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Wodehouse dishes up non-stop hilarity in this classic quagmire featuring birdbrained Bertie Wooster and his astute butler, Reginald Jeeves. When Gussie Fink-Nottle lands in the slammer, Bertie poses as his pal in order to keep Madeline Bassett at bay. After all, no one knows Bertie at Deverill Hall. Corky's dog, covert couples, five crackpot aunts, and a concert in costume increase the confusion. Captain Dobbs descends on Deverill to arrest a greenbearded burglar with a bonding hound-but who show more was the man in the checked suit? It's Jeeves to the rescue again as he appears undercover to save nitwit Wooster from Fink-Nottle's fate. show lessTags
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“I was losing the old pep and… unless the clouds changed their act and started dishing out at an early date a considerably more substantial slab of silver lining than they were coming across with at the moment, I should soon be definitely down among the wines and spirits.”
Right ho, what never fails to ginger up the old vim? Wodehouse, of course. This is tip top Plum fun, with nary a hoppity-hoppity-hop to impede the pleasure.
Image: Programme for Edward Duke’s solo show ″Jeeves Takes Charge″, which I was fortunate to see in my late teens (Source.)
What it’s Got
“This is springtime, Bertie, the mating season, when, as you probably know, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove and a young man’s fancy lightly turns show more to thoughts of love.”
This has all the expected Wodehousian joys of Jeeves, Bertie, more than the usual number of awful aunts (five + Aunt Agatha), disguises, mistaken identity, tangled wooing, a country house, a country parson, a jobsworth copper, Haddock’s Headache Hokies, a talent show, a plot summary of a Rosie M Banks romance, Haddock (Esmond), Catsmeat (Pirbright), God’s daisy chains (Madeline Bassett), newts (Gussie Fink-Nottle, who gets as tight as one, so finds himself in the clink, via a fountain in Trafalgar Square), and a plague of frogs.
In particular, I'd forgotten how much the plot has echoes of The Importance of Being Earnest (see my review HERE), tinged with Cyrano de Bergerac. It also meets Miss Prism’s definition of fiction, “The good end happily, and the bad unhappily”. Bertie does a tally of sundered and reunited hearts at the end, though of course, there’s no one really bad.
Jokes
Bertie tells a really weak joke (deaf people mishearing Wembley/Wednesday, Thursday/thirsty). What makes it funny is his trying to explain it, on two separate occasions, killing it deader than a dead horse on St Beatings Day.
Even better is the Malapropian exchange between Bertie and Jeeves:
“‘What’s that tiling of Shakespeare’s about someone having an eye like Mother’s?’
‘An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, is possibly the quotation for which you are groping sir.’”
There’s a subtler and sadder sort of running joke in this 1949 novel: repeated lampooning of the triviality of Christopher Robin poems versus the more exciting comic poem about Ben Battle (Faithless Nelly Gray). AA Milne was a prominent and vocal critic of Wodehouse’s innocuous but ill-advised broadcasts when he was interned by the Germans in France, as a result of which, he moved to the US and never returned to the UK.
Four Walls
Bertie, acknowledging his reputation as a “resilient sort of bimbo”, narrates. He’s conscious of “my public” and the fact that “there are always new members coming along”, so tailors his telling “for family consumption”. Nevertheless, it’s not the most suitable story for maiden aunts who may be turned into the giddy variety.
Quotes vs Plot
Wodehouse writes wonderfully and skilfully entangled plots, and this is no exception. But it’s the creative descriptions I especially love. The style continues with Blackadder and his sidekick, Baldrick.
Image: “'Jeeves,' I said, 'I'm in a bit of a difficulty.'” (Source.)
Quotes about Appearance
• “The only occupant of the more posh saloon bar was a godlike man in a bowler hat with grave, finely chiselled features and a head that stuck out at the back, indicating great brain power. To cut a long story short, Jeeves. He was having a meditative beer at the table by the wall.”
• “She is the sloppiest, mushiest, sentimentalest young Gawd-help-us who ever thought the stars were God’s daisy chain and that every time a fairy hiccoughs a wee baby is born… Her favourite reading is Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.”
• “A broad-shouldered bozo of about thirty, with one of those faces… known as Byronic. He looked like a combination of a poet and an all-in wrestler.”
• “A tall, drooping man, looking as if he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist”
• “Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp’.”
Quotes about Mood, Expression, Behaviour
• "A sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon."
• “The tense, set expression on my face, rather like that of a starving wolf giving a Russian peasant the once-over.”
• “Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a Dying Rooster.”
• “He withdrew, walking on the tips of his toes and conveying in his manner the suggestion that if he had had a hat and that hat had contained roses, he would have started strewing them from it.”
• “Jeeves… had… described him as disgruntled, and it was plain at a glance that the passage of time had done nothing to gruntle him.”
• (A variant of the more quoted line from The Code of the Woosters a decade earlier, “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”.)
• “I made for it like a man on a walking tour diving into a village pub two minutes before closing time.”
Quotes about Aunts
• “As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention.”
• “It is bad to be trapped in a den of slavering aunts, lashing their tails and glaring at you out of their red eyes.”
• “In this life it is not aunts that matter, but the courage that one brings to them.”
• Other Quotes
• “Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to sock me on the occiput.”
• “It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.” show less
Right ho, what never fails to ginger up the old vim? Wodehouse, of course. This is tip top Plum fun, with nary a hoppity-hoppity-hop to impede the pleasure.
Image: Programme for Edward Duke’s solo show ″Jeeves Takes Charge″, which I was fortunate to see in my late teens (Source.)
What it’s Got
“This is springtime, Bertie, the mating season, when, as you probably know, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove and a young man’s fancy lightly turns show more to thoughts of love.”
This has all the expected Wodehousian joys of Jeeves, Bertie, more than the usual number of awful aunts (five + Aunt Agatha), disguises, mistaken identity, tangled wooing, a country house, a country parson, a jobsworth copper, Haddock’s Headache Hokies, a talent show, a plot summary of a Rosie M Banks romance, Haddock (Esmond), Catsmeat (Pirbright), God’s daisy chains (Madeline Bassett), newts (Gussie Fink-Nottle, who gets as tight as one, so finds himself in the clink, via a fountain in Trafalgar Square), and a plague of frogs.
In particular, I'd forgotten how much the plot has echoes of The Importance of Being Earnest (see my review HERE), tinged with Cyrano de Bergerac. It also meets Miss Prism’s definition of fiction, “The good end happily, and the bad unhappily”. Bertie does a tally of sundered and reunited hearts at the end, though of course, there’s no one really bad.
Jokes
Bertie tells a really weak joke (deaf people mishearing Wembley/Wednesday, Thursday/thirsty). What makes it funny is his trying to explain it, on two separate occasions, killing it deader than a dead horse on St Beatings Day.
Even better is the Malapropian exchange between Bertie and Jeeves:
“‘What’s that tiling of Shakespeare’s about someone having an eye like Mother’s?’
‘An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, is possibly the quotation for which you are groping sir.’”
There’s a subtler and sadder sort of running joke in this 1949 novel: repeated lampooning of the triviality of Christopher Robin poems versus the more exciting comic poem about Ben Battle (Faithless Nelly Gray). AA Milne was a prominent and vocal critic of Wodehouse’s innocuous but ill-advised broadcasts when he was interned by the Germans in France, as a result of which, he moved to the US and never returned to the UK.
Four Walls
Bertie, acknowledging his reputation as a “resilient sort of bimbo”, narrates. He’s conscious of “my public” and the fact that “there are always new members coming along”, so tailors his telling “for family consumption”. Nevertheless, it’s not the most suitable story for maiden aunts who may be turned into the giddy variety.
Quotes vs Plot
Wodehouse writes wonderfully and skilfully entangled plots, and this is no exception. But it’s the creative descriptions I especially love. The style continues with Blackadder and his sidekick, Baldrick.
Image: “'Jeeves,' I said, 'I'm in a bit of a difficulty.'” (Source.)
Quotes about Appearance
• “The only occupant of the more posh saloon bar was a godlike man in a bowler hat with grave, finely chiselled features and a head that stuck out at the back, indicating great brain power. To cut a long story short, Jeeves. He was having a meditative beer at the table by the wall.”
• “She is the sloppiest, mushiest, sentimentalest young Gawd-help-us who ever thought the stars were God’s daisy chain and that every time a fairy hiccoughs a wee baby is born… Her favourite reading is Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.”
• “A broad-shouldered bozo of about thirty, with one of those faces… known as Byronic. He looked like a combination of a poet and an all-in wrestler.”
• “A tall, drooping man, looking as if he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist”
• “Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp’.”
Quotes about Mood, Expression, Behaviour
• "A sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon."
• “The tense, set expression on my face, rather like that of a starving wolf giving a Russian peasant the once-over.”
• “Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a Dying Rooster.”
• “He withdrew, walking on the tips of his toes and conveying in his manner the suggestion that if he had had a hat and that hat had contained roses, he would have started strewing them from it.”
• “Jeeves… had… described him as disgruntled, and it was plain at a glance that the passage of time had done nothing to gruntle him.”
• (A variant of the more quoted line from The Code of the Woosters a decade earlier, “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”.)
• “I made for it like a man on a walking tour diving into a village pub two minutes before closing time.”
Quotes about Aunts
• “As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention.”
• “It is bad to be trapped in a den of slavering aunts, lashing their tails and glaring at you out of their red eyes.”
• “In this life it is not aunts that matter, but the courage that one brings to them.”
• Other Quotes
• “Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to sock me on the occiput.”
• “It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.” show less
Good Wodehouse.
> As I put hat on hat-peg and umbrella in umbrella-stand, I was thinking that if God wasn't in His heaven and all right with the world, these conditions prevailed as near as made no matter. Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to soak me on the occiput.
> This young prune is one of those lissom girls of medium height, constructed on the lines of Gertrude Lawrence, and her map had always been worth more than a passing glance. In repose, it has a sort of meditative expression, as if she were a pure white soul thinking beautiful thoughts, and, when animated, so dashed animated that it boosts the morale just to look at her. show more Her eyes are a kind of browny hazel and her hair rather along the same lines. The general effect is of an angel who eats lots of yeast. In fine, if you were called upon to pick something to be cast on a desert island with, Hedy Lamarr might be your first choice, but Corky Pirbright would inevitably come high up in the list of Hon. Mentions.
> I subjected Catsmeat to a keen glance. I am told by those who know that there are six varieties of hangover - the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer, and the Gremlin Boogie, and his manner suggested that he had got them all. "So you were lathered last night?" I said. "I was perhaps a mite polluted," he admitted.
> She took his head in both hands and shook it, causing him to shoot ceilingwards, this time with a cry so little stifled that it rang through the room like the death rattle of a hundred expiring hyenas.
> "So!" he said, and his voice was cold and hard, like a picnic egg … She drove off, Gussie standing gaping after her transfixed, like a goldfish staring at an ant's egg. … He had been standing with a rather morose expression on his face, like an elephant that has had its bun taken from it… At the outset he listened dumbly, his eyes bulging, his lips moving like those of a salmon in the spawning season… He must have noticed the tense, set expression on my face, rather like that of a starving wolf giving a Russian peasant the once-over
> I levered up a forkful of kipper and passed it absently over the larynx, endeavouring to adjust the faculties to a set-up which even the most intrepid would have had to admit was a honey.
> And as the days went by, these unsettled outlooks became more unsettled, those V-shaped depressions even V-er… No, the root of the trouble, the thing that was giving me dizzy spells and night sweats and making me look like the poor bit of human wreckage in the "before taking" pictures in the advertisements of Haddock's Headache Hokies, was the sinister behaviour of Gussie Fink-Nottle . Contemplating Gussie, I found my soul darkened by a nameless fear. I don't know if you have ever had your soul darkened, by a nameless fear. It's a most unpleasant feeling.
> As I walked, I was thinking hard and bitter thought; of Corky, the fons et origo, if you know what I mean by fons et origo, of all the trouble.
> I had almost permanently now a fluttering sensation at the pit of the stomach, as if I had recendy swallowed far more mice than I could have wished… The mice in my interior had how got up an informal dance and were buck-and-winging all over the place like a bunch of Nijinskys… The floor seemed to heave beneath me like a stage sea. The mice, which since that letter sequence and the subsequent chat with Corky had been taking a breather, sprang into renewed activity, as if starting teaming for some athletic sports.
> There are letters which sow doubts as to whether this bit here couldn't have been rather more neatly phrased and that bit there gingered up a trifle, and other letters of which you say to yourself "This is the goods. Don't alter a word". This was one of the latter letters.
> "No, Catsmeat, The code of the Woosters restrains me. The code of the Woosters is more rigid than the code of the Catsmeats. A Wooster cannot open a telegram addressed to another, even if for the moment he is that other, if you see what I mean. I'll have to submit them to Gussie." … The catch about the code of the Woosters is that if you start examining it with a couple of telegrams staring you in the face, one of them almost certainly containing news of vital import, you find yourself after a while beginning to wonder if it's really so hot, after all. I mean to say, the thought creeps in that maybe, if one did but know, the Woosters are priceless asses to let themselves be ruled by a code like that … Ask the first lion cub you meet, and it will tell you that, once you've tasted blood, there is no pulling up, and it's the same with opening telegrams… I could no more stop myself opening it than you can stop yourself eating another salted almond.
> Yes, that was the torpedo that exploded under my hows, and I had the feeling you get sometimes that some practical joker has suddenly removed all the bones from your legs, substituting for them an unsatisfactory jelly.
> It is a pretty well established fact that the heart bowed down with weight of woe to weakest hope will cling, and that's what mine did
> I found myself musing, as I have so often had occasion to do, on the callous way in which Nature refuses to chip in and do its bit when the human heart is in the soup. Though howling hurricanes and driving rainstorms would have been a more suitable accompaniment to the run of the action, the morning - or morn, if you prefer to string along with Aunt Charlotte - was bright and fair… Did Nature care? Not a hoot. The sky continued blue, and the fatheaded sun which I have mentioned shone smilingly throughout.
> The room in which I found myself was bright and cheerful, in which respect it differed substantially from Bertram Wooster.
> Presently, unable to stand the sight of him any longer, I turned away and began to pace the room like some caged creature of the wild, the only difference being that whereas a caged creature of the wild would not have bumped into and come within a toucher of upsetting a small table with a silver cup, a golf ball in a glass case and a large framed photograph on it, I did.
> My heart, ceasing to stand still, gave a leap and tried to get out through my front teeth.
> "I tell you, Jeeves, the spirits are low. I don't know if you have ever been tied hand and foot to a chair in front of a barrel of gunpowder with an inch of lighted candle on top of it?"
> It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.
> I have spoken earlier of the tendency of the spirit of the Woosters to rise when crushed to earth, but there is a limit, and this limit had now been reached. At these frightful words, the spirit of the Woosters felt as if it had been sat on by an elephant. And not one of your streamlined, schoolgirl-figured elephants, either. A big, fat one.
> "I noticed, Jeeves, that when I started telling you the bad news just now, one of your eyebrows flickered." "Yes, sir. I was much exercised."
> "I am not sanguine. It would mean that Fate was handing out lucky breaks, and my experience of Fate-" I would have spoken further and probably been pretty deepish, for the subject of Fate and its consistent tendency to give good men the elbow was one to which I had devoted considerable thought…
> There come times in a man's life when he rather tends to think only of self, and I must confess that the anguish of the above tortured souls was almost completely thrust into the background of my consciousness by the reflection that Fate after a rocky start had at last done the square thing by Bertram Wooster. My mental attitude, in short, was about that of an African explorer who by prompt shinning up a tree has just contrived to elude a quick-tempered crocodile and gathers from a series of shrieks below that his faithful native bearer had not been so fortunate. I mean to say he mourns, no doubt, as he listens to the doings, but though his heart may bleed, he cannot help his primary emotion being one of sober relief that, however sticky life may have become for native bearers, he, personally, is sitting on top of the world.
> In dishing up this narrative for family consumption, it has been my constant aim throughout to get the right word in the right place and to avoid fobbing the customers off with something weak and inexpressive when they have a right to expect the telling phrase. It means a bit of extra work, but one has one's code. We will therefore expunge that "came" at the conclusion of the previous spasm and substitute for it "curvetted".
> Constable Dobbs's was not a face that lent itself readily to any great display of emotion. It looked as if it had been carved out of some hard kind of wood by a sculptor who had studied at a Correspondence School and had got to about Lesson Three. show less
> As I put hat on hat-peg and umbrella in umbrella-stand, I was thinking that if God wasn't in His heaven and all right with the world, these conditions prevailed as near as made no matter. Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to soak me on the occiput.
> This young prune is one of those lissom girls of medium height, constructed on the lines of Gertrude Lawrence, and her map had always been worth more than a passing glance. In repose, it has a sort of meditative expression, as if she were a pure white soul thinking beautiful thoughts, and, when animated, so dashed animated that it boosts the morale just to look at her. show more Her eyes are a kind of browny hazel and her hair rather along the same lines. The general effect is of an angel who eats lots of yeast. In fine, if you were called upon to pick something to be cast on a desert island with, Hedy Lamarr might be your first choice, but Corky Pirbright would inevitably come high up in the list of Hon. Mentions.
> I subjected Catsmeat to a keen glance. I am told by those who know that there are six varieties of hangover - the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer, and the Gremlin Boogie, and his manner suggested that he had got them all. "So you were lathered last night?" I said. "I was perhaps a mite polluted," he admitted.
> She took his head in both hands and shook it, causing him to shoot ceilingwards, this time with a cry so little stifled that it rang through the room like the death rattle of a hundred expiring hyenas.
> "So!" he said, and his voice was cold and hard, like a picnic egg … She drove off, Gussie standing gaping after her transfixed, like a goldfish staring at an ant's egg. … He had been standing with a rather morose expression on his face, like an elephant that has had its bun taken from it… At the outset he listened dumbly, his eyes bulging, his lips moving like those of a salmon in the spawning season… He must have noticed the tense, set expression on my face, rather like that of a starving wolf giving a Russian peasant the once-over
> I levered up a forkful of kipper and passed it absently over the larynx, endeavouring to adjust the faculties to a set-up which even the most intrepid would have had to admit was a honey.
> And as the days went by, these unsettled outlooks became more unsettled, those V-shaped depressions even V-er… No, the root of the trouble, the thing that was giving me dizzy spells and night sweats and making me look like the poor bit of human wreckage in the "before taking" pictures in the advertisements of Haddock's Headache Hokies, was the sinister behaviour of Gussie Fink-Nottle . Contemplating Gussie, I found my soul darkened by a nameless fear. I don't know if you have ever had your soul darkened, by a nameless fear. It's a most unpleasant feeling.
> As I walked, I was thinking hard and bitter thought; of Corky, the fons et origo, if you know what I mean by fons et origo, of all the trouble.
> I had almost permanently now a fluttering sensation at the pit of the stomach, as if I had recendy swallowed far more mice than I could have wished… The mice in my interior had how got up an informal dance and were buck-and-winging all over the place like a bunch of Nijinskys… The floor seemed to heave beneath me like a stage sea. The mice, which since that letter sequence and the subsequent chat with Corky had been taking a breather, sprang into renewed activity, as if starting teaming for some athletic sports.
> There are letters which sow doubts as to whether this bit here couldn't have been rather more neatly phrased and that bit there gingered up a trifle, and other letters of which you say to yourself "This is the goods. Don't alter a word". This was one of the latter letters.
> "No, Catsmeat, The code of the Woosters restrains me. The code of the Woosters is more rigid than the code of the Catsmeats. A Wooster cannot open a telegram addressed to another, even if for the moment he is that other, if you see what I mean. I'll have to submit them to Gussie." … The catch about the code of the Woosters is that if you start examining it with a couple of telegrams staring you in the face, one of them almost certainly containing news of vital import, you find yourself after a while beginning to wonder if it's really so hot, after all. I mean to say, the thought creeps in that maybe, if one did but know, the Woosters are priceless asses to let themselves be ruled by a code like that … Ask the first lion cub you meet, and it will tell you that, once you've tasted blood, there is no pulling up, and it's the same with opening telegrams… I could no more stop myself opening it than you can stop yourself eating another salted almond.
> Yes, that was the torpedo that exploded under my hows, and I had the feeling you get sometimes that some practical joker has suddenly removed all the bones from your legs, substituting for them an unsatisfactory jelly.
> It is a pretty well established fact that the heart bowed down with weight of woe to weakest hope will cling, and that's what mine did
> I found myself musing, as I have so often had occasion to do, on the callous way in which Nature refuses to chip in and do its bit when the human heart is in the soup. Though howling hurricanes and driving rainstorms would have been a more suitable accompaniment to the run of the action, the morning - or morn, if you prefer to string along with Aunt Charlotte - was bright and fair… Did Nature care? Not a hoot. The sky continued blue, and the fatheaded sun which I have mentioned shone smilingly throughout.
> The room in which I found myself was bright and cheerful, in which respect it differed substantially from Bertram Wooster.
> Presently, unable to stand the sight of him any longer, I turned away and began to pace the room like some caged creature of the wild, the only difference being that whereas a caged creature of the wild would not have bumped into and come within a toucher of upsetting a small table with a silver cup, a golf ball in a glass case and a large framed photograph on it, I did.
> My heart, ceasing to stand still, gave a leap and tried to get out through my front teeth.
> "I tell you, Jeeves, the spirits are low. I don't know if you have ever been tied hand and foot to a chair in front of a barrel of gunpowder with an inch of lighted candle on top of it?"
> It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.
> I have spoken earlier of the tendency of the spirit of the Woosters to rise when crushed to earth, but there is a limit, and this limit had now been reached. At these frightful words, the spirit of the Woosters felt as if it had been sat on by an elephant. And not one of your streamlined, schoolgirl-figured elephants, either. A big, fat one.
> "I noticed, Jeeves, that when I started telling you the bad news just now, one of your eyebrows flickered." "Yes, sir. I was much exercised."
> "I am not sanguine. It would mean that Fate was handing out lucky breaks, and my experience of Fate-" I would have spoken further and probably been pretty deepish, for the subject of Fate and its consistent tendency to give good men the elbow was one to which I had devoted considerable thought…
> There come times in a man's life when he rather tends to think only of self, and I must confess that the anguish of the above tortured souls was almost completely thrust into the background of my consciousness by the reflection that Fate after a rocky start had at last done the square thing by Bertram Wooster. My mental attitude, in short, was about that of an African explorer who by prompt shinning up a tree has just contrived to elude a quick-tempered crocodile and gathers from a series of shrieks below that his faithful native bearer had not been so fortunate. I mean to say he mourns, no doubt, as he listens to the doings, but though his heart may bleed, he cannot help his primary emotion being one of sober relief that, however sticky life may have become for native bearers, he, personally, is sitting on top of the world.
> In dishing up this narrative for family consumption, it has been my constant aim throughout to get the right word in the right place and to avoid fobbing the customers off with something weak and inexpressive when they have a right to expect the telling phrase. It means a bit of extra work, but one has one's code. We will therefore expunge that "came" at the conclusion of the previous spasm and substitute for it "curvetted".
> Constable Dobbs's was not a face that lent itself readily to any great display of emotion. It looked as if it had been carved out of some hard kind of wood by a sculptor who had studied at a Correspondence School and had got to about Lesson Three. show less
Oh, Wodehouse. Always delightful, ever reliable. In contrast to the short stories, whose prime focus is on wit and joie de vivre, the Jeeves and Wooster novels give the author a chance to showcase his tight plotting skills. The barrage of mistaken identities and double-crossing - which reached an apex in The Code of the Woosters - makes The Mating Season (the 5th of 11 novels) another blissful Bertie Wooster romp. Almost a contrast to the following novel, Ring for Jeeves, in which Wooster doesn't appear, this book gives Jeeves a very minor role, but he isn't missed among the outstanding supporting cast. Top marks particularly to any moments involving Madeleine Bassett, and to the uproarious provincial variety night.
The later novels, show more starting here, expose the "floating timeline" Wodehouse used in his works.
Published in 1949, after Wodehouse had been permanently exiled from the UK to the USA because of his wartime activities with the Germans, the author has his characters making reference to developments of the current era and speaking much more forthrightly than when the series premiered 30 years earlier. Yet in other ways, life for the characters hasn't changed much (and they're definitely not 30 years older). It's reminiscent of Hercule Poirot's unusual aging process, but with a kind of willful playfulness.
A gem of a book from one of my favourite frothy comedy series of all time. show less
The later novels, show more starting here, expose the "floating timeline" Wodehouse used in his works.
Published in 1949, after Wodehouse had been permanently exiled from the UK to the USA because of his wartime activities with the Germans, the author has his characters making reference to developments of the current era and speaking much more forthrightly than when the series premiered 30 years earlier. Yet in other ways, life for the characters hasn't changed much (and they're definitely not 30 years older). It's reminiscent of Hercule Poirot's unusual aging process, but with a kind of willful playfulness.
A gem of a book from one of my favourite frothy comedy series of all time. show less
I’ve spent a lifetime not reading P.G. Wodehouse. Too artificial, too contrived, too cosy. I was adamant on the matter. Having, over the last couple of years, taken the radical step of actually reading some of his books, I am happy to confirm that the rest of the world was correct when they said Wodehouse is one of the most entertaining writers who ever drew breath.
I can also attest that Wodehouse on the page is much better than any of the various television adaptations. I say this with the total authority of a man who has never watched any of the various television adaptations. It’s a safe bet, though, as the greatness of Wodehouse lies in the narrative voice and that’s a tricky thing to replicate on the telly. This man was a show more poet wearing cap ‘n’ bells. Words? He made them dance.
He could also whip up a delightful soufflé of a farcical plot with the best of them. This one concerns the course of true love never running smooth and a gaggle of obligatory fearsome aunts at the equally obligatory country house. For the purposes of the obligatory labyrinthine plot, Wooster arrives at Deverill Hall pretending to be Augustus Fink-Nottle followed by Fink-Nottle pretending to be Wooster. The expected hilarious, not to mention convoluted, consequences ensue.
The world of Jeeves and Wooster never existed so it never dates. Wodehouse creates a prelapsarian world peopled with benign characters (‘fearsome aunts’ very much included) and renders it blissfully funny. No mean feat and, given the cynicism and darkness of much of what passes as contemporary comedy, a blessed relief. show less
I can also attest that Wodehouse on the page is much better than any of the various television adaptations. I say this with the total authority of a man who has never watched any of the various television adaptations. It’s a safe bet, though, as the greatness of Wodehouse lies in the narrative voice and that’s a tricky thing to replicate on the telly. This man was a show more poet wearing cap ‘n’ bells. Words? He made them dance.
He could also whip up a delightful soufflé of a farcical plot with the best of them. This one concerns the course of true love never running smooth and a gaggle of obligatory fearsome aunts at the equally obligatory country house. For the purposes of the obligatory labyrinthine plot, Wooster arrives at Deverill Hall pretending to be Augustus Fink-Nottle followed by Fink-Nottle pretending to be Wooster. The expected hilarious, not to mention convoluted, consequences ensue.
The world of Jeeves and Wooster never existed so it never dates. Wodehouse creates a prelapsarian world peopled with benign characters (‘fearsome aunts’ very much included) and renders it blissfully funny. No mean feat and, given the cynicism and darkness of much of what passes as contemporary comedy, a blessed relief. show less
‘Still,’ I said, feeling that it was worth trying, ‘it’s part of the great web, what?’
‘Great web?’
‘One of Marcus Aurelius’s cracks. He said: “Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.”’
From the brusque manner in which he damned and blasted Marcus Aurelius, I gathered that, just as had happened when Jeeves sprang it on me, the gag had failed to bring balm. I hadn’t had much hope that it would. I doubt, as a matter of fact, if Marcus Aurelius’s material is ever the stuff to give the troops at a moment when they have just stubbed their toe on the brick of Fate. You want to wait till the agony show more has abated.
This was ridiculously good fun. I love Jeeves and Wooster series but some stories are better than others, and this was one of the best ones. Dare I say, it was on the same level as the one with Aunt Dahlia and the cow creamer? I like that one, too.
Anyway, in this one Bertie is trying to help a couple of his friends to untangle some obstacles in their love lives, and of course, just makes it worse. What stood out from the start in this one, however, is that Bertie is not just having to deal with one of his own aunts, but also no less than five aunts of one of his friends' betrothed...and five aunts is really more than anyone should be expected to deal with.
While there is slapstick galore in this story, we also get to see Bertie from new angles. For example, we learn that he - as many of us do - resorts to reading to calm his nerves:
"I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea." show less
‘Great web?’
‘One of Marcus Aurelius’s cracks. He said: “Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.”’
From the brusque manner in which he damned and blasted Marcus Aurelius, I gathered that, just as had happened when Jeeves sprang it on me, the gag had failed to bring balm. I hadn’t had much hope that it would. I doubt, as a matter of fact, if Marcus Aurelius’s material is ever the stuff to give the troops at a moment when they have just stubbed their toe on the brick of Fate. You want to wait till the agony show more has abated.
This was ridiculously good fun. I love Jeeves and Wooster series but some stories are better than others, and this was one of the best ones. Dare I say, it was on the same level as the one with Aunt Dahlia and the cow creamer? I like that one, too.
Anyway, in this one Bertie is trying to help a couple of his friends to untangle some obstacles in their love lives, and of course, just makes it worse. What stood out from the start in this one, however, is that Bertie is not just having to deal with one of his own aunts, but also no less than five aunts of one of his friends' betrothed...and five aunts is really more than anyone should be expected to deal with.
While there is slapstick galore in this story, we also get to see Bertie from new angles. For example, we learn that he - as many of us do - resorts to reading to calm his nerves:
"I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea." show less
Wodehouse is sublime.
The scenes that will stick with me most are Gussie, in cross talk-act garb of checked suit and fake red beard, being chased across a field by the village constable, and Poppy Kegley-Bassington's modern dance ... "It consisted of a series of slitherings and writhings, punctuated with occasional pauses when, having got herself tied in a clove-hitch, she seemed to be waiting for someone who remembered the combination to come along and disentangle her."
The scenes that will stick with me most are Gussie, in cross talk-act garb of checked suit and fake red beard, being chased across a field by the village constable, and Poppy Kegley-Bassington's modern dance ... "It consisted of a series of slitherings and writhings, punctuated with occasional pauses when, having got herself tied in a clove-hitch, she seemed to be waiting for someone who remembered the combination to come along and disentangle her."
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Mating Season
Series: Jeeves Omnibus #3.2
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 304
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
2 of Bertie Wooster's friends get in a spot of trouble. To prevent the fiance of one of them finding out, Bertie fills in for Friend One and pretends to be him down in the country. Friend Two pretends to be Bertie's serving man. Then shenanigans and Friend One shows up pretending to be Bertie. A show more Country Squire, a local policeman, several young ladies and a gaggle of Aunts are thrown into the mix.
Jeeves stirs everything, bakes it just right and from a gloopy mess comes a beautiful bunt cake complete with happy endings for just about everyone.
My Thoughts:
This was very much a situation of “The Right Book at the Right Time”. If I ever re-read this, I highly doubt I'll rate it this high again. It was pretty much on par with most of the Jeeves books that have come before but this time I just laughed at almost every chapter.
Where does Wodehouse come up with the names he does? Finknoddle, Catsmeat, etc. They fit perfectly with Bertie's personality and the situations he gets himself into. Jeeves was very much in the background for this book and it allowed Bertie to trample all over the story like a drunken elephant. It was glorious!
And to top it all off, Jeeves koshes a policeman on the back of the head. How great is that?
From the title, you can tell that a lot of young people are falling in and out of love at a moments notice and the story is driven by that force. While I did feel an occasional eye roll coming on, Wodehouse masterfully turned each instance of that into a very humorous situation. So far, I've usually been a fan of the short story collections that make up a Jeeves & Wooster book but this time, the novel length story actually worked for me.
★★★★½ show less
Title: The Mating Season
Series: Jeeves Omnibus #3.2
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 304
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
2 of Bertie Wooster's friends get in a spot of trouble. To prevent the fiance of one of them finding out, Bertie fills in for Friend One and pretends to be him down in the country. Friend Two pretends to be Bertie's serving man. Then shenanigans and Friend One shows up pretending to be Bertie. A show more Country Squire, a local policeman, several young ladies and a gaggle of Aunts are thrown into the mix.
Jeeves stirs everything, bakes it just right and from a gloopy mess comes a beautiful bunt cake complete with happy endings for just about everyone.
My Thoughts:
This was very much a situation of “The Right Book at the Right Time”. If I ever re-read this, I highly doubt I'll rate it this high again. It was pretty much on par with most of the Jeeves books that have come before but this time I just laughed at almost every chapter.
Where does Wodehouse come up with the names he does? Finknoddle, Catsmeat, etc. They fit perfectly with Bertie's personality and the situations he gets himself into. Jeeves was very much in the background for this book and it allowed Bertie to trample all over the story like a drunken elephant. It was glorious!
And to top it all off, Jeeves koshes a policeman on the back of the head. How great is that?
From the title, you can tell that a lot of young people are falling in and out of love at a moments notice and the story is driven by that force. While I did feel an occasional eye roll coming on, Wodehouse masterfully turned each instance of that into a very humorous situation. So far, I've usually been a fan of the short story collections that make up a Jeeves & Wooster book but this time, the novel length story actually worked for me.
★★★★½ show less
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Author Information
P. G. Wodehouse was born in Guildford, United Kingdom on October 15, 1881. After completing school, he spent two years as a banker at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in London and then took a job as a sports reporter and columnist for the Globe newspaper. His first novel, The Pothunters, was published in 1902. He wrote over 100 novels and short show more story collections during his lifetime including A Perfect Uncle, Love Among the Chickens, The Swoop, P. Smith in the City, Meet Mr. Milliner, Doctor Sally, Quick Service, The Old Reliable, Uneasy Money, A Damsel in Distress, Jill the Reckless, The Adventures of Sally, A Pelican at Blandings, The Girl in Blue, and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen. His most famous characters, Bertie Wooster and his manservant, Jeeves, appeared in books such as Much Obliged, Jeeves. He also wrote lyrics for musical comedies and worked as screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s. In 1939, he bought a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France. He remained there when World War II started in 1939. The following year, the Germans appropriated the villa, confiscated property, and arrested him. He was detained in various German camps for almost one year before being released in 1941. He went to Berlin and spoke of his experience in five radio talks to be broadcast to America and England. The talks themselves were completely innocuous, but he was charged with treason in England. He was cleared, but settled permanently in the United States. He became a citizen in 1955. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1975. He died from a heart attack after a long illness on February 14, 1975 at the age of 93. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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GUM [Mursia] (176)
Perennial Library (P659)
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Is contained in
The Jeeves Omnibus: No. 3 (Very Good, Jeeves! ; The Mating Season ; Ring for Jeeves) by P. G. Wodehouse
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Gussie en Katvis
- Original title
- The mating season
- Alternate titles
- Jeeves and Bertie Wooster (Original US Title) (Original US Title)
- Original publication date
- 1949
- People/Characters
- Bertram Wilberforce Wooster; Reginald Jeeves; Gussie Fink-Nottle; Cora "Corky" Pirbright; Catsmeat Potter Pirbright (Claude Cattermole Pirbright); Agatha Gregson (show all 13); Esmond Haddock; Charles Silversmith; Gertrude Winkworth; Madeline Bassett; Thomas Gregson; Constable Dobbs; Queenie
- Important places
- Deverill Hall, King's Deverill, Hampshire, England, UK
- First words
- While I would not go so far, perhaps, as to describe the heart as actually leaden, I must confess that on the eve of starting to do my bit of time at Deverill Hall I was definitely short on chirpiness.
- Quotations
- She didn't like him being an atheist, and he wouldn't stop being an atheist, and finally he said something about Jonah and the Whale which it was impossible for her to overlook. This morning she returned the ring, his letters... (show all) and a china ornament with `A Present From Blackpool' on it which he had brought her last summer while visiting relatives in the north.
On the cue 'five aunts' I had given at the knees a trifle, for the thought of being confronted with such a solid gaggle of aunts, even if those of another, was an unnerving one. Reminding myself that in this life it is not au... (show all)nts that matter, but the courage that one brings to them, I pulled myself together. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I squared the shoulders and strode to the door, like Childe Roland about to fight the paynim.
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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