the code of the woosters by pg wodehouse

The moment I had set eyes on Spode, if you remember, I had said to myself ‘What ho! A Dictator!’ and a Dictator he had proved to be. His general idea, if he doesn’t get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator.’ ‘Well, I’m blowed!’ I was astounded at my keenness of perception.

Once it occurred to me, the link felt natural.“Don’t you ever read the papers? Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organization better known as the Black Shorts. I knew a lot of people from the area and still have relations living there. Cork’s Jew town has long since lost its Jewish population but the place retains a particularly old-world feel. Then, while I was struggling with a viable plotline, that heartbreaking photograph of the little Syrian boy’s body washed up on a Turkish beach began to circulate and, thinking about refugees, I began to consider the plight of Sindelar’s closest friends with war imminent. Once the story started taking shape in my head, I understood that for it to have resonance, it needed to connect with my world in some way.

In fact, he was Catholic but had grown up in a Jewish part of Vienna, played for the city’s Jewish club and seemed thoroughly immersed in that culture. The more I read about him, the more his apparent Jewishness intrigued me. How did it make its way into your novel?įor me, Sindelar was as much myth as reality. Cork has a rich Jewish heritage, not least the writer David Marcus. Also, the stunning opening section of Don DeLillo’s Underworld, covering the 1951 World Series. What other novels with a sporting theme would you recommend? A PhD student offered to show me the city and when I mentioned my interest in Sindelar, calls were made and we set about searching for his ghost. Within five years he was dead, in suspicious circumstances, having been on the Gestapo watchlist. The 1934 World Cup should have been his crowning moment but Austria lost to hosts Italy in a semi-final marked by blatantly corrupt Mussolini-influenced refereeing. Could you tell me about your book, The Paper Man? Where did the inspiration come from?Īt 15, reading a history of the World Cup, I first learned of Sindelar, superstar of 1930s Austria’s fabled Wunderteam and the Pelé, Maradona or George Best of his day.

The code of the woosters by pg wodehouse