Homer vs P. G. Wodehouse

I must be a glutton for punishment. I have suffered a series of emphatic defeats in a variety of literary debates (I lost when I was representing the Parthenon against the Alhambra, when I was standing up for the Romans versus the Greeks and when I was saying no thank-you to an imaginary invitation to dinner with Socrates). So why accept the invitation to represent a famous author of my choice in a balloon debate  at the Ways with Words festival at Dartington?

Answer? Partly because Sam Leith, of the Telegraph which sponsors the festival, was wickedly persuasive. Partly because I’d never been to Dartington, which everyone says is tremendously beautiful (and well worth the five hour train journey each way – which indeed it was). Partly because hope springs eternal – and I assume that one day I’ll get lucky.

You know the score of a balloon debate. You have to imagine a group of people – in this case writers – in a sinking hot air balloon. Each contestant argues for why his or her chosen author should be survive the disaster, when the others don’t. The audience weighs the arguments up and votes who to chuck out and who to keep in.

Fellow contestants were Andrew Davies (famous TV and movie adaptor of famous novels) who chose Jane Austen; the novelist Philip Hensher representing P. G. Wodehouse; and Carmen Callil, founder of Virago, with Voltaire. I opted for Homer (the Odyssey Homer, rather than the Iliad Homer). The whole thing was chaired by Alexander Waugh.

Things were  looking good for Homer after the first presentations, at which we were allowed eight minutes to make the case for the survival of our chosen author.

Andrew Davies enthused well enough about Austen, but I suspect had banked on a bigger ‘natural’ following than she in fact had. Philip was very funny indeed  about Wodehouse, throwing around some Wodehouse metaphors, which seemed brilliantly funny at the time,  but which I confess I cant now remember. Carmen, I think, was pretty feisty about Voltaire, but I remember even less of that as I was putting the finishing touches to my spiel while she talked.

I played the Odyssey as the single work of literature that underlies almost every other work of literature you know. It’s not just ‘boy gets girl’, but – much better – ‘boy comes back home to girl’. And, as I argued, it frames every homecoming we ever make ever. I was also armed with a few facts culled from Edith Hall’s excellent book on the reception of the Odyssey that I have just read. The Penguin translation by E. V. Rieu, for example, was the best selling paperback ever until it was overtaken by Lady Chatterley’s Lover. (I  suspect that Homer might now be in the lead again with yearly sales)

I also took a quick look at the audience (largely female) and decided to take the Samuel Butler line and suggest the Odyssey was composed by a woman . . . making it the greatest piece of female fiction ever.

The question and answer session came and went. Andrew had been asked why, if Austen was so good, he had to add so many scenes to his adaptations. Carmen had thrown some well deserved mud at Wodehouse’s politically suspicious affection for Hitler (plus some dartk hints about goings on in the Hotel Bristol in the 1940s). I was challenged about Odysseus’ violence on his return home (a problematization of violence I said, not a celebration…and lived to fight another day).

At this point the first vote threw Austen and Wodehouse (some of the Hitler mud stuck) out of the balloon and Carmen and I got a couple of final minutes  for our authors. By this time I’d shot most of my bolts, so reiterated the ‘vote for Homer the feminist’ line (slightly undermined by Alexander from the chair who warned the audience against voting under false pretences). Carmen went a brilliant last, oozing sincerity, speaking about Voltaire’s fearless honesty and modernity, and quoting a nice political passage that could have been written yesterday. Cheers all round – and mutterings of ‘Listen to that Mr Brown’

She was the deserving victor. Though I thought, as we drunk the liquid reward afterwards, how interesting it was that the least read author had scored the most votes – while the most read (Jane Austen, I think) had scored the least.

Is there a moral here? The less we know about a candidate, the easier it is to vote for them.

Comments

[Paul Potts]

Look, you guys, the translation if the Odyssey in the Loeb edition by A T Murray is the best available. It's not just a crib - it's as readable Englsh as you could hope for.

Since the question of homosexual activity arises here, may I call your attention to a passage where Odysseus is trapped on some island, and the local king gives him a boy, not a girl for company.

The real trouble with Oscar Wilde was not that he was Gay, but that he was a paederast. The whole of the law dispute (which he initiated) that led to his destruction leaves me without sympathy for him, and with some reluctance to appreciate his writing.

Paulo

[Mary]

Thanks very much to Philip for giving us the full text of his quote... no wonder I couldn't exactly remember it!

If you want another account of this post (and some of your comments on it), try out Sam Leith:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sam_leith/blog/2008/07/23/way_up_high_in_our_beautiful_balloon

[Tony Francis]

Dear Anthony Alcock: The earliest condemnation of homosexuality and pederasty probably comes from Plato, in "Laws". Some say it began with Socrates, but this may not be accurate. Specifically he outlined "chaste pederasty":
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_pederasty
This idea probably came from Persian Stoacism and Zoroastrianism which had influenced Plato, and certainly later the Neo-Platonists. It was one of these schools which gave a philosophic basis to Christianity. It also had a significant effect on Pharisaic Judaism. St. Paul was a Neo-Platonist. The concept was that the perfect soul is trapped in an imperfect body. Carnality of all kinds represented a lower form of existence. Homosexuality and pederasty violated natural moral law. These are probably Persian ideas. For commentary on St. Augustine's view:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/HUMANITY/homo5.htm
Look at this site from Stanford under "natural law". Their explanation is accurate to a point, while being somewhat apologetic to the homosexual view. My argument is that once society ignores the dictates of natural moral law, there is no logical reason to ban any form of sexual arrangement. In other words, to select homosexual couples as being worthy of state recognition is as bigoted a position as not recognizing them, because it ignores all the other possible arrangements.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/#Natural

[anthony alcock]

So to answer the question, "Yes, it is Neo-Platonic to not want to be buggered by perverts." This is in the sense that Christianity was influenced by Neo-Platonism. It was these influences which came to define those who engaged in these activities as "perverts".
What the crap is that supposed to mean ?

[Alan Myers]

Wodehouse as some sort of Nazi sympathiser! For heaven's sake read his masterpiece The Code of the Woosters (1938). Here he is on the would-be Dictator Roderick Spode and his 'blackshorts':

'The trouble with you Spode is that just because you have persuaded a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you are someone. You hear them shouting 'Heil Spode!' and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is; 'Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher!'

[SWM]

Lidwina: the most readable translation of the Iliad that I have read is Martin Hammond's for Penguin Classics. It is written in prose and I found it 'riveting'; but then I do study Classics... Having said that, the Penguin Deluxe Classics edition(trans. Robert Fagles)-with the rough pages-is extremely tasty.

I hope the debate mentioned in the article is recorded. I have listened to the Romans v Greeks debate and the Socrates debate, both of which were fantastic. Mary's battle with the incredibly energetic Edith Hall (Romans v Greeks) was memorable.

Here is the link to the Romans v Greeks debate:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article2688315.ece

SM

[Tony Francis]

The use of "Problematizaiton" in Homer is projection. It projects a modern method or way of thinking on an ancient. How can Homer use a method which wasn't invented yet? It would be like saying Newton used linear operators in Hilbert Space. Well, no he didn't, because that didn't exist when he was alive. There is a prejudice in the US concerning clergy abuse. The message is: but for the Catholic Church, we wouldn't have pedophiles. In point of fact, but for the Catholic Church, we wouldn't even consider it wrong or abnormal. It is part of a secularist agenda which wants to pursue the broad social goals of Christianity while denying the validity of Christianity. This is an impossiblity. Concerning Foucault and pederasty:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_morality_and_the_law
http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/05mtg/abstracts/LEAR.html

[SW Foska]

Some kind of syllogistic fallacy at work in Tony's reasoning, although I would be hard pressed to put my finger on the exact type. If neo-Platonists reject buggery as a paideutic auxilliary, it does not follow that all who do so are neo-Platonists.

[Richard]

Lidwina - enjoy book 24 and the end of the Iliad when you arrive!

I think it might encourage you to look back on the poem as a whole in a slightly different light (not that I think you are wrong to say that the Iliad likes blood and guts; but I think the "problemati[s/z]ation" thing is there as well...).

I don't know whether you have yet reached the bit where Briseis and the others mourn over the corpse of Patroclus. That's a very good bit, IMO: just for a brief moment, we get a Briseis'-eye-view of the whole situation.

A different matter: I'm afraid I don't know Foucault very well (are literary scholars allowed to admit this?): but I don't think that the quotation on the very tendentious website to which Tony F. refers us allows the conclusion that he advocated the male rape of captured soldiers: he is explaining how this was problematic or not in an ancient Greek context (i.e., making a point about how different kinds of sexual behaviours fitted into social contexts). He doesn't seem to me to be condoning or condemning, but describing...

All best,
Richard

[PL]

Lidwina: Chapman's Iliad I agree is hopeless (though his Odyssey has a certain grotesque charm). Real Hellenists will object, but for the Iliad I'd recommend Pope. It may not be academically accurate Homer, but for anyone with an ear for English verse it's glorious stuff, hard to put down, I promise.

Nor is Pope's freedom all that un-Homeric. He understood the original well enough, and if he took liberties they were liberties taken by a fellow inhabitant of the pre-industrial world. There is a natural sympathy here that is generally overlooked. Anyone living before the industrial revolution could feel in his bones things we moderns have to reconstruct in imagination.

But maybe the best thing is to triangulate between Fagles, for Homer's raw immediacy, and Pope, for his nobility and stately music -- the recommendation of Joseph Tartakovski in his review of Alberto Manguel's postumous "The Iliad and the Odyssey: A Biography". See
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1559/article_detail.asp

[Michael Bulley]

To Lidwina: for the Iliad, try Christopher Logue. I think he's the best. The way he does the repetition (Bk 16) where Zeus tells Apollo what to do with Sarpedon's body and then Apollo carries out the instructions, is wonderful.

[Lidwina]

Problematize?
(The Iliad) Homer celebrates slaughter, Homer revels in the spilling of blood and guts and brains.

There is no, umm, exchange of bodily fluids between consenting same-sex partners in the Iliad as such, though I have my suspicions what Achilles and his pal were up to all that time in the tent. There is a great deal of rape and murder and pillage; in fact there is nothing else. That must be why they call it an epic.

When I have finished it - the end is nigh - I will reward myself with the Odyssey. I remember the school edition, it was fun. When they were turned into animals the witch's maids played with them, that could only have been written by a woman.

[Mary]

I know that this is a girly thing to say, but I find the Odyssey more of a page turner than the Iliad. On translations..There is an old Penguin by Rieu and a new one by Fagles, which people like. ('The Iliad by Homer and Robert Fagles' as Amazon puts it!)

[Lidwina]

I am trying to get to the end of the Iliad, but I keep finding more riveting books to read.

Maybe choosing Chapman's translation was a mistake. The prose is rather fine, but after each chapter I lose patience and put it down again. Is the original this bombastic?

Perhaps I should get a racier, modern prose version. But is it then original enough? Does Chapman give me a better rendering of the real Homer? What do you recommend?

[Tony Francis]

I have re-read the pertinent sections of Socrates and Aristotle and find nothing to indicate that pedophilia, per se, is objectionable. Examination of the facts (including research from the Getty Museum) indicates homosexual pedophilia in ancient Greece was an accepted practice. The three openly homosexual Emperors, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus were fond of both pederasty and stimulated by graphic sado-masochism. The aforementioned Michel Foucault was an advocate of pederasty and male rape of captured soldiers.
http://www.section21.m6.net/res-history.php
So to answer the question, "Yes, it is Neo-Platonic to not want to be buggered by perverts." This is in the sense that Christianity was influenced by Neo-Platonism. It was these influences which came to define those who engaged in these activities as "perverts".
Zizek is a different story. He calls himself a Marxist. Yet he has a strange fascination with Christianity, claiming it should work hand in hand with the Communist ideals of economic equality. It is difficult to discern whether he believes in the actual message of Christianity, or simply wants to use it as a social force. If the latter is true, then he is an advocate of "Christian atheism". An excellent review of his work is found:
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/endconstruction/heretical Zizek disparages the modern Left and calls "tolerance", "multiculturalism" and "political correctness" the new slavery. He is puritanical in his view toward sexuality, claiming that guilty pleasure forbidden by Christianity is far superior to guiltless anxiety produced by modern sexual liberation.

[James from Atlanta]

The lesser known US presidential canidate is also the favored. The less that is known, or that there is to be known, the greater the possibility for the skillful polictician or debater to craft the perception that will capture the most votes.

[Xjy]

Of course, it could all be a genre thing. Jane A doing the subtle soap, Wotsizname that French guy doing the armchair supercilious know-all radical thing, PGW doing farce, and Homer purveying the sex and violence.

The audience must have been very weird to choose as it did. Mary was quite right to settle on PG as her main rival but she thought she was in a normal world.

That Homer came second probably only means the full-of-shit wankers were tipping their mortarboards to a reputation, nothing more.

Homer and Mary came away with the moral victory anyhow cos nobody in their right mind would ever choose Voldemort over the others, despite "ecrasez l'infame!"

But why is our drawing-room crowd so eager to sweep the real problematizations under the deep pile of Platonism and buggery. All that's missing is the rum ;-)

[PL]

Apart from problematicization -- or whatever the current jargon -- there is a little remarked on ugly aspect to the habit prevailing almost everywhere nowadays of calling everything that's bad "a problem". What plain speech once called afflictions, causes of sorrow or grief, hardships, etc, are now called "problems", affording as fine an example as you could want of the cruelty of euphemism. "Problem" was once an esoteric word associated mainly with Euclid and indicating something to be solved (literally, something "thrown at" you, like an exam question). The habit of calling afflictions "problems" no doubt started as a way to encourage the sufferer. "You're not an alcoholic. You have a drinking problem. You can do something about it."
As with the Pelagian heresy, this is essentially cruel. It is all very well when a solution is possible. Gritting your teeth and getting on with it is an excellent approach as long as you have teeth and the power to grit them. But some afflictions are not problems. Talk to a person suffering from bereavement or terminal cancer about his "problem" (and one hears such talk nowadays) and, implicitly at least, you disarm him of the patience he needs to endure his affliction. Some afflictions call for passive, not active, strength.

Of course euphemism is always an unstable mode of communication. The nasty thing is always infecting the nice word it's been wrapped in. I hear that some today even shudder at "problem" and insist instead on "challenge". "Can you help me out?" "Sure," they say, "no challenge!"

If Wodehouse was a Nazi, Homer was an anarchist, Voltaire a pietist, and Jane Austen a pornographer. (And we know from the latest New Yorker cover all about Obama!)

[Richard]

The key word in Philip Hensher's splendid quotation is of course "often"...

I don't see why saying that Homer problemati[s/z]ed violence is in the least "akin to saying Aquinas was a Republican or Aristotle was a Christian": why should it be?

All best,
Richard

[anthony alcock]

Just looked at the link to Edith Hall's book about the reception of the Odyssey, where there's some talk about its place in "world literature". Which particular world does she have in mind ? North Africa, the Near East, Middle East, South Asia, S.E. Asia, the Far East, anywhere on the periphery ?
Is it Neo-Platonic not to want to be buggered by perverts? I developed a fairly rich Neo-Platonic vocabulary when I was at school to deal with the bastards who showed signs of wanting to do that with me.

[FG]

Right on.
I, mean, like I said, it's all about dialectics, like. Innit?

[Tony Francis]

Dearest Foska: You are a follower of Neo-Platonism, finding all things physical objectionable!

[Tony Francis]

Concerning: Problematization. Shouldn't this be British-ized (or British-ised) and spellt Problematisation? According to the 'net it is "Problemization", not "Problematization". Isn't saying Homer problematised violence akin to saying Aquinas was a Republican or Aristotle was a Christian? Anyway, it appears Michel Foucault went the entire spectrum from Ultra-rightist to Maoist Communist. This is not only un-seemly. It is problematic. He does appear to be one who would have celebrated buggery. Bibliography:
http://www.untimelypast.org/bibfou.html

[SW Foska]

Forget problematization, Michael: that sounds like a pretty good definition of buggery.
Tony, it's not the buggery, it's the paedophilic aspect that shocks; Zizek called it the last taboo.

[Michael Bulley]

Perhaps I can be of help on problematization. According to Foucault, it is "the aggregate of discursive or non-discursive practices that integrates a thing into the game of true or false and thus establishes it as an object of thought." I hope it hardly needs saying, then, that problematization should not be thought of as the "re-presentation" of a pre-existing object nor the creation, through means of discourse, of an object that does not exist.

[Tony Francis]

Dearest Foska: I was under the impression that buggery is an act we should celebrate as something wondrous. Hooray for the Jesuits! They were secularists before their time. Or are you simply a homophobe?

[Katharine Edgar]

Surely the real moral here is that it's hard to win a debate with words like 'problematize'?

[SW Foska]

But then neither Homer nor Wodehouse ever supped at Pope's house, and on the poet's mother politely enquiring after his health, replied 'those damned Jesuits, when I was a boy, buggered me to such a degree that I shall never get over it as long as I live.'

[Philip Hensher]

The line of Wodehouse's that I quoted - I can't believe it didn't win the day for Plum - was "It was often said of Archibald that, had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers."

[Mary]

Whoops... I hadnt quite realised the strength of feeling behind P.G.W.
Just to get things straight... I put the old TLS piece in the link because it WAS offering another view. For myself I have conflicting views. On the one hand, it is too easy to fling such accusations. On the other, it is too easy to exonerate.... I mean it's not just the radio broadcasts with 'Plum'.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that that was an influential factor on Saturday -- and, yes, I was happy to take advantage as I had identified Wodehouse as Homer's most powerful rival.

On the Rieu translation, an edition revised by his son is available in Penguin Classics.

[Tony Francis]

Mark Twain on Jane Austen: "...it is a pity they let that woman die a natural death." Others:
http://www.twainquotes.com/Austen_Jane.html

[anthony alcock]

I agree with Richard.
If you'd actually read the contents of your link, you would have been able to discredit Ms Calill as a totally untrustworthy person. She's probably just uncritically trotting out the drivel about Wodehouse that gained currency during the 2nd World War.
One thing the two writers have in common, apart from their exquisite humour, is the disgraceful treatment accorded to them by their fellow citizens: Wodehouse for "sucking up" to the Germans and Voltaire for praising the constitutional monarchy of Britain (Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais). Unlike Voltaire, however, there was no burning of Wodehouse's books.

[suresh]

If you believe that such mud-slinging was "well-deserved," you might let the rest of us know why?
my thoughts exactly Richard!

Of course Plum would have been resourceful enough to hang on to the baloon even after being thrown out or smart enough to masquerade as the eventual winner which in this case would be Voltairee!

[Kirsty Mills]

And I've been thinking recently it's time I reread the Odyssey. Is the Rieu still the translation to go for?

Personally, I'd have tossed Voltaire overboard instantly (have you READ Candide?); then Wodehouse, but only with great regret.

Austen vs Homer is a dilemma; I've reread Austen every couple of years or so since I was a student (of engineering) about 35 years ago, and would be bereft without her. Homer, though, is definitely part of the underpinnings. For some reason I always think I'm not going to enjoy reading him....and then I do, enormously. Odd.

Kirsty

[Michael Bulley]

Oh, come on, Voltaire also invented the volt, which gave us the "siècle des Lumières" (century of the lightbulbs), and his famous dictum "I do not agree with what you say and if you say it again I'll punch you on the nose" has guided civilized debate for the last 200 years.

[Richard]

I have never seen anything which in the least suggested that P.G. Wodehouse sheltered an "affection for Hitler". If you believe that such mud-slinging was "well-deserved," you might let the rest of us know why. Your link provides a much more intelligent assessment of the question. The question arises (as with the "Homer was a woman" line, according to you chosen as a result of a consideration of the modern audience rather than of the conditions of literary production in antiquity): were you interested in trying to speak accurately, or merely in it to win it, or to produce a bravura display?

I leave to one side the question why you select out the Odyssey rather than the greater poem!

On a different matter, blogging on the Lefkowitz/ Wellesley/ Black Athena controversy (see review by MM McCabe in the new TLS) might stir things up a bit, if that is your intention...

All best,
Richard

[Xjy]

And, genuine or not, the universality of the anticlimax where he atones to Poseidon by carrying the steering oar to a place that knew no ships. Bringing the whole world within the heroic human horizon. Wer immer strebend sich bemüht...

Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten
Geh nur im Endlichen nach allen Seiten!

Bugger the Holy Family, it's all about human ingenuity, guts, stamina, and overcoming overwhelming odds and hostility. It's society that's saved, not some nuclear catastrophe in spe.

Maybe you should just have dotted Carmen one on the nose for making such a fuss about a male chauvinist aristocratic monarchist Pope-cum-Shaw poseur with a flair for epigrams and self-promotion.

Grrrrrrrr!

[Xjy]

Mary, you're just bursting for a good public brawl every now and then ;-)

Though how you could let a one-eyed admirer of a snobbish "Great Man" enthusiast like Voltaire snatch the laurels from you is beyond my comprehension. He wanted to be secretary to warrior-butcher Charles XII of Sweden, for Chrissake! Lots of mud to chuck at him - just compare him and his affected arrogance to Rousseau's humility (even though R was addicted to camping in the back garden of palaces ;-). V's readable stuff is Candide!! Worth maybe one book of the Odyssey if that!!

And Homer has survived around 3 millennia - in 2 whopping great epics. His humanism is way ahead of V's for breadth and depth. Humanity sub specie aeternitatis. And Penelope - my God... And Calypso and Kirke! 15 years of staring at the sea longing for Penny back home while living on an island paradise with a goddess! A powerful witch who turned men into swine (an unnecessary art perhaps!) and knew how to access Hades and those twittering shades, and the trough of blood with the heroes of the War and old Tireisias (sp?)

All leading up to the most fantastic of vengeance bloodbaths. Human blood exacted from unfeeling bloodsuckers.

Fie, Madam!!

You deserved to be thrown to the sharks :-))

How could you!!!

Did I mention Nausicaa??