The Englishness of the London Club

摘要

'We're pretty broad-minded here,' says a character about the Drones Club in PG Wodehouse's story 'Uncle Fred Flits By, and if you stop short of smashing the piano, there isn't much that you can do at the Drones that will cause the raised eyebrow and the sharp intake of breath." Peopled by feckless and leisured, but not all monied, members of the aristocracy, the Drones is at the centre of Wodehouse's universe. We learn quite a lot about it. Luncheon is frequently enlivened by the throwing of bread rolls, and less frequently showerings of sugar. As young men pass through its two smoking rooms, the causes of their miens, whether anxious, triumphant or harried, become the starting point for stories. Those members lured into matrimony mark their impending change of status with a valedictory dinner, whose consequences structure many subsequent tales. Tuppy Glossop once bet Bertie Wooster that he couldn't swing along the rings above the club's subterranean swimming pool from one end to the other in full evening wear - having first taken the precaution of looping the last ring out of reach, causing Bertie to plunge, fully clad, into the water. In short it is a typical London club, where the architecture is an incidental prop to social behaviour or particular events that define a tightly knit community.