Review: Meet Mr. Mulliner

Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Prime Wodehouse from 1929, collecting stories published between 1925 and 1927. The framing narrative device is one that's been used plenty of times in English literature since: tall stories told in a pub (or club) over drinks. Wodehouse used it himself for the golf stories of the Oldest Member, and Lord Dunsany's Jorkens stories, which began appearing shortly after Wodehouse's, inspired a great many in the science fiction and fantasy fields. I'm thinking of Arthur C. Clarke's Tales from the White Hart , for example, but there are many others.

Like most Wodehouse stories, these don't have a clear and unambiguous fantasy aspect, though the last one suggests a ghost-like malign influence (with an unusual definition of "malign") over a house. They are far-fetched, though, and in the first one we're introduced to Mr Mulliner in a context (the bar-parlour of a pub frequented by anglers) which suggests that he is an unreliable narrator. One or two of his stories, which are all about things that supposedly happened to relatives of his, include scenes where those relatives were not present and could not have known exactly what was said, for example.

Mr Mulliner himself swears that he and, indeed, all his family are notable for complete honesty; he makes many other claims for desirable qualities shared by all the Mulliners, including courage, tenacity, intelligence, resourcefulness in a crisis, honour, great personal charm, good looks, athleticism, and of course modesty, in incidental asides scattered throughout the stories. They also have a tendency to triumph over difficult circumstances through unlikely means, including outright good luck and the implausible chemical concoctions of Mr Mulliner's relative Wilfred.

But it's the way he tells them. These are lively tales that dance along, scattering glittering prose like a wealthy man dispensing largesse to the crowd; absurd similes, ridiculous characters, sometimes-distorted quotations from English literature, bits of snappy slang, farcical situations and pratfalls abound, together forming something more than the sum of the parts. They're tremendous fun, and would make a good introduction to the Wodehouse style for someone who's never read him.

The book is available from Project Gutenberg.

View all my reviews