Saturday, August 12, 2006

Creation Series for Dummies #1: A Strong Candidate

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Today we commence tackling that hardest question of all time: How did we come to be here, today, on this big rock?

You could call that an open-ended question. Answers abound.

We'll look at Goddess Creations, at God Creations, at Multiple Deity Creations, and at the hard science behind them. None of this godless communist Charles Darwin evil-ution stuff for us!

But first let us wax philosophical for a moment. Many deeply religious people will say that the universe opened up to them, indeed began, the day they accepted the deity of choice into their lives. We at "The Gods Are Bored" won't quarrel with that a bit.

Other folks search for a god or goddess they can relate to. One who, given the motive and means, would create a perfect world.

Readers, I give you Jeeves. Not the stupid one that can't answer a question on the Net. The Real Jeeves.

If you have read the "Jeeves" books by P. G. Wodehouse, you need proceed no further in this entry. You have been converted. Admit it.

If the name "Jeeves" is new to you outside of the frustrating context of using his useless search engine, and you're god-shopping, well then. You're in luck.

Imagine that you're a well-heeled gent of leisure, splayed on your couch with a morning head. The previous day, you sacked your valet after you found him pinching your silk socks. You've asked the Service to send around another specimen for hire. In the meantime you ponder how to duck an engagement you've made with a woman who, while great-looking in profile, is steeped to the gills in serious purpose.

Deep problems indeed.

Suddenly there's a gentle knock on the door. In shimmers Jeeves. He floats out into the pantry and comes back with a bracing invention that puts morning head to flight.

And that is just a prelude. He solves all your problems, while asking nothing in return but to jettison your inappropriate attire. Oh yes, he does take a two week vacation to go shrimping at the seashore.

That's when you get in the most trouble, of course. When he's shrimping. And also when you quarrel about the old attire, and you win. Then he lets you get into all kinds of trouble so he can show you how invaluable he is.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" started reading "Jeeves" stories and novels back in the early 1980s. Of course they were written much earlier, all the stories having been completed prior to the Omnibus Edition of 1931.

To make a long post short, I think you'll agree with me, if you spend even ten minutes with Jeeves, that he would make a first-rate Creator of the Universe, and he ought to be given a fair shot at it.

A warning: Ten minutes with the P. G. Wodehouse "Jeeves" work will result in a total addiction. You won't be able to stop reading until you've exhausted the entire supply. And you never recover. Inside my well-thumbed Omnibus I have written, "Property of Anne Johnson. Please Return. Can't Live Without."

To quote Jeeves's primary disciple, Bertie Wooster:

"I've always said, and I always shall say, that for sheer brain, Jeeves, you stand alone. All the other great thinkers of the age are simply in the crowd, watching you go by."

To which Jeeves replies (as he so often does through 564 howlingly funny pages):

Thank you very much, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction."

I nominate Jeeves for God. At least we should let him take a crack at fixing the world's glitches. With two weeks off for shrimping.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
The World of Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse, is available at http://www.amazon.com

1 comment:

Hecate said...

Goddess! What I wouldn't do for some jeeves in my life. I'd settle for the butler in the Lord Peter Whimsey series, but I'd worship and adore a Jeeves.