My Man Jeeves

Book two of the year is the P. G. Wodehouse classic, “My Man Jeeves.” This was a collection of short stories originally published between 1916 and 1919, and there are free e-book and HTML versions of the book available from both Project Gutenberg and from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the premise of the stories, the narrator is one Bertram Wooster (Bertie to his friends). He’s a young English aristocrat who is living in self-imposed exile in an apartment in New York. At some point in his past, he failed to keep his cousin from marrying an actress, so going back to England means facing his horrifying Aunt Agatha (she takes no comfort in the fact that her son is now an actor too, nor that he doing quite well on the stage). Bertie’s only contact with the civilizing comforts of home is his marvelously competent butler, Jeeves. And it’s a good thing that Jeeves is so incredibly competent, because Bertie is… well… stupid. He knows his limitations though.

I’m a bit short on brain myself; the old bean would appear to have been constructed more for ornament than for use, don’t you know; but give me five minutes to talk the thing over with Jeeves, and I’m game to advise any one about anything.

Wodehouse’s dialogue and narrative style is absolutely entrancing. Bertie Wooster’s lack of brain doesn’t seem to have hindered his gift of gab, and he cheerfully prattles on about his adventures. The only – and very slight – downside to “My Man Jeeves” is that there are a couple of non-Bertie-and-Jeeves stories in the collection. They’re good, and told in a similar narrative style, but their cast is not quite as interesting as the book’s main two characters.

I’m putting this book in as a solid recommendation as well, especially the free, electronic versions. Load it up on your iPod and take it to work, the short story format fits neatly into a fifteen minute break. And since it’ll cost you nothing, the only risk is that you’ll find yourself taking on the speech mannerisms of a nineteen-teens era British aristocrat.

Page Count: 132 in paperback.

Total Page Count: 321

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