Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel. By P.G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook

Not George Washington - an autobiographical novel

P.G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook

Project Gutenberg E-book #7230 released 2005

First published in 1907

The story is pretty bad - about a writer who becomes successful after plenty of initial failures. The only potentially comic aspect is that he falls in love with Margaret when he's still struggling, out of love with her and in love with Eve when he is successful, and to get out of his engagement to Margaret, tries to hide his success, but then has to declare it, and then runs into some trouble before going back to Margaret. The handling though is pretty bad, and the story is not just not funny, but positively boring, with a hero you cannot sympathize with at any stage, nor actually hate - you only feel a mild and bored dislike. I suspect the story idea is that of PGW originally, but later expanded full length by Westbrook, apparently his co-author. The writing seems to be mostly PGW, but there are not enough 'nifties' to be entirely his. Only of historical relevance to the true PGW fan.

There was an article in last week's Hindu magazine about Raymond Chandler. Considering both he and PGW are from Dulwich college, is it just a coincidence that both have a wonderful set of similies, though used in different contexts? Considering this: Raymond Chandler 'She was the kind of girl who could make a Bishop kick a hole in a picture window'. PGW 'She had an eye that could split oaks at twenty paces'.