s true that he casts his internment as a chance to catch up on his Shakespeare, he doesn’t hide the fact that he was eating matchsticks and sleeping on concrete with no blankets. As I pointed out above, the British government agreed that the speeches weren’t pro-German and I agree with that assesment.
Why?
Orwell was normally pretty good at choosing his words to express what he meant. I don’t recall him ever being hyperbolic about anything. If he said ‘few things’ he didn’t mean that it was the most immoral thing, or that it was trivial. I think he meant precisely what he wrote - that it was a very bad thing but not as bad as some of the other things that happened (which I would take to mean the wholesale slaughter of civilians, genocide, maltreatment of prisoners, etc.).
The puffed-up self-serving hypocrisy of assorted politicians, celebrities and journalists all competing to see who could be the most patriotic witch-hunter while totally ignoring the real issues would have made Orwell see red, and I think he had a very valid point. This focus on trivialities and petty character assassination is one of the most damaging flaws in the democratic system, and you can follow it all the way through to the present day via the HUAC trials and all the recent Clinton/Bush brouhaha with special prosecutors and the like.
It was not “morally disgusting” to prosecute a Fascist sympathizer who knowingly promoted the aims and aspirations of murderous regimes (including his own country’s enemies during wartime). And it was obscene to compare the Allies’ attempts to punish traitors with war crimes.
What was morally disgusting was that a number of Nazi officials and scientists were never prosecuted, and were in fact given jobs with postwar Allied governments - in the name of national security and fighting Communism.
Orwell’s point was that many of those who were pursued after the war had done nothing of the kind, and in his opinion Wodehouse was not a sympathiser. Do you disagree, and why?
Please point out where this equivalence was made. I missed it.
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What was morally disgusting was that a number of Nazi officials and scientists were never prosecuted, and were in fact given jobs with postwar Allied governments - in the name of national security and fighting Communism.
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Oddly enough, one of the debates about Iraq going on at the moment relates to this very issue - the contrast between the co-option and retention of much of the Nazi-influenced army and bureacracy (leading to rapid and efficient reconstruction) versus the dissolution of the Iraqi army and Baathist party (leading to chaos and fuelling the insurgency). Unfortunately, life is never simple.
Oh, and the Orwell article was apparently first published in July 1946 according to the attribution at the bottom of this. I think it’s fair to assume that even if Orwell was unaware of Dachau and such when he wrote the article, he had ample opportunity to amend or retract had he felt it appropriate.
). But I think it’s true that he wasn’t looking to influence anyone. Which puts him in the catagory of Foolish but not Evil.