The Swoop! & The Military Invasion of America (Everyman's Library P G WODEHOUSE)

I'm working my way around to getting every Wodehouse in the series, replacing tatty old paperbacks with hardbacks (and filling in the blanks in my collection).The books are a fantastic read, and this edition will please every Wodehouse fan.

Thankfully Wodehouse abandoned this style of writing and never again attempted to satirise the gullible. Best left to sharper tongues.

Great

This is probably the silliest thing Wodehouse ever wrote. I say that as a compliment - silliness, at its best, is something wonderful. Put Jeeves and Bertie out of your mind, not to mention Lord Emsworth, Mr Mulliner and the crowd; just enjoy the tale on its own terms.Nine separate nations decide to invade Britain at the same time, using the celebrated "swoop" tactic. Britain makes no move, being too engrossed in the cricket scores, until the Boy Scouts retaliate and out-general the beastly foreigners.Wodehouse clearly enjoyed greatly writing this little bit of nonsense in 1909. It's full of daft jokes, a lot of them topical gags that are incomprehensible today but with a lot of still funny side-swipes thrown in: "A morning paper had started the question, 'Should there be a Censor of Fiction?' and, in accordance with custom, editors were collecting the views of celebrities, preferably of those whose opinion on the subject was absolutely valueless."The story is full of cartoonish stereotypes of the various nationalities, but the effect is without offence because Wodehouse so transparently doesn't mean a word of it. However, I am surprised by the decision to include all the original illustrations, as these include a couple which are, in the present day, unequivocally racist.There is also included "The Military Invasion of America," a shorter rewrite of "The Swoop" written for New York's "Vanity Fair" magazine in 1916. What was funny in 1909 seems more than a little uncomfortable in 1916, when war with Germany was no longer a matter of speculation. But it's an interesting addendum.

This book contains one short novel, and a shorter novel. The first is a tongue-in-cheek account of how nine nations invaded an England, which was pre-occupied with sports and entertainment. The country was eventually rid of the invaders by the impossible initiatives of a Boy Scout.The second story is a much condensed version of the first one. The characters, plot and the outcome is the same, except that the location changes to USA. If you've read the first novella, the second is hardly worth reading - with entire dialogues lifted from the invasion of England.Enjoyable, though a bit of a disappointment.

Bottom Line:This is not good Wodehouse. The mood is light, mostly satirical, with all the edge of satire, but it is not that funny. The book being well appointed and illustrated is a strong draw in favor of this selection. Otherwise this is strictly a completer piece for the avid Woodhouse fan. Like me.Shortly after the turn of the 20th Century a type of adventure book became trendy. Europe was feeling the first of the sabre rattling that would later become World War I. Emerging technologies filled imaginations with notions of new machines making new kinds of sneaky things possible.The new kind story in England was the invasion story. How might the Germans or someone go about invading England. The most famous of these was . Considered the first modern spy novel,The Riddle of the Sands it is credited with changes made in the British Navy. A major base was established in case Childer’s plot was prophetic.It was into this moment that PG Wodehouse wrote The Swoop! and a later adaptation for the American reader called : the Military Invasion of America . Both of these texts are included in this volume.This is a handsomely printed small book, the first part is lavishly illustrated, the American version slightly less so. The original was a satirical story for inclusion in a magazine and the two texts together are right at 144 pages, much of this due to large print and the aforesaid illustrations.In brief England (America) is successfully invaded by 9 Armies from as many directions and none expecting to find the other involved in an attack on The British Isles. The choices rage from the obvious, England, France and Germany and Russia to what was then the more whimsical: Moroccan brigands under Raisuli ( a historic figure and the center of the movie: The Wind and the Lion), the Young Turks, the Mad Mullah (looking a little too much like the much latter Ayatollah from Iran) commanding the forces of Somalialand, the Chinese under Prince Ping Pong Pang, and the Bollygollans in war canoes.The story includes some swipes at major politicians of the time, but mostly the invasions work because the invaded either do not care or are more interested in the entertainment marching armies and competing generals may provide. Ultimately it is up to the British Boy Scouts- in both versions, employing complex animal calls to bring about the end of occupation.

i am an avid PGW fan. i wish to read all his books. and to read a beautifully bound , classic print is always a pleasure.

The Swoop is a very funny story by the comic master P. G. Wodehouse. It is a slim story but filled with a great deal of wit. A charming piece of writing is The Swoop. I own nearly all of the Wodehouse stories, and you should most definitely get The Swoop to add to your library.

I've read dozens of Wodehouse novels (can't get enough, really), but I have to say that this one is a minor piece of juvenilia. There's no doubt the story is amusing and wry, and it has a few very clever moments, like the jokes about Boy Scouts imitating animal noises as signals and the spoof of a self-consciously modern poetic journalist, but overall it's not in the same league as the later novels for which PGW is famous. The accompanying American version is a severe abridgement of the British version that utilizes almost identical phrasing, so unless you are doing detailed textual-critical studies of PGW and want to see exactly how he double-dipped the same story for cross-Atlantic audiences, you'll not be very interested in reading the same thing over again. Add to this the very slender size and the expensive pricetag, and this is probably a volume most fans can do without.