I no longer think so. There are several confused engagements, a plot to steal a police helmet, a lover of newts studying how to make bold speeches, a mustachioed Fascist named Roderick Spode. This isnt the time or the place to go into the tragedy of Wodehouses war record, but lets at least grant that he showed a good way forward against home-grown fascists and Hitler alike: you send them up as the rotters they are. And the black-white-red of his banners seems also to imitate Hitler, not to mention the brown shirts. Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?. I couldnt have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living at Clapham. At the age of ninety-three, Wodehouse was finally knighted. The entire caricature was a humiliation for the fascists of the period because it spoke truth. "Norfolk shall make umbrellas and Suffolk . Having taught Wodehouse for a few years, Ive discovered that most students have never heard of him. And yet, across time, Wodehouses navet seems the less extraordinary of his qualities. Roderick Spode is a character who makes appearances at odd times, making speeches to his couple dozen followers, blabbing on in the park and bamboozling nave passersby, blowing up at people, practicing his demagogic delivery style. A group of rare-book dealers and collectors explain their specialized language. There are lots of political fools. It chronicled the amusing superficial lives of third-generation English upper class, lovable people with declining financial resources but too much dignity to take on the task of actually earning a living. [2] When he first sees Spode, Bertie describes him: About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. It's quite impossible that the man who had invented Sir Roderick Spode in 1938 was prey to any covert sympathy for fascism. Met cook and congratulated him on todays soup, he writes. The books are cozier than cozy mysteries, and, like a mystery, they help take ones mind off real calamities. After the success of his speeches, Spode considers standing for election himself for the House of Commons, which would require him to relinquish his title. But many English people heard that they happened. She says that she must marry Bertie to reward his love for her, but Spode and Jeeves convince her that Bertie came to Totleigh to steal Sir Watkyn Bassett's black amber statuette, not out of love for her. Some British libraries banned his books. A Dictator! and a Dictator he had proved to be. In 1946, when the new Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, was asked in the House of Commons whether Wodehouse would be tried for treason, he answered that the question would be addressed if and when the writer returned to England. 2023 Cond Nast. Wooster and Finknottle disrupt Spode's inspection of his stormtroopers - an occasion that bears witness to a new assertiveness on the part of Finknottle. Spode is also blackmailed into taking the blame for the theft of Constable Oates's helmet. When Bertie Wooster rebukes Spode in The Code of the Woosters (1938), he mocks Spode's black shorts, calling them "footer bags" (football shorts): "It is about time", I proceeded, "that some public-spirited person came along and told you where you got off. But although there was nothing in the least bit political about the five radio broadcasts that Wodehouse made from Berlin, the great man's persecutors felt it to be treachery enough that he had co-operated with the recordings in the first place. Bertie and his Aunt Dahlia plan to blackmail Spode with knowledge of "Eulalie" to keep Spode, who is a jewellery expert, from revealing that Aunt Dahlia's pearl necklace is a fake (she pawned the real one to raise money for her magazine, Milady's Boudoir). Many great writers, including George Orwell and Auberon Waugh, argued for years that it was mean-spirited of the Establishment to vilify Wodehouse for what they said was an act of naivety, and to deny him the honour that they felt was his due. Well, Im dashed! He perfectly captures the bluster, blather, and preposterous intellectual conceit of the interwar aspiring dictator. For one thing, it reminds us that there is nothing new about Tony Blair's obsession with Britain's "image" abroad. Although I yield to nobody in my admiration of Wodehouse's writing - he was unquestionably the greatest master of the English language of the last century, and in my book the funniest of all time - I was never entirely convinced by his champions' arguments. Far from gruntled John Turner as Roderick Spode and Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster in ITVs Jeeves and Wooster. The pity is that people cant see that Nigel Farage is a spivvy egg-burp despot manqu. Roderick Spode is a character who makes appearances at odd times, making speeches to his couple dozen followers, blabbing on in the park and bamboozling nave passersby, blowing up at people, practicing his demagogic delivery style. Welcome back. Later in the story, Spode identifies a different pearl necklace, one belonging to the Liverpudlian socialite Mrs. Trotter, as fake. His idea, if he doesn't get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which his followers indulge, is to make himself Dictator. Humor is a great method for dealing with clowns like these, as Saturday Night Live has recently rediscovered. Connors address on the BBC began, I have come to tell you tonight of the story of a rich man trying to make his last and greatest salethat of his own country. Later, he described Wodehouse falling to his knees as Joseph Goebbels asks him to bow to the Fhrer. Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?'"[19]. Because he is a butterfly, who toys with women's hearts and throws them away like soiled gloves! After being hit by a potato at a lively candidate debate, Spode changes his mind about standing for Parliament and decides to retain his title, leading to a reconciliation between him and Madeline. It is that All very genial that distinguishes Wodehouse from the irritable rest of us, while the observation of the fit from smoking tea shows that he isnt oblivious, or deranged. Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional characters, Template:WikiProject Fictional characters, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Roderick_Spode&oldid=587296941, WikiProject Fictional characters articles, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 22 December 2013, at 23:26. 19:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)Reply[reply], Spode is a star in the TV series 'Jeeves & Wooster' & a shining exception to the general miscasting (Jeeves isn't old enough, Bertie isn't young enough, Madeline Bassett isn't silly enough & Sir Watkyn isn't nasty enough). Bertie does not learn the true meaning of "Eulalie" until the end of the story. They are trolls. His privilege and his political cluelessness are included in the joke: Young men starting out in life have often asked me, How can I become an Internee? Well, there are several methods. Tell him I'm going to break his neck. : 21: The Plot Thickens", "Classic Serial: The Code of The Woosters", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roderick_Spode&oldid=1150150913, Fascist politician and designer of ladies' lingerie, later Earl of Sidcup, This page was last edited on 16 April 2023, at 16:01. Spode soon wakes up, but is knocked out again, by Emerald. It was a short situation comedy! There's a brilliant scene (not in the book) where he outlines his five-year plan. However, the blackmail plan is unsuccessful, because, as Spode tells Aunt Dahlia, he has sold Eulalie Soeurs. ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster, The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. Please, enable JavaScript and reload the page to enjoy our modern features. Tell him I'm going to break his neck. Roderick Spode is a character who makes appearances at odd times, making speeches to his couple dozen followers, blabbing on in the park and bamboozling nave passersby, blowing up at people, practicing his demagogic delivery style. In spite of this, Spode is less grotesque than Mrs Bingo Little's caricature of him as the wholly unbelievable 'Sir Oswald Mosley.'. (The larger threats are implied.) This was not unusual for the time. Wodehousecreated a composite and caricature of all would-be fascist dictators and turned it to hilarity.Back in the day, these people were all the same, whether George Lincoln Rockwell in the US, Oswald Mosley in the UK, or more well-known statesmen in interwar Europe. by the popliteal unpleasantness. Wodehouse had a rarer trait, too: a capacity for remaining interested and curious, even in a setting of deprivation. Spode, seeing Gussie kiss Emerald Stoker, threatens to break Gussie's neck as well and calls him a libertine. Tamfang 08:17, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply], In Much Obliged Jeeves (1971) Spode is roped in to support Bertie's friend Ginger Winship who is standing in a by-election. She says that she must marry Bertie to reward his love for her, but Spode and Jeeves convince her that Bertie came to Totleigh to steal Sir Watkyn Bassett's black amber statuette, not out of love for her. My first encounter with Wodehouse was as a teen-ager, as my hard-of-hearing father stood two feet away from the television, the volume turned up to maximum. He leaves the group after he inherits his title. In his memorandum to his masters in London, Sir Patrick showed that he saw no place in this arcadia of mini-skirts and psychedelic ties for the man who had given more pure pleasure to literate English-speakers throughout the world than any other writer then alive. I frequently mentioned it to you. Yes, sir. And this one is even riper. And, if he should ask why? The accounts of his brilliance can be credibly told only by the dimmer lightthe mild Watson, the affably ineffective Wooster. What the Voice of the People is saying is: 'Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! He slept on a straw-filled mattress, and tried to avoid scabies and lice. [13], In Much Obliged, Jeeves, which takes place at Brinkley Court, Spode has been invited by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia to Brinkley for his skills as an orator. At one point, Wooster tells Sir Roderick: "The trouble . The only privilege of which he availed himself was paying eighteen marks a month for a typewriter. Spode also antagonizes Gussie, for two reasons. I used to think that this was because it was easier to write the voice of a familiar fool than that of a mastermind. We could argue all day about the shades of grey, but when the question is as black and white as the fight against fascism, I would be mighty glad to link arms with someone with such a strong sense of fair play, such generous kindness, and so much warm feeling for his fellow humans. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment. And then there's Jeeves, the brilliant, hyper-competent valet, who wants his master Bertie to agree to go on an around-the-world cruise. Wodehouse, and hilariously portrayed in the 1990s TV adaptation starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. When Bertie Wooster rebukes Spode in The Code of the Woosters (1938), he mocks Spode's black shorts, calling them "footer bags" (football shorts): "It is about time", I proceeded, "that some public-spirited person came along and told you where you got off. His general idea, if he doesnt get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator. Well, Im blowed! I was astounded at my keenness of perception. He was separated from his wife. It was a reason so preposterous, so fantastically silly, that it would take the comic genius of the Master himself - the "head of our profession", as Hilaire Belloc called Wodehouse - to do full justice to its absurdity. But he did do themhe apparently received two hundred and fifty marks for his work. He is clearly imitating Hitlers speech gestures. Harold Pinker steps forward to protect Gussie, and after Spode hits Pinker on the nose, Pinker, an expert boxer, knocks him out. You will recall how my Aunt Agathas McIntosh niffed to heaven while enjoying my hospitality. In fact, before I hit you with the serious political material, lets just enjoy a few: I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled., Its an extraordinary thing every time I see you, you appear to be recovering from some debauch. Gussie leaves Madeline for Emerald, and Spode proposes to Madeline. Madeline, who wanted to gain the title Lady Sidcup, breaks their engagement, and says she will marry Bertie instead. Maybe for the first weeks an illusion that internment was a brief change of circumstance would persist. and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. Many take place in country houses, and often turn on such events as the hope of extracting an allowance increase from a difficult uncle. Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. In The Code of the Woosters, when Spode advances to attack Gussie, Gussie manages to hit him on the head with an oil painting. Roderick Spode - 8th Earl of Sidcup : Yes. Papers released yesterday by the Public Record Office show that Wodehouse was recommended for appointment as a Companion of Honour in 1967. . [2] Bertie immediately thinks of Spode as "the Dictator" even before he learns of Spode's political ambitions. created a composite and caricature of all would-be fascist dictators and turned it to hilarity. Discuss. (modern). A week after Wodehouse was released, the journalist William Connor, writing under the pseudonym Cassandra, suggested in the Daily Mirror that Wodehouses early release had been part of an unsavory deal. Like everyone else, I had assumed that it was because of his behaviour during the war that P G Wodehouse was kept waiting for his knighthood until a month before his death in 1975, at the age of 93. (The pencilled journal pages can be read in the rare-books room of the British Library.). One of the squad has an apoplectic fit and keels over. He was speaking of the forty-eight weeks between 1940 and 1941 that he spent in a series of German-run civil-internment camps. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. We meet Spode at an antique shop; he accuses Wooster first of stealing an umbrella, then of stealing a precious antique. This page is not available in other languages. Mosley appeared in The Code of the Woosters, published in 1938, thinly disguised as Sir Roderick Spode, the leader of the "black-shorts". The television series made him less British than German in aspiration. He frequently writes about difficulties in his camp notebook, just never at much length. I have taught the Wodehouse broadcasts for several years now, in a graduate writing seminar on comedy and calamity. [15] In other novels, Spode is knocked out three times: he is hit with a cosh by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, he is punched by Harold Pinker in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, and Emerald Stoker smashes a china basin on his head in the same book. 174.91.4.148 (talk) 00:49, 10 October 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" One thinksif one has been reading a lot of Wodehouseof those ducks elegantly moving across the water, as their duck feet paddle furiously, unseen below the surface. Spode, based on Mosley, was exposed for his ownership of Eulallie Souers, ladies' underwear makers. Forget about the authors wartime mistakes, the way Bertie tackles Mosley-esque thug Roderick Spode is a great lesson in sending up would-be despots. He has a low opinion of Jeeves's employer Bertie Wooster, whom he believes to be a thief. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note. Spode is also blackmailed into taking the blame for the theft of Constable Oates's helmet. The crucial scene comes just over halfway through, after Bertie and his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle have endured 100 or so pages of intolerable bullying from the would-be fascist dictator Roderick. You hear them shouting 'Heil, Spode!' 129.241.62.157 (talk) 17:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]. However, the blackmail plan is unsuccessful, because, as Spode tells Aunt Dahlia, he has sold Eulalie Soeurs. A violent man, he threatens to tear Bertie's head off and make him eat it. Such menacing is brought to an end thanks to a typically clever intervention from Jeeves and in one of the most satisfying speeches in the western canon, when Bertie declares: The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think youre someone. Verified account Protected Tweets @; Suggested users . He seemed to think that when they read Wodehouse's books, they would run away with the idea that life in Britain was as he described it: that this was a country full of half-witted toffs with brilliant manservants, their brains swollen by fish, a land of terrifying aunts and eccentric earls, gazing in rapt admiration at their prize pigs. Which book would that be? The statist Left and the statist Right play off each other, creating a false binary that draws people into their squabble. The first time I read Wodehouses Camp Note Book, I kept waiting to see the bonhomie and the buoyancy flag. Spode, who does not want his followers to learn about his career as a designer of ladies' lingerie, is forced not to bother Bertie or Gussie. Aunt Dahlia ends up using a cosh she found on the ground to knock out Spode, which allows her to retrieve her fake necklace from a safe in order to hide it so it cannot be appraised. [3], In Bertie's eyes, Spode starts at seven feet tall, and seems to grow in height, eventually becoming nine feet seven. That is where you make your bloomer. The Oddest Terms Used for Antique Books, Explained. Indeed, about 30 minutes into the second episode of Series 2 ("A Plan for Gussie"), spode is shown rehearsing his stance and gestures in front of a photograph of Benito Mussolini. You agreee with me that the situation is a lulu? He had been smoking tea. Quotes By P.G. He is horrified. and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. After two years, he decided that he could make a living by his pen alone. U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross for the . Wodehouse and his wife had trouble getting out of Germany, but eventually moved back to France, then, after the war, to New York. Not by force, or ethical argument, but by knowledge of his secret: he is a co-owner of Eulalie Soeurs, a womens-underwear line. A handful of people take him seriously but mostly he and his "brownshort" followers are merely a source of . At one point, Wooster tells Sir Roderick: "The trouble with you, Spode, is that because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of halfwits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. When thinking of how genuine lovers of human liberty should deal with such settings, I always fall back on, Its the tragedy of real-world politics that we keep moving through these phases, trading one style of central plan for another, one type of despot for another, without understanding that none are necessary. "[4], Like Bertie, Spode had been educated at Oxford; during his time there, he once stole a policeman's helmet. That is where you make your bloomer. But the idea that by honouring their creator, the government would appear to be endorsing an image of Britain as a nation of Woosters and Aunt Agathas is just plain daft. [8] Despite Spode becoming Lord Sidcup, Bertie usually thinks of him as Spode, at one point addressing him as "Lord Spodecup".

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