Wodehouse

The P. G. Wodehouse I’m reading, The Mating Game, has the most complicated plot of all the harebrained complicated Wodehouse plots I’ve encountered. I think there should be an insert at the front like you get in War and Peace—not detailing the various Kuryagins and Bolkonskis but giving a brief explanation why Bertie Wooster shows up at Deverill Hall pretending to be Gussie Fink-Nottle, why Gussie appears pretending to be Bertie and attended by Jeeves while Bertie has as his man his friend from the Drones Club, Claude Cattermole “Catsmeat” Pirbright, and so on. I’m also reading my second William Maxwell, The Folded Leaf, which is good, but not as good as They Came Like Swallows—probably the best book I’ve read so far this year, although Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto is also in the running.

Desert April

The desert is stunningly beautiful right now. I was struck by it on the way back from Ryan Airfield, on the other side of Gates Pass in the Tucson Mountains a few days ago. All the Ocotillo have huge orange blooms, and the Staghorn Cholla is blooming in every hue at the red end of the spectrum: yellow, pink, orange, bright red. There are still Mexican Poppies, Globe Mallow and Brittlebush blooming. And I came upon stands of Foothill Palo Verde, microphyllum, that are completely yellow with blooms. Sometimes a whole wash will be full of bright yellow.