Back to P. G. Wodehouse for the fifth book of 2010, and back to the scrambled master / servant dynamic of Bertie Wooster and his man Jeeves. This time it’s a full-length novel, rather than a collection of short stories, which means there’s fewer opportunities for Bertie to screw things up, but more time in which he can make sure that the screw-up is extremely thorough.
There are several parts of this book that are literally laugh-out-loud funny – much to the annoyance of my wife. Bertie remains hampered by delusions of competency, while Jeeves is so far beyond competent that he approaches some sort of supernatural ideal. Bertie Wooster also seems to think in a sort of collapsed shorthand of rapid and dissociated thoughts that Wodehouse expresses by abbreviating words out of nowhere. A brandy and soda becomes a “b. and s.” Unusual circumstances are “circs.” And cliche’d phrases and quotations are mercilessly chopped down to size:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–girls are rummy. Old Pop Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. of the s. being more d. than the m.
Overall, it’s a fun read and highly recommended. And once again, there are free versions of the book online from either Amazon or directly via Project Gutenberg.
Pages: 240 in paperback
Total page count: 1185