The Swoop! by PG Wodehouse (1909)

 An early jeu d'esprit. It's quite skeletal, but what there is is packed full of colour. A Boy Scout, a relatively new phenomenon when this was written, is the central character, who somehow also works at one of the London papers! I'm wondering if this journalistic element echoes Wodehouse's life at this time - know nothing of his biography. A lot of the jokes are based around the world of newspaper journalism and the music halls. The plot is a crazed one about an invasion of Britain, which reflects the sense that will already have been building about the European powers and their hunger for conflict. The author delights in the cracked notion of several different foreign armies deciding to invade Britain at the same time, their manner of doing so showing how their nationalities were perceived currently. Of course these invasions are more of a fictional device than a forceful reality, and life goes on much as usual, with armies camped in various parts of the country - very much a feeling of a boy's play-idea. He then seems to have lost steam with the original scheme and sends most of them off home for one reason or another. But Germany and Russia remain, and it is up to Boy Scout-hero Clarence Chugwater to devise a cunning plan based around their generals' rival turns at the most popular music halls! Competition over salary is Clarence's activating factor, and he succeeds in engendering such a conflict between these two boors on Hampstead Heath and its surrounds that the battle ends up decimating both armies almost to oblivion. And so pugnacious Clarence becomes "The Boy of Destiny". It's slim, occasionally mildly funny, shows what the author may become capable of in the way of conceptual hijinks. It's also occasionally xenophobic and racist, which is par for the time. 

Love Among the Chickens by PG Wodehouse (1906)

Though the heading says 1906, I actually read the current hardback edition, which utilizes the text of a substantial revision from 1920. This is my first Wodehouse, and there are mixed feelings. The general opinion which seems to surround him is of unparalleled hilarity. But, although this was great fun in a light way, and had occasional moments of intensification where an audible laugh issued from me, it had nothing of the nonpareil about it. It's the story of an Arthur Dentish young chap, a beginner-novelist, who takes an opportunity to accompany a slightly scoundrelly gent, with any amount of front and total self-belief, to start a chicken farm at 'Combe Regis' (in all respects Lyme Regis) on the Dorset coast. The gent is apparently a recurring Wodehouse character by the name of Ukridge. On this exposure, I'm not that keen to come across him again - pretty irritating, and supposed to be, but not that satisfyingly so. Of course, Ukridge runs up huge bills, has bizarre and ill-thought-out notions of how to run the farm, and how much money will come from it, blazons his way through all sorts of situations with minimum real awareness whilst claiming to be the all-pervading authority. Alongside this is a love story between our young novelist and a locally-staying professor's lovely young daughter. The professor is Irish in background and phenomenally touchy. So our novelist gets into scrapes trying to maintain and further his scheme of capture. This novel has a fun wry tone all through, and the two main characters have an interesting line in self-convinced dodginess. Just can't say that I'm overwhelmed with the brilliance. Happened to be rereading an Ada Leverson published 6 years later, at the same time, for business purposes, and found myself, by contrast, enchanted and laughing out loud. Certainly not a dyed-in-the-wool Wodehouseite yet.