Pip-Pip, it’s Aunt Agatha

I was thinking about Aunt Agatha recently. No relative of mine but as any PG Wodehouse fan will recall, Aunt Agatha is that fiercely formidable character who leaves a well…deep & lasting impression. While everyone will recall Jeeves, Aunt Agatha has her spot in the sun too.

This imposing dame was described by her nephew Bertie Wooster as “My Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.” 

And elsewhere –

“Aunt Agatha is like an elephant—not so much to look at, for in appearance she resembles more a well-bred vulture, but because she never forgets.”

“My Aunt Agatha, for instance, is tall and thin and looks rather like a vulture in the Gobi desert, while Aunt Dahlia is short and solid, like a scrum half in the game of Rugby football. In disposition, too, they differ widely. Aunt Agatha is cold and haughty, though presumably unbending a bit when conducting human sacrifices at the time of the full moon, as she is widely rumoured to do, and her attitude towards me has always been that of an austere governess, causing me to feel as if I were six years old and she had just caught me stealing jam from the jam cupboard: whereas Aunt Dahlia is as jovial and bonhomous as a dame in a Christmas pantomime.”

You get the drift.

Some characters always make you compare them with people in real life who fit the job description. Aunt Agatha for example is the kind you either have within your own family or with luck, escape having.

P G Wodehouse is one of my favourite authors for that dose of subtle, wry humour & sarcasm that pricks. Reminds me, I got to pick up another PGW to read.

Advertisements