Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories

Having heard a lot of my fellow LTers rave about P. G. Wodehouse, I was eager to get to this collection of early Bertie and Jeeves stories. Maybe I was expecting too much. Like the reviewer below, I found them to be very repetitive. Wodehouse creates two memorable characters who, by now, have become archetypes: the rather easily flustered but always conscious that he needs to keep his cool young British man of the upper class, and his wise, all-knowing "man" who solves his dilemmas. Apparently young artistocrats falling for vaudeville ingenues was a popular trope of the time, since it appears in more than half of the stories.

In short, this was a quick, light read with some insight into the facade of the British upper class, but I show more probably won't be seeking out more books by Wodehouse. show less

I've just started reading Wodehouse and I'm gald I read one of the novels first. The stories in this collection aren't bad, but they do get a bit repetitive. Not surprising given that they were likely published over a period of time and the shortness tends to make the formula more noticeable.

On the other hand, there's what I consider to be an absolutely brilliant Jeeves story that's a nice twist on the character in "Jeeves in the Springtime". I don't want to ruin the surprise (which is somewhat guessable, but still fun). The problem being if you haven't read one or two of the novels you probably don't get how it steps out of character. (Or rather, appreciate it fro the brief glimpse you get into his character when he's not being the show more most incredible butler on earth.)

I'll probably pick a few more Wodehouse to people. I don't know though if I'd recommend this collection, except for the purposes of the short story I mention above. show less

Well, my first Wodehouse has come and gone and, to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. Not that I didn't like his style or sense of humour, but I'd heard so many good things about him here on LT that I can't help feeling that I've somehow missed something. Like the Universe has conspired to keep me from enjoying a perfectly good author. I enjoyed some parts of the book and it definitely had its funny moments. But, overall, the short stories were repetitive, both thematically and stylistically and included way too many one-dimensional characters, including the protagonists. The Wooster and Jeeves stories? Rich and idle Englishman's uncle/aunt threatens to cut his allowance if the fella' doesn't meet a particular request of said aunt or show more uncle's. He asks for help from another rich and idle gentleman, Bertie Wooster. His butler, Jeeves usually comes up with a plan and solves the problem. In exchange, Bertie gets rid of a particular clothing item that offends Jeeves's exquisite taste. Once it's an ugly suit, in another story, it's a moustache (okay, not a clothing item), in a different one a pair of socks. The Reggie Pepper stories? Almost the same plot, except this time he solves his friends' problems on his own, without any butler being dragged in. It's like the novelist is writing the same narrative over and over again. Of course, this is some of Wodehouse's earliest stuff we're talking about, so I'd say some faults are excusable to a certain degree. It's certainly not unusual for an author, especially a young one, to write the same story again and again until he perfects it. If the author later gains fame, all the variations of those stories are almost sure to find some greedy bastard willing to publish them. And I wish they wouldn't. Just because some authors' fans would even read their shopping lists, doesn't mean they should be given the chance to. If I wasn't so obsessed about finishing all books started if it kills me, I would've probably stopped midway through. And would've probably enjoyed the book more if I had. After a while, however, it felt extremely tiring reading almost identical plots narrated using an almost identical choice of words. I realize this was probably not the ideal Wodehouse to start with, so I'm not giving up on the chap just yet. Next time I'll try one of his novels - not least because it's trickier to find the same story ad nauseam in novel form :)

So, to conclude -
Didn't like: repetitive storylines, repetitive choice of words, one-dimensional characters, too high expectations that weren't met

Liked: witty, funny parts, very characteristic vocabulary and style (the words "chap" , "chump", "rummy", the adding of "-what?" after every sentence and the expression "wasn't it Shakespeare or some other smart chap that said..." are now part of my vocabulary. If I ever wanna do a Wodehouse imitation, I'll be able to pull it off now :P) show less

Not only does this have early Wooster and Jeeves stories----not sure it's all of them, though---but also, purportedly, the complete set of Reggie Pepper, a forerunner of Bertie Wooster, albeit without Jeeves. Most of the Reggie stories were new to me, making this a nice find.

Samansafn 8 fyrstu smásagnanna um treggáfaða yfirstéttarmanninn Bertie Wooster og trúfastan einkaþjón hans Jeeves sem hefur ráð undir rifi hverju. Hér má líka finna allar sögurnar um Reggie Pepper sem var fyrirmyndin að Wooster og nánast tvífari hans. Sögurnar eru margar stórfínar og skemmtilegar en eru því miður afskaplega keimlíkar.

I adore Jeeves and Bertie, but mostly I love Plum's wordplay.