Reading the 20th Century discussion

Nigeyb wrote: "I don’t recall the war ever getting a mention either. Nothing really bad ever impinges into his worlds."

I suppose in the later novels Roderick Spode hints at bad things to come but he's undermined pretty ruthlessly; and made to seem quite foolish.

Ah yes. Well remembered

Nigeyb wrote: "Ah yes. Well remembered"

I think he just stood out because he tied to the real world. I find time in these quite hard to work out, the stories stretch out over so many years! And some characters like Bingo experience quite significant changes as far as their lives go but Jeeves and Wooster seem to stand still. They're like a fixed point that everyone else relates back to.

No, it doesn't really come up, apart from his poking fun at the brown shorts. I would imagine that for many people, having lost loved ones and/or going through the trenches, it would be pretty great to be reading something that was essentially light, frothy, funny, and entertaining.

A bit of a tangent, but one of the criticisms often levelled at Jane Austen is that the Napoleonic war is never mentioned. Does that mean that all the other writers who were allowed a place in the canon and who were writing at that time did feature it?

Tania wrote: "A bit of a tangent, but one of the criticisms often levelled at Jane Austen is that the Napoleonic war is never mentioned. Does that mean that all the other writers who were allowed a..."

I've never personally thought of that as a weakness. But the preponderance of officers naval/army did always give me a sense of how central war/impending war was to the society Austen's characters are living in. It's like the way in which slavery haunts Mansfield Park.

Tania wrote: "No, it doesn't really come up, apart from his poking fun at the brown shorts. I would imagine that for many people, having lost loved ones and/or going through the trenches, it would be pretty grea..."

Yes, it made me think of the discussions about popular TV shows and whether or not they'd include the pandemic in their storylines.