“What a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don’t you know, if you see what I mean.”

Oh, what would I do without my dear P. G. Wodehouse?

I believe there’s a danger out there, lurking behind the corners of your days, ready to jump out and snarl in your face: “Why are you bothering creating [this]? Why aren’t you doing something important and meaningful with your time and your talent, instead of measly little [whatever it is you’re creating]?”

Feel free to fill those brackets with whatever your work is at the moment, whatever little or big way you’ve chosen to use your talents and passion in life. That voice asks me why I bother with children’s books about everyday life, when some meaty, metaphorical fantasy for adults would surely be more important to the world. It nags at my husband for painting portraits of his children, instead of exclusively sacred art. I’m sure my friends wonder whether they should really continue on with their dreams of opening a bakery or making soap or writing funny poems.

Lean in here for a moment. Listen closely.

Don’t pay attention to that voice!!!

Sorry. Didn’t mean to yell there. Please forgive me, because I feel very strongly about this.

There’s room in the world for big, world-changing art as well as little, easily-overlooked art. There’s need for them both. To me, P. G. Wodehouse and his dozens upon dozens of humorous stories are proof of that.

I don’t suppose “Plum,” as his friends called him, thought of his tales of brainy butlers and authoritative aunts and addlepated English aristocrats as anything very world-changing. I wonder whether he ever encountered that dark voice demanding he do something worthwhile with his life. If so, I’m so glad he ignored it.

P. G. Wodehouse has brought light into the darkest moments of my life.

My first Wodehouse was Enter Jeeves, a collection of fifteen stories that had me laughing aloud at all inappropriate moments of the day when I was supposed to be studying math or science or writing an essay on the flooding of the Nile and its impact on Egyptian agriculture. (Yes, a real essay I had to write in tenth grade.) Were my siblings and I the only homeschool kids who got told off for reading when they were supposed to be studying? I recall once shoving Sense and Sensibility into my desk drawer when my mom walked into our school room. But it was harder to hide the evidence with Wodehouse. I simply couldn’t explain what was so funny about solving for the square of the hypotenuse.

I encountered my first Wodehouse novel in college. I was studying for midterms, desperately missing my fiance over 500 miles away and my little toddler godson over 1000 miles away. My friend Bridget had a remarkable intuition as to how to help those of us lucky enough to live on her wing of the dorm. She knocked on my door and walked in with a pot of tea, some snickerdoodle cookies, and a copy of Heavy Weather (if I recall aright). “Stop studying for a bit and read this,” she said. “You can’t feel too bad when you’re reading a P. G. Wodehouse novel.”

She was bally right, don’t you know? as Plum would have put it. Since then, I’ve turned to Wodehouse stories when I’ve been worried about finances or trying to ignore chronic pain. Listening to the audio versions of his works have staved off middle-of-the-night panic attacks when I struggled with anxiety. When I miscarried a baby last spring, I read Wodehouse after Wodehouse, the only thing that allowed me to forget my grief for a moment, or at least put it into perspective. I often joke that P. G. Wodehouse has saved me thousands of dollars on therapy bills. It’s probably true.

But that was only possible because Wodehouse didn’t listen to the critics–either in his head or real life–that told him his writing had little worth. He laughed at them instead. And sometimes wrote them snarky notes in the forwards to his books, like this one:

“A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.’ He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”

P. G. Wodehouse, in the forward to Summer Lightning

Besides his remarkable ability to turn a phrase, besides his clever characters and madcap plots, the really remarkable thing about Wodehouse is his truly loving treatment of the human race as a whole. His humor never cuts. He notices our foibles and follies and points them out to us–then invites us in to laugh along with him at ourselves instead of mocking someone else. At this time, when even something as seemingly unpartisan as a pandemic is enough of a reason for politicians and public to polarize and accuse and hurt, that amiable humor and love for humanity is saving my sanity once again.

So keep creating, friends, Make the world a better place.

Don’t use the word “only” about your work. Maybe it’s not “only a little thing.” Maybe it’s the only thing that will put a smile on someone’s face and make their day better. And that’s something pretty great.

What’s making you smile these days? What creators are you most grateful for?

If life has you struggling to answer that question, do yourself a favor and find some Wodehouse. Here are links to buy some of my favorites of his work online.

Here’s a Blandings Castle collection or Right Ho, Jeeves, from Amazon.

Or buy any of his books from your local independent bookstore through this link: IndieBound.org

(I’m an Amazon and Indiebound Associate, so I will receive a small commission from each sale. Thank you!)