The Captive Reader

If there is one fictional character I wish could be brought to life, it would have to be the unflappable Psmith.  Psmith, Journalist by P.G. Wodehouse, published in 1915, though not my favourite of the Psmith books, does a wonderful job of highlighting all of the characteristics that make Psmith so irresistible as he calmly bounds through a rather eventful trip to New York, involving the reinvention of a saccharine newspaper, a crusade against slum landlords, and the less-than-friendly advances of dangerous gangsters.

Mike Jackson is touring America with his cricket club and, loathe to be left behind, Psmith has accompanied his friend across the Atlantic.  However, counter to all laws of nature, it is Mike who is the center of attention once they arrive in New York, leaping from match to match, from party to party, with Psmith in the unfamiliar role of hanger-on.  The high life he had envisioned has not materialised and Psmith is becoming less and less enthralled by the reality of this American tour:

I have been here a week, and I have not see a single citizen clubbed by a policeman.  No negroes dance cakewalks in the street.  No cowboy has let off his revolver at random in Broadway.  The cables flash the message across the ocean, ‘Psmith is losing his illusions.’

Luckily, at just that moment he becomes entangled in the life of one Billy Windsor.  Billy is the temporary editor of a particularly awful publication called Cosy Moments.  The editor and owner are both abroad, leaving Billy in charge of the loathed newspaper with its sentimental columns and complete lack of anything that could be called news.  But, a honest and forthright young man, he feels duty-bound to hold up the standards and traditions of the newspaper that was left in his charge.  Psmith feels no such compunctions.  He is enchanted by the newspaper world and charmed to meet Billy:

‘I had long been convinced that about the nearest approach to the perfect job in this world, where good jobs are hard to acquire, was to own a paper.  All you had to do, once you had secured your paper, was to sit back and watch the other fellows work, and from time to time forward big cheques to the bank.  Nothing could be more nicely attuned to the tastes of a Shropshire Psmith.’

Having in only a few moments discovered the extent of Billy’s power and his dissatisfaction with the paper’s current offering, Psmith exerts his considerable charm to convince Billy to change the paper to be as he would like it.  The twee articles are cut, new sensational writers are hired, and, with Psmith as an honorary co-editor, the paper takes off.

One of the first issues the paper takes on in its new guise is the atrocious slum housing that abounds in certain parts of the city.  It is not long before their investigative journalism and outraged editorials catch the eyes of those in power.  As they pursue their chosen cause, Psmith and Billy find themselves in direct and often violent conflict with gangsters.  If Psmith had longed for local colour, he certainly found it.  But Psmith does not flinch in the face of such opposition.  He is as witty and languorous as ever, but there is steel in him:

Psmith was one of those people who are content to accept most of the happenings of life in an airy spirit of tolerance.  Life had been more or less of a game with him up till now.  In his previous encounters with those with whom fate has brought him in contact there had been little at stake.  The prize of victory had been merely a comfortable feeling of having had the best of a battle of wits; the penalty of defeat nothing worse than the discomfort of having failed to score.  But this tenement business was different.  Here he had touched the realities.  There was something worth fighting for.

For me, this is the weakest of the Psmith books.  The story does suffer from the absence of Mike, who disappears early on with the rest of the cricket team while Psmith decides to remain in New York with Billy and the paper.  Psmith needs a good straight man to play off of and Billy Windsor is a poor substitute for the easily embarrassed Comrade Jackson.  Wodehouse’s particular brand of Psmith-honour is best appreciated in long speeches and this tale is so action focused that there is little opportunity for the lengthy ramblings that Psmith excels at.  Wodehouse’s New York is an absurd place and can at times grate.  It is peopled entirely with men, all of whom have an uncertain understanding of English and are blessed with incomprehensible accents, all gleefully and painstakingly recorded by Wodehouse.  I understand the allure of local colour but it got a bit excessive.  Still, it is a fun, fast-paced story and I can never come away from an encounter with Psmith without being reminded of my deep affection for him.