One of the major events our marketing honchos keenly look forward to happens to be the Valentine’s Day. Promotional goods flood the market. Aggressive campaigns get launched, with a sharp eye on the purse of the customer. Producers of chocolate, balloons and heart-shaped objects rule the roost. A sense of eager anticipation prevails. Love is in the air. Couples can be seen holding hands and whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears, cooing to each other like turtle doves.
Quite a few friends of mine believe me to be a romantic. However, I confess I have never quite understood the sentiment alluded to as love. Perhaps, I am too much of a perfectionist. Or, I may be a creature of rigid habits, inwardly shuddering at the prospect of being ‘reformed’ in any way by a member of the species of the delicately nurtured.
Often, I wonder if the concept of love is merely a mirage which people keep chasing relentlessly, possibly encountering a few oases of a deeper level of infatuation along the way.
Love – A Gigantic Swindle?
What exactly does it entail to be in love with someone? If at all someone gets to experience this sentiment which is responsible for a major chunk of our literature, fine arts, and movies, why would one be referred to as having fallen in love? Is this sentiment akin to the ‘bottomless perdition’ referred to by John Milton in Paradise Lost?
Instead, why can’t people follow the example of such kids as Thomas Gregson, Bonzo Travers and Sebastian Moon? Some of you may recall how they rose in love by trying to be worthy of the affections of their favourite silver screen divas like Greta Garbo, Lilian Gish, and Clara Bow.
Consider the views of the highly opiniated and strong-willed Ann Chester of Piccadily Jim fame who calls love a swindle of gigantic proportions. She hates all this noise about love, as if it were something wonderful that was worth everything else in life put together.
“Because I’ve had the courage to think about it for myself, and not let myself be blinded by popular superstition. The whole world has united in making itself imagine that there is something called love which is the most wonderful happening in life. The poets and novelists have simply hounded them on to believe it. It’s a gigantic swindle.”
She continues further.
“I believe in marriage. . .but not as the result of a sort of delirium. I believe in it as a sensible partnership between two friends who know each other well and trust each other. The right way of looking at marriage is to realise, first of all, that there are no thrills, no romances, and then to pick out someone who is nice and kind and amusing and full of life and willing to do things to make you happy.”
Of Love, Saint Valentine, and Martyrdom
I am reasonably certain that the soul of the 3rd century Italian Saint Valentine would be rather pleased at the positive press he keeps getting year after year, though his name represents not only courtly love but also being worthy, strong, and powerful. Those who have already experienced this emotion can alone confirm if these personality traits happen to be essential for one to aspire to be a star performer in the realm of love.
However, there is no evidence that poor Saint Valentine was a patron of lovers. Just before his beheading, apparently, he wrote a note to a girl, whose eyesight he had restored, signed ‘from your Valentine’. This might have inspired today’s lovers to associate him with romantic overtures. Moreover, during the Middle Ages, it was believed that birds paired in mid-February. This could have been another factor which could have led to Valentine’s Day getting widely recognized as a day for romance and devotion.
The fact that he was martyred on February 14, 269 at the behest of Claudius II, the then Roman Emperor, might have even led people to say that they fall in love. Those who are experts on the topic of love alone may be able to say if it feels like being martyred at the altar of love when one falls in it. After all, it would need nerves of chilled steel to willingly surrender one’s freedom, carefreeness, and sovereignty to another human being, thereby, in a way, getting martyred upon falling in love. Sure enough, they follow Indian scriptures which strongly advocate the spiritual concept of surrender, albeit to a higher power.
Shades of Love
Having exercised my limited grey cells a wee bit and having perused some of the narratives of P G Wodehouse, I have veered around to the view that he captures at least three shades in the rainbow of this much-revered sentiment.
Light Pink: The Butterfly/Chamois State
Those who behave like either butterflies or the chamois of the Alps constitute this category. Consider these cases from the oeuvre of Plum and you would know what I mean.
“Are you insinuating that I am the sort of man who turns lightly from one woman to another—a mere butterfly who flits from flower to flower, sipping . . .?”
(Frederick Mulliner to Jane Oliphant in Portrait of a Disciplinarian)
“But the real reason was that he thought Boko was a butterfly.”
I couldn’t follow her. She had me fogged. Anything less like a butterfly than good old Boko I’ve never set eyes on.
“A butterfly?”
“Yes. Flitting from flower to flower and sipping.”
(Nobby Hopwood, to Bertie Wooster, Joy in the Morning)
“I haven’t seen Pongo since we were kids.”
“Even then he was flitting from flower to flower like a willowy butterfly.”
(Bill Oakshott and Lord Ickenham, Uncle Dynamite)
“I think young Mike Cardinal is a butterfly, Shorty; the kind that flits from flower to flower and sips.”
(Terry Cobbold to Lord Shortlands, Spring Fever)
“And this will show you the sort of flitting and sipping butterfly the hound is.”
(Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, to Bertie, about Esmond Haddock, The Mating Season)
Like so many young doctors with agreeable manners and frank blue eyes, Ambrose Gussett continued to be an iodoform-scented butterfly flitting from flower to flower but never resting on any individual bloom long enough to run the risk of having to sign on the dotted line.
(Up from the Depths)
“He is a flitting butterfly and a two-timing Casanova.”
(Valerie Twistleton, speaking of Horace Davenport, The Shadow Passes)
For some time past, it appeared, he had been flitting round this girl like a pimpled butterfly, and it had suddenly come to him with a sickening shock that his emotional nature had brought him to the very verge of matrimony.
(Oofy Prosser’s self-realization, The Word in Season)
“And you stand revealed as a cross between a flitting butterfly and a Mormon elder,” said Sally with spirit. “You and Brigham Young, a pair.”
(Sally Painter to Freddie Widgeon, Ice in the Bedroom)
“The trouble with you, Bertie, is that you haven’t got it in you to understand true love. You’re a mere butterfly flitting from flower to flower and sipping, like Freddie Widgeon and the rest of the halfwits of whom the Drones Club is far too full.”
(Gussie Fink-Nottle accusing Bertie Wooster in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves)
“Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.”
(Summer Moonshine)
It was unfortunate that none of these arguments presented themselves to Bill Oakshott as he turned the corner. In Otis Painter he saw just another libertine, flitting from flower to flower and sipping, and we are already familiar with his prejudice against libertines.
(Uncle Dynamite)
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, he seemed to hint, unless I misunderstood him, that the above Haddock hadn’t, as it were, done right by our Nell. According to Catsmeat, you and this modern Casanova were at one time holding hands, but after flitting and sipping for a while he cast you aside like a worn-out glove and attached himself to Gertrude Winkworth. Quite incorrect, probably. I expect he got the whole story muddled up.’
(Corky and Bertie Wooster, The Mating Season)
Dark Pink: The Nightingale State
What happens when the sentiment of love has survived the ravages of time? Or, when two persons suddenly rediscover each other and sparks of love fly. Having had a rich experience in their lives, they use their astonishingly rich repertoire to ‘sing’ to each other like nightingales, sharing their social, familial, health, and many other issues with much felicity.
In most of his works, P G Wodehouse regales us with the topsy-turvy romances of couples who are invariably in the impressionable phases of their lives. But in a few of his narratives, such as Indian Summer of an Uncle, Extricating Young Gussie, and Ring for Jeeves, even a seasoned romance gets celebrated. Gone are the impulsive breakoffs linked to sharks, moustaches, and an abysmal record at the golf links. Nor are we treated here to an impetuous affair kick-started by the heroine’s cat being saved by a chivalrous and dashing hero. Instead, we are allowed to bask in the soft glow and warmth of a long drawn out romance the embers of which get rekindled after several years.
Such couples often find a common cause in family affairs, shared ailments, and, of course, areas of common interest. Piggy and Maudie, Joe and Julia, and Mrs Spottsowrth and Captain Biggar fit into this category. So do Sir Roderick Glossop and Lady Chuffnell and James Duff and Beatrice Chavender.
Bright Red: The Turtle Dove State
Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.
(The Small Bachelor)
However, the good news is that as long as the embers of romance are aglow, a bright red shade of love prevails.
Consider the state of matrimonial bliss Bingo Little attains after he has realized that Rosie M Banks is indeed The One as far as he is concerned. Much like a sub-atomic particle which altogether skips an orbit and jumps from one to another, he transcends from being a butterfly to a turtle dove state.
We know Bingo Little to be a diehard romantic, perennially in love with some dashing female or the other. Even when at school, he is reported to have had the finest collection of actresses’ photographs; at Oxford, his romantic nature was a byword. He is inclined to fall in love at first sight on a regular basis and become highly emotional about his affections.
Residents of Plumsville are aware that objects of his affection have included a waitress named Mabel; Honoria Glossop, the formidable daughter of Pop Glossop; Daphne Braythwayt, a friend of Honoria; Charlotte Corday Rowbotham, a revolutionary; Lady Cynthia Wickhammersley, a family friend of Bertie’s; and Mary Burgess, niece of the Rev. Francis Heppenstall. After each failed affair, Bingo does not necessarily sulk. The scales fall from his eyes, and he suddenly realizes that the next girl alone is his true soul mate.
After many failed affairs, Bingo ends up marrying the romance novelist Rosie M. Banks, an author whose outlook on life happens to match well with that of his.
Within ten days of having met his future wife, Bingo announces to Bertie Wooster that he has been successful in his latest endeavour.
‘Good Lord! That is quick work. You haven’t known her for two weeks.’
‘Not in this life, no,’ said young Bingo. ‘But she has a sort of idea that we must have met in some previous existence. She thinks I must have been a king in Babylon when she was a Christian slave. I can’t say I remember it myself, but there may be something in it.’
(The Inimitable Jeeves)
In the post-matrimony phase, we find a Bingo Little who is completely transformed. He is singularly devoted to his wife. Maintaining matrimonial peace and harmony is the sole purpose of his life. When it comes to keeping his lady-love happy and contented, there is little that he leaves to chance.
‘Oh, sweetie-lambkin, isn’t that lovely?’
‘What?’
‘Laura Pyke wants to come here.’
‘Who?’
‘You must have heard me speak of Laura Pyke. She was my dearest friend at school. I simply worshipped her. She always had such a wonderful mind. She wants us to put her up for a week or two.’
‘Right-ho. Bung her in.’
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’
‘Of course not. Any pal of yours…’
‘Darling!’ said Mrs Bingo, blowing him a kiss.
‘Angel!’ said Bingo, going on with the sausages.
(Jeeves and the Old School Chum)
Wherever Plum is, love cannot be far behind. He covers its varied hues with much aplomb. If he, the Master Wordsmith of our times, has covered this sentiment so very extensively, I guess it must have some merit to it.
In any case, to all those who claim to be besotted, captivated, charmed, enamoured, enchanted, enraptured, obsessed, smitten, and taken in by a party of the other part, I hereby extend my best wishes. May their tribe flourish, keeping our marketing honchos, authors as well as publishers of mushy romantic books, movie moguls, and many others laughing all the way to their respective banks.
The Pale Parabola of Love
Staunch believers in the concept of love, as well as purists, may register a protest at missing out on a few other shades of this sentiment in Plum’s universe which thrives on humour, wit, and positivity. A unique feature of this universe is that nothing negative happens here. The worst suffering may involve looking for strawberries around Christmas time and getting fined as well as jugged for trying to steal some. Or, being confronted by someone like Roderick Spode who goes about issuing sinister threats to lover boys who make the party of the other part cry. The ultimate sacrifice may be going on a strict vegetarian diet and forsaking the pleasure of putting steak and kidney pie down the hatch till the time the relations are restored, and love is back on its shimmering throne.
Even death does not depress. Nor does it make the spirits sag. Instead, it finds mention in a positive vein. It confers wealth, castles and titles upon the best loved heirs and wards, thereby spreading joy and sunshine all around.
A Pristine Shade of Love
Plum presents a pristine version of love. He takes the reader on a leisurely stroll in his Garden of Eden where apples are of the high hanging kind and such creatures as snakes are singularly missing. A strict code of chivalry is in vogue. Romance blossoms. Devotion is permitted. But physical intimacy is a taboo. Aphrodite has limited access to the goings on. Eroticism is denied entry. Saint Valentine would have heartily approved.
It is rather fitting that Plum decided to hand in his dinner pail on Valentine’s Day, a day associated with love, romance, and devotion. He bequeathed his works to all his fans, spreading eternal joy and sweetness on this planet.
(Notes: Butterfly/Chamois quotes are courtesy Ana Jung. Inputs from Suryamouli Datta are gratefully acknowledged.)
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