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unearths some literary gems.
It's 1972, Wodehouse is in his nineties, and he's no longer standing on ceremony:
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"The intelligent reader will recall, though the vapid and unreflective reader may have forgotten..."
[This from The Plot That Thickened, which also gives us the following]:
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"[She was] always insisting that their position demanded that they entertain as dinner guests people whom, if left to himself, he would not have asked to dinner with a ten-foot pole."
***
[And ... a nightclub orchestra called Herman Zilch and His Twelve What-Nots!]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Wodehouse's Uncle Dynamite:
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Constable Potter, who had momentarily removed the glazed look from his eyes, put it back again.
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"Nobody but a practised writer could have told that story so superbly. [...] You publish your stuff secretly under another name. I believe you're one, if not more, of the Sitwells."
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[From The Purloined Paperweight, aka Company for Henry]:
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“You see, when I recommended Deadly Ernest to him as required reading, he snubbed me in no uncertain manner.”
“What’s he like when snubbing?”
“Pretty formidable. The beard helps a lot, of course. He waggled it at me and said, ‘Dear lady, does one read books called Deadly Ernest?’ And when I said yes, one did, mentioning myself as a case in point, he sighed like a patronizing escape of steam and said he was afraid my taste was very crude.”
***
“We particularly liked its austerity.”
Bill blinked.
“Its what?”
“Or restraint, if you prefer it. No second corpse.”
“I thought of putting in a second corpse, and then I thought I’d fool my public by not having one.”
“You were quite right. I’m sick of second corpses.”
***
“I had various jobs.”
“Such as?”
“Well, there quite a number of them. Picking lemons, for one.”
“I knew it! The moment I saw you, I said to myself, ‘That man has been picking lemons.’ Where was this?”
“Chula Vista, California.”
“Are there lemons out there?”
“Several.”
***
The last thing he would have wished to do, had circumstances been other than they were, was to reveal his business secrets to anyone like Algy, in whose discretion he had little or no confidence, but as so often happens, circumstances were not other than they were.
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unearths some literary gems.
From "The Episode of the Codex' Curse," by C. Daly King:
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[Palpable Silences dept.]
The silence, which to begin with had been complete, seemed somehow to have gotten steadily more and more profound. Imperceptibly but steadily. Oppressive was the word probably, for by two a.m. I had the distinct feeling that it would have been possible to cut off a chunk of it and weigh it on a scale.
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Brothers Sackville, by G. D. H. and Margaret Cole:
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[To ensure a gay (in the old sense) party, there's nothing like bringing someone named Gay. And that Minnie! She's always girling.]
There was quite a gay little party in progress at Summerdene. Hal Kipson was there, and he had brought Peter Gay with him.... Minnie Girling was there, full of laughter as usual; and Hester Longsight....
***
She led him firmly across to where the film actor was holding forth, with Minnie Girling putting him questions all of a giggle.
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unearths some literary gems.
From "Death Out of Thin Air," by Stuart Towne:
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[From an editor's footnote.] Mickey Collins was Pat's twin sister, a young lady who looked so much like her that it was a standing joke as to whether or not the twins themselves knew for sure which was which. [And have we possibly encountered a version of that somewhere before, too?]
***
Inspector Church was being as tight-mouthed as two clams.
[I love the idea that the utter silence of individual clams has an additive effect!]
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unearths some literary gems.
From "Where Have You Gone, Sam Spade?" by Bill Pronzini:
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With her was a wiry little man in his mid-forties, with colorless hair and features so bland they would have, I thought, the odd reverse effect of making you remember him.
[If I recall correctly, this is not the first time we've encountered a writer describing someone whose nondescriptness makes them paradoxically memorable.]
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unearths some literary gems.
From "The Flying Hat," by Vincent Cornier:
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The only usual sounds were the far-away drone of traffic in Oxford Street and the solemn snoring of that in Edgeware Road.
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[The flying hat] sped along; it seemed a ball of blackness, madly sportive.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Oh, Murderer Mine, by Norbert Davis
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Despite his size, the fierce, jet-black mustache he was wearing was still too big for him and Melissa got the impression the mustache was leading him around willy-nilly.
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"Gluck-gluck-gluck," Melissa said in frustrated incoherence. "Gluck!"
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"We are the Misses Aldrich," said the faces.
"Are--are there two of you?" Doan asked.
"Yes. We're twins.... We are specialists," said the Aldriches in fascinating unison, "in the emotional and social conditioning of pre-school-age children."
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"Oh, phooey with an olive," said Beulah Porter Cowys.
***
["Rhetorical 'you knows' answered" dept.]
"Early to bed and early to rise, you know."
"I know," Melissa agreed.
***
"Are [the Misses Aldrich] gone for good?" she asked. "They're a little too plural for me at this hour."
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["Pooh!" + "Bah!" = a (Grand?) Pooh-Bah?]
"Pooh-Bah!"
***
It was a voice that was hoarsely hollow and smooth at the same time. It sounded a little like a billiard ball rolling down a rain spout.
***
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unearths some literary gems.
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"What kine baboozes they got working up there in security?"
"Officer Medeiros has been nothing but professional," I said. "I don't think it's nice to call him a...whatever you called him."
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"You, a professor, don't even have a proper office chair. You sacrifice your dignity every day by sitting on a yoga ball."
"My dignity is very well toned from sitting on that ball, I'll have you know."
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"A very good salary"....
I involuntarily rolled my chair back when Iker told me the number, as if I were making room for a dump truck load of cash.
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"You're being ridiculous! Ridiculously blinded by lust!"
"Now wait a--"
"What were you thinking about, eating that meat?" [N.B. That's literal meat.]
"That wasn't lust," I said. "That was gluttony."
***
"So maybe he steals his brother’s artifact out of jealousy, or pride, or, you know, anger."
"You forgot lust and gluttony."
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"I'm going to spell it out for you. One: Jimmy Tanaka was going to ruin Donnie Gonsalves. Two--"
"That's counting, not spelling."
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"Did you sell out for the money?"
"Of course I did! Why else would you sell out? It's called 'selling out' because you do it for the money."
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"Locus of control....A locust is an insect. Why do I have to explain that every time?"
***
[Bonus golden-goose business]:
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Corpse in the Constable's Garden, by G. D. H. and Margaret Cole:
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"Crikey!" he said; and, feeling the comment inadequate, added, "My aunt!"
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"I shall stay at Coward's Hotel in Craven Street." [This is not some kind of metaphor: it is presented in a matter-of-fact way as a literal hotel (though I'm sure the authors' intention here was humorous).]
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"Don't pretend to be a fool, Hubert," said his wife. "You know you said you liked Proust."
"I said I liked him in moderation," said the Colonel. "The trouble was, there wasn't any moderation."
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"Praise the pigs there are two of them, anyhow." ["Praise the pigs" as a way of saying "thank goodness" was a new one on me! And, indeed, a quick look at Google Books suggests that this character may have been the only person ever to say it.]
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"He told me Barrington was a great authority on something or other, I've forgotten what."
[If I'm not mistaken, this is the second novel by the Coles in which I've encountered a character who is a "great authority on something or other," or words close to that. (:v>]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Superintendent Wilson's Holiday [a short story collection], by G. D. H. and M. Cole:
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Matthew Kingdon, Fellow of St. Philip's College, Oxford, was quite unable to settle down to prepare his paper for the Philosophical Society. 'Do Relations Relate?' was a fascinating subject, and he had promised himself good sport in answering the question, and incidentally discomfiting his great rival, Dr. Mugsley of St. Jude's.
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All the male Pedders were rather like surprised parrots.
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[Bonus: A theatre called the Megatherium.]
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unearths some literary gems.
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'Stringing English together is like rewiring an old house.'
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[Re. the word "logocentric"]
'What other kind of too-narrow focus provides... a diagnostic name for itself? If you're ethnocentric, does your culture include a folk dance acknowledging the limitations of your outlook? Is there a beeper that goes off when you get too technocentric?'
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[Midway through this book that is primarily comprised of digressions, Blount gets to the end of an entry entitled "Memorabilia" and says] 'There might be a way to drag the Latin /mirabile dictu/, "marvelous to say," in here, especially since it might lead us into "too marvelous for words" and other philological lyrics by Johnny Mercer--but we've got to move along, if this book is going to have any narrative drive.'
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'Minimalism:
'A little of it goes a long way.'
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[I especially recommend pp. 204-208, about names.]
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[Blount's priceless encapsulation of a bit of classical absurdity]
'Aristotle maintained that a falling body accelerated because it became more jubilant as it found itself nearer home.'
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[Apparently the word ptarmigan is spelled thus because scholars with Greek on the brain mistook the origin of the Scots Gaelic word from which the bird's name actually derived. Says Blount, the ptarmigan] 'lives in cold climes and mostly shuffles or flutters around. It isn't putting on neoclassical airs.'
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[Blount claims that the letter Q, in the Braggadocio typeface], 'looks like a South Park character.'
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'De Quincey says that Wordsworth would grow impatient when anyone else spoke of mountains.'
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Great Southern Mystery, by G. D. H. and Margaret Cole:
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[I suspect this pun was unintentional.]
The most startling thing so far about the entire affair was the finding of the sovereigns in the dead man's mouth.... At present, Arkwright could make neither head or tail of it.
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"You could get pots and pots of money from the Daily Whatever it is."
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[Bonus #1: Tennis-playing minor characters nicknamed Bunch and Lumps.]
[Bonus #2: Two old clubmen who are colossal bores; each warns the journalist seeking them out that the other is a colossal bore.]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Mr. Pinkerton Grows a Beard, by David Frome:
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He made a sharp turn to the right and went rapidly along until he came to the Swedenborgian Reading Room. He opened the door, put on an air that he felt might be supposed to be Swedenborgian, nodded to the middle-aged man in charge, and settled down at a reading table.
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In the rear of the flat he could hear Mr. Gwatley-Wells singing loudly about an old spinning wheel, accompanying a hand organ playing down in the road below. Now and then as the organist's arm wearied Mr. Gwatley-Wells would get ahead, and would hold the note powerfully until the music caught up with him.
[That's just what I would do!]
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"I trust Mr. Gwatley-Wells has not got himself into any unusual difficulty?"
Not knowing the nature of Mr. Gwatley-Wells's normal difficulties, Bull shook his head.
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[The protagonist and another character have been joking about whether she'll "compromise" him if they're seen alone together in a hotel restaurant.]
They went in the hotel and sat down in a corner in the dining room between two large gilt-framed pier glasses set at right angles.
Molly Cameron looked in them and smiled. "That makes so many of us that it must be all right," she said.
***
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