The Wrecking Crew (Wodehouse)
Encyclopedia
The Wrecking Crew is a recurring group of fictional character
s from the golf stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse
, being a foursome of golfers infamous for their grotesque golfing techniques and tedious pace of play.
The foursome consist of "The First Grave Digger", "The Man with the Hoe", "Old Father Time", and "Consul, the Almost Human".
"The Wrecking Crew consisted of four retired business men who had taken up the noble game late in life because their doctors had ordered them air and exercise."
The First Grave-Digger was "the star performer of the Wrecking Crew [...] He differed from his colleagues [...] in that, while they were content to peck cautiously at the ball, he never spared himself in his efforts to do it a violent injury."
Every golfer has been trapped behind this immortal foursome. Their collective name expresses their painfully awkward, brutally slow, meandering and extraordinarily destructive progress over the course—their endless practice-swings, infinite brooding over putts, labored swings, foozled shots and onward crawl, leaving a devastated landscape littered with massive, irreplaceable divots in their wake—but the individual names are allusive as well. “The First Grave Digger” appears, of course, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, wherein (Act V, Scene 1) he sings the following callous ditty as he digs the grave of the fair Ophelia:
“A pick-axe and a spade, a spade, /
For an a shrouding sheet; /
Oh, a pit of clay for to be made /
For such a guest is meet.” /
“The Man with the Hoe” (“L’Homme à la Houe”), painted in 1861, is a famous painting by Jean-François Millet. Given the proclivities of the Wrecking Crew, Wodehouse may have also have had in mind a poem inspired by Millet’s work—Edwin Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe,” which begins
“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans /
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, /
The emptiness of ages in his face, /
And on his back, the burden of the world. /
Who made him dead to rapture and despair, /
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, /
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? /
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? /
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? /
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?” /
Gaunt, white-bearded, and funereal, “Old Father Time” is at once the most familiar and the most ominous member of the Wrecking Crew quartet. With his hour-glass he measures out the precious hours allotted us on earth; with the stroke of his scythe he mows us down when our hour has come. He is always before us on the fairway of life.
“Consul, the Almost Human” would have been familiar to many of Wodehouse’s original readers as the chimpanzee famous for a vaudeville act in which he wore human clothing, dined at table, smoked cigars, rode a bicycle, used a typewriter, roller-skated, and so on. During the last decade of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth century, Consul appeared so often in Europe and the United States that it seems likely that there was more than one “Consul,” and/or that several chimpanzees in succession were pressed into the role. The final Consul died of pleurisy while on tour in Berlin, after which his stuffed body was placed on display at the American Museum of Natural History. At the peak of his fame, according to his obituary in the New York Times (April 12, 1907), this Consul earned $1,500 per week, and had his life insured for $124,000. That he may not always have appreciated his existence as a gawked-at curiosity is suggested by the fact that on one occasion at least he took full advantage of an opportunity to fire a revolver at his trainer, only to discover that the weapon had, alas, been loaded with blank cartridges (Popular Mechanics Magazine, 1919, 593).
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
s from the golf stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
, being a foursome of golfers infamous for their grotesque golfing techniques and tedious pace of play.
Overview
They featured prominently in the short story "Chester Forgets Himself" (1923), and act as a catalyst whereby the protagonist finds himself uttering a string of profanity in front of a lady whom he very much wants to impress.The foursome consist of "The First Grave Digger", "The Man with the Hoe", "Old Father Time", and "Consul, the Almost Human".
"The Wrecking Crew consisted of four retired business men who had taken up the noble game late in life because their doctors had ordered them air and exercise."
The First Grave-Digger was "the star performer of the Wrecking Crew [...] He differed from his colleagues [...] in that, while they were content to peck cautiously at the ball, he never spared himself in his efforts to do it a violent injury."
Every golfer has been trapped behind this immortal foursome. Their collective name expresses their painfully awkward, brutally slow, meandering and extraordinarily destructive progress over the course—their endless practice-swings, infinite brooding over putts, labored swings, foozled shots and onward crawl, leaving a devastated landscape littered with massive, irreplaceable divots in their wake—but the individual names are allusive as well. “The First Grave Digger” appears, of course, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, wherein (Act V, Scene 1) he sings the following callous ditty as he digs the grave of the fair Ophelia:
“A pick-axe and a spade, a spade, /
For an a shrouding sheet; /
Oh, a pit of clay for to be made /
For such a guest is meet.” /
“The Man with the Hoe” (“L’Homme à la Houe”), painted in 1861, is a famous painting by Jean-François Millet. Given the proclivities of the Wrecking Crew, Wodehouse may have also have had in mind a poem inspired by Millet’s work—Edwin Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe,” which begins
“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans /
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, /
The emptiness of ages in his face, /
And on his back, the burden of the world. /
Who made him dead to rapture and despair, /
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, /
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? /
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? /
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? /
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?” /
Gaunt, white-bearded, and funereal, “Old Father Time” is at once the most familiar and the most ominous member of the Wrecking Crew quartet. With his hour-glass he measures out the precious hours allotted us on earth; with the stroke of his scythe he mows us down when our hour has come. He is always before us on the fairway of life.
“Consul, the Almost Human” would have been familiar to many of Wodehouse’s original readers as the chimpanzee famous for a vaudeville act in which he wore human clothing, dined at table, smoked cigars, rode a bicycle, used a typewriter, roller-skated, and so on. During the last decade of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth century, Consul appeared so often in Europe and the United States that it seems likely that there was more than one “Consul,” and/or that several chimpanzees in succession were pressed into the role. The final Consul died of pleurisy while on tour in Berlin, after which his stuffed body was placed on display at the American Museum of Natural History. At the peak of his fame, according to his obituary in the New York Times (April 12, 1907), this Consul earned $1,500 per week, and had his life insured for $124,000. That he may not always have appreciated his existence as a gawked-at curiosity is suggested by the fact that on one occasion at least he took full advantage of an opportunity to fire a revolver at his trainer, only to discover that the weapon had, alas, been loaded with blank cartridges (Popular Mechanics Magazine, 1919, 593).
Stories
Members of The Wrecking Crew are featured in:- The Girl on the BoatThe Girl on the BoatThe Girl on the Boat is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse. The story first appeared as a serial in Woman's Home Companion in the United States, under the title Three Men and a Maid, from October to December 1921. It was first published as a book in the U.S. on April 26, 1922 by George H...
(1922) – novel, with "Consul, the Almost-Human" - "Chester Forgets Himself" (1923) – Oldest MemberOldest MemberThe Oldest Member is a fictional character from the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse. He narrates the majority of Wodehouse's golf stories from the terrace of a golf club whose location is unclear, and he never has a proper name....
golf story, collected in The Heart of a GoofThe Heart of a GoofThe Heart of a Goof is a collection of nine short stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on April 15, 1926 by Herbert Jenkins, and in the United States on March 4, 1927 by George H...
(1926) - "The Letter of the LawThe Letter of the Law"The Letter of the Law" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the United States in the February 1936 edition of Redbook, and in the United Kingdom in the April 1936 issue of the Strand. It was included in the UK collection Lord Emsworth and Others , and in the U.S. edition of...
" (1936) – Oldest MemberOldest MemberThe Oldest Member is a fictional character from the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse. He narrates the majority of Wodehouse's golf stories from the terrace of a golf club whose location is unclear, and he never has a proper name....
golf story, collected in Lord Emsworth and OthersLord Emsworth and Others-External links:* , with a list of characters and publication dates* , with details of published editions, photos of book covers and links to used copies...
(1937)