The wonderful thing about the Molesworth oeuvre is that it's a rare example of books that have to be read. Most of the jokes are visual - both the illustrations and the speling - so it can't be read to you, and it can't be made into an animation or film, like a comic book.
They're also in that genre of supposedly children's stories that are really for adults - Just William, The Wind In The Willows, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh.
I first encountered Nigel in a compendium of school stories I was given as a birthday present in the 80s. The cover illustration was of two very hip 80s teens, but the book was all excerpts from classic literature. I sought out the full length novels from my favourites - What Katy Did, Cider With Rosie, Just William, and Molesworth.
Searle and Willians do capture that era, the decline of the British Empire and the societal structures that went with it, as deftly as Le Carré (but less bleakly). And yes, well-observed that Molesworth-speak is as clubbable as Private Eye, Wodehouse and G&S - all things I also love, despite being a vagina-haver (they tend to be male-coded, by and large).
That's a really good point about it is solely and properly *a book* - it doesn't work in any other medium. Even more true of Molesworth than it is of, say, P. G. Wodehouse, who also defies adaptation. Sure, you can adapt Wodehouse stories, often enjoyably (as with Fry & Laurie) but the real comedy and delight is in Wodehouse's prose and only works when read (to oneself, to boot). It's a grand tradition in humorous writing that I would argue also includes Jerome K Jerome and Terry Pratchett.
Absolutely best when read to oneself (there's nothing like the joy of being an audience of one and feeling the joke is just for you), though there are some excellent audiobooks - Martin Jarvis reading the William stories, David Sedaris reading his own.
I have it on my shelf next to 1066 And All That, both guaranteed to make me laugh and laugh. I agree that most of the cultural references are probably illegible to later generations. But… we still get ruled by the likes of Cameron and Johnson and whatever he’s called from the Reactionary Party. And whatever we might hope about history education, history remains “what you can remember”. An awful lot of people think that what happened in history is roughly what was being sent up in 1066 - published in 1930. It was also based on Punch pieces. What was already thought ridiculous then - and Punch was never a radical magazine - is still taken seriously now. And when these people rail against “wrong” or “woke” history, it’s this they want to get back to. But the joke’s on us for letting them get away with it.
This is an excellent point, although it does put me in mind of Peter Cook's excellent joke about Weimar period satire: "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". To fully get all the jokes in 1066, you have to already know all the history (there are jokes that I'm still just getting forty years later, as I learn more history) - they are in-jokes, to a degree, although both Willans & Searle and Sellars & Yeatman are, of course, funny enough writers that there's plenty there to make everyone laugh, whether they know who was on the throne at different points of the Wars of the Roses, or not.
St Crumbles, sister school of St Custards. I'm going to attempt to pass that off as a deliberate Molesworthism and not evidence of the fact that we are on holiday and possibly not copy editing as assiduously as we might...
The wonderful thing about the Molesworth oeuvre is that it's a rare example of books that have to be read. Most of the jokes are visual - both the illustrations and the speling - so it can't be read to you, and it can't be made into an animation or film, like a comic book.
They're also in that genre of supposedly children's stories that are really for adults - Just William, The Wind In The Willows, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh.
I first encountered Nigel in a compendium of school stories I was given as a birthday present in the 80s. The cover illustration was of two very hip 80s teens, but the book was all excerpts from classic literature. I sought out the full length novels from my favourites - What Katy Did, Cider With Rosie, Just William, and Molesworth.
Searle and Willians do capture that era, the decline of the British Empire and the societal structures that went with it, as deftly as Le Carré (but less bleakly). And yes, well-observed that Molesworth-speak is as clubbable as Private Eye, Wodehouse and G&S - all things I also love, despite being a vagina-haver (they tend to be male-coded, by and large).
That's a really good point about it is solely and properly *a book* - it doesn't work in any other medium. Even more true of Molesworth than it is of, say, P. G. Wodehouse, who also defies adaptation. Sure, you can adapt Wodehouse stories, often enjoyably (as with Fry & Laurie) but the real comedy and delight is in Wodehouse's prose and only works when read (to oneself, to boot). It's a grand tradition in humorous writing that I would argue also includes Jerome K Jerome and Terry Pratchett.
Absolutely best when read to oneself (there's nothing like the joy of being an audience of one and feeling the joke is just for you), though there are some excellent audiobooks - Martin Jarvis reading the William stories, David Sedaris reading his own.
Martin Jarvis’ realisation of the William Brown voice is nothing short of miraculous…
I have it on my shelf next to 1066 And All That, both guaranteed to make me laugh and laugh. I agree that most of the cultural references are probably illegible to later generations. But… we still get ruled by the likes of Cameron and Johnson and whatever he’s called from the Reactionary Party. And whatever we might hope about history education, history remains “what you can remember”. An awful lot of people think that what happened in history is roughly what was being sent up in 1066 - published in 1930. It was also based on Punch pieces. What was already thought ridiculous then - and Punch was never a radical magazine - is still taken seriously now. And when these people rail against “wrong” or “woke” history, it’s this they want to get back to. But the joke’s on us for letting them get away with it.
This is an excellent point, although it does put me in mind of Peter Cook's excellent joke about Weimar period satire: "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". To fully get all the jokes in 1066, you have to already know all the history (there are jokes that I'm still just getting forty years later, as I learn more history) - they are in-jokes, to a degree, although both Willans & Searle and Sellars & Yeatman are, of course, funny enough writers that there's plenty there to make everyone laugh, whether they know who was on the throne at different points of the Wars of the Roses, or not.
Crumbing institutions are surely reminiscent of Bakeoff, not St Custard's?
St Crumbles, sister school of St Custards. I'm going to attempt to pass that off as a deliberate Molesworthism and not evidence of the fact that we are on holiday and possibly not copy editing as assiduously as we might...