Talk:Champagne for One

Suicided

An anonymous editor has changed "suicided" to "committed suicide," giving simply "Grammar" as the reason for the change.

The anonymous editor doesn't mean grammar. He or she means diction. Further, a quick glance at a dictionary would have shown that "suicide" can be either a noun or a transitive verb; in the latter case, it means "to commit suicide." My sense of diction tells me that "committed suicide" is trite and prolix; "suicided" is neither. TurnerHodges (talk) 02:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Transitive?! —Tamfang (talk) 01:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

My mistake. Transitive = "to kill oneself." Intransitive = "to commit suicide." Thanks for the heads-up. (However, even Wolfe might regard this as a distinction without a difference, sort of like grand opera vs. hog calling.) TurnerHodges (talk) 15:58, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Suicided is intransitive in form and reflexive in meaning. Commit suicide is formally transitive: suicide is the object of the verb. —Tamfang (talk) 02:43, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

No one says "suicided." "Commit suicide" is established usage, and it is not "trite and prolix." To use "suicided" is to engage in "Hey! Look at me!" type writing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6:1C02:CA21:29BB:C390:8C20:E9A7 (talk) 02:52, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Insisting on "suicided" means you'll also want it to be "should she ever decide to suicide", and that sounds terrible, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6:1C02:CA21:81D1:89A4:9066:21AD (talk) 21:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

how about "decide on suicide"? —Tamfang (talk) 21:58, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Who missed Clara Fox?

I never noticed this before: At the very end of chapter 10 in Champagne for One, Archie jibes at Cramer, reminding him of the time that he came looking for Clara Fox, but couldn't find her because she was hiding in a crate of very wet osmundine. That occurred in Chapter 11 of The Rubber Band.

Problem is that Cramer wasn't there. The search was led by Rowcliff.

So: did Archie's vaunted memory fail him? No true believer could accept that interpretation. No, Archie must have been testing Cramer to see if he remembered the incident correctly. TurnerHodges (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

a ghost of PGW

An acquaintance known as Dinky, feigning laryngitis, begs the narrator to take his place at a dinner given by his aunt. Has any critic remarked that this could describe the opening of a Bertie Wooster story? —Tamfang (talk) 23:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether any critic or other writer has noted that (and certainly I haven't) but you're absolutely right -- much of Champagne for One could be a palimpsest of a Jeeves/Bertie story. You probably know that Wodehouse and Stout were mutual admirers. Wodehouse's comment that Stout's stories are "re-readable" has appeared many times, and the back matter of the Bantam paperback edition of Some Buried Caesar reprints a letter from Wodehouse to a mysterious "Den" praising Stout's use of atmosphere. TurnerHodges (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I brought this up in the relevant branch of Stack Exchange, asking whether Wodehouse ever returned the compliment. The reaction was like "who do you think you are, suggesting that there is an allusion in Champagne!" Oh well. —Tamfang (talk) 22:00, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

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