MobileRead July 2016 Discussion: Something New (spoilers)

[WT Sharpe]

The time has come to discuss the July 2016 MobileRead Book Club selection, Something New* by P.G. Wodehouse. What did you think?



* AKA Something Fresh.

[Dazrin]

I'm not finished yet, so first impressions only.

I am very glad I stuck this out past chapter 3, and probably wouldn't have if it wasn't for the book club, I was having a very hard time getting into this book but it has become much better after the "intros" were done.

I am finally at Blandings Castle and things are much more interesting now.

It looks like Wodehouse and the publisher changed several characters to American for the US version ("Something Fresh"). I assume that made sense at the time but I think I would have preferred the original, unfortunately my library doesn't have it. I know Harry Potter was changed a little when it was brought here too, but I really hope that practice goes away.

[issybird]

Something New, the American version, came first. Wodehouse was living in America and The Saturday Evening Post paid him $3,500 for it. It was published the following year in Britain as Something Fresh.

[WT Sharpe]

Even the lips of this MobileRead editor uncurled into a not unkindly smile upon reading this tale of British aristocratic families and their misadventures. My only question is who was Algernon Wooster? Is this a relation of Bertie's? I know Wodehouse sometimes used characters from one book in another.

[BenG]

Bertie mentions Freddie in The Code of the Woosters.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by BenG

Bertie mentions Freddie in The Code of the Woosters.

Thanks!

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by issybird

Something New, the American version, came first. Wodehouse was living in America and The Saturday Evening Post paid him $3,500 for it. It was published the following year in Britain as Something Fresh.

I finally understand the publication order: Something New (SEP) > Something New (US) > Something Fresh (UK). But the way these are referred to is confusing to me and I am very confused about what the original text is.

Here is the intro for Something Fresh from Wikipedia:

Something Fresh is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published as a book in the United States, by D. Appleton & Company on 3 September 1915, under the title Something New,[1] having previously appeared under that title as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post between 26 June and 14 August 1915. It was published in the United Kingdom by Methuen & Co. on 16 September 1915.[1]

Wikipedia goes on to talk about the differences in the books near the end (I skipped the plot parts since I am not done):

In Something New, Ashe Marson, Joan Valentine and George Emerson are Americans; Ashe (who comes from a town called "Hayling", near Boston, Massachusetts) and Joan (who was born in New York) are living in England, while George is a member of a New York law firm. Because of the change of nationality, there are numerous consequential changes in descriptive passages and, particularly, in the dialogue.

From the Wikipedia entry for Ashe Marson:

The hero of Something Fresh, Ashe Marson is a young man from the village of Much Middleford, Salop., ...

So, if Something New was first, does that mean Ashe is originally from the US? Or was the text published in The Saturday Evening Post/Something New an adaptation of Something Fresh that happened to get published first? From the intro they were all published very close to each other (the novels were less than 2 weeks apart and barely a month after The Saturday Evening Post's version concluded.)

Or, since some of these characters appear elsewhere (do Ashe and Joan?), were the nationalities changed back to the UK to help with continuity elsewhere? Although, given the close publication dates, I don't see how he could have known to make these changes for continuity's sake.

[CRussel]

Spent today listening to the Frederick Davidson reading of Something Fresh. Wonderful, with the sole exception of an awful southern accent for one character. I'm not finished, and won't finish until the ride home on Friday, but I'm sure enjoying it!

[WT Sharpe]

Have some favorite lines from this book? Several made me smile. Like this one:

One of the King Georges of England—I forget which—once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night—I cannot recall at the moment how many—made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory. Baxter agreed with him.

[din155]

It was wonderful. Thanks issybird for the nomination and Charlie for the Frederick Davidson recommendation. It was a perfect match.
It was the most fun I had reading a book in a long time. I actually had to stop listening to the book when Mr. Peters was showing his beloved collection of scarabs to Lord Emsworth because I could not stop laughing in the train.

I now have more appreciation for the lords of castles

[BenG]

I liked the sequel, Leave it to Psmith even better.

[CRussel]

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this. His Blandings stories have never been my favourites of his (that rests with the Jeeves/Wooster stories), but they are still quite wonderful.