Gratuitous Plum Wodehouse Posting (TM)

Last evening at church saw the wrapping up of our Lenten Suppers series. Each Wednesday this Lent, we've had a different speaker come in to give a little talk on the expression of religious ideas in various artistic media - painting, music, dance, etc.

Last night's topic was a discourse on what one might call liturgical theatre, the acting out of small skits based on various Biblical stories or lessons so that people could (as the speaker put it) "get into them more". Ironically, it was the adoption of such a practice in the church of my youth that caused Mom to storm out in wrath, self in tow. If my rector ever started slipping skits into the sermon, I'd no doubt do some wrathful stormin' myself.

Anyhoo, the speaker noted her particular fascination with the story of Jael, the wife of Heber, a heroine from the Book of Judges who - on God's instruction - whanged a tent pin through the skull of an enemy military commander as he lay sleeping. (Here's the text, if you're interested.)

I was able to smile knowingly when the speaker mentioned Jael not because I'm any kind of Old Testament scholar, but because Bertie Wooster once won a Scripture Knowledge prize in school and was able to flash out the allusion himself when the situation called for it. Plum never got tired of the joke that Bertie, of all people, would know something so obscure and used it over and over.

Here's a perfect example in an excerpt from James Woods' review of Robert McCrum's biography of Wodehouse over at The New Republic, discussing perhaps my very favorite Bertie and Jeeves novel:

The Code of the Woosters sends Bertie and Jeeves to Totleigh Towers, in Totleigh-in-the-Wold, the home of the fearful Sir Watkyn Bassett. Also in residence are Gussie Fink-Nottle (again), the Reverend H.P. (Stinker) Pinker, Sir Roderick Spode, and the heartless young woman Stiffy Byng, a "pancake" whose steely behavior elicits from Bertie the following biblical allusion and fabulous general denunciation of all females: "You pull off the rawest stuff without a pang. You pride yourselves on it. Look at Jael, the wife of Heber. ... Dug spikes into the guest's coconut while he was asleep, and then went swanking around the place like a Girl Guide. No wonder they say, 'Oh woman, woman!'"

Heh. Of course, this is just one example - there must be dozens more in Plum's books. Needless to say, I got mulling on Wodehouse after the speaker brought up the story of Jael, so missed most of the rest of what she was saying. On the whole, though, I think I prefer my Jael in the words of young Bertram, reyther than acted out at the pulpit.