Jennifer Petkus
Apologies for taking so long to post about the November meeting of The Den(ver) of the Secret Nine, but procrastination is a major sin of mine. And it’s not as if there were nothing to report. It was another enjoyable meeting of the group, marred only by the fact that member Erica had to move to Los Angeles for employment reasons. We hope she may one day return to Boulder although we wish her the best of luck on the West Coast.
We discussed Leave it to Psmith, the fourth and final time Wodehouse’s Rupert (or Ronald as he’s called here so as to avoid confusion with the Efficient Baxter) appeared and for me, it was a surprise how mature—in a Wodehousean fashion—the character appeared to me. My only previous experience with Psmith was from Psmith, Journalist, which I had not enjoyed as much as this story. Another surprise was the discovery that I had not actually read Leave it to Psmith before. I simply knew about the events of the story because they’re referenced so often in later Blandings stories.
Everyone at the November meeting seemed to enjoy the story and everyone contributed a favorite quote. This meeting marked the first time in our brief history without a quiz, which may have led to a deeper discussion of the story. Nevertheless, it was decided in future that members are asked to contribute two questions for a group-generated quiz. This removes the burden of a single person needing to create a full quiz and yet still provides the means by which the next story is chosen. The person who wins the quiz (who obviously receives no points for answering their own questions), gets to choose the next story. (To facilitate the selection process, I’m proposing that we create a list of possible stories from which the winner might choose. Proposed stories should be investigated for their availability. The book should be available at a Denver metro area library and should be in print.)
In lieu of a quiz winner, it was decided that the next story for our January 12th meeting is Love Among the Chickens, featuring Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukrigdge. As usual, we’ll meet at Pints Pub at 12:30 p.m.
Love Among the Chickens is readily available for purchase as an ebook, hardcover and paperback and is also available for free at Project Gutenberg and at Librivox (as an audio recording). It is in the public domain.
The Denver of the Secret Nine 