1954 Club: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse

It is both amusing and amazing to me that P. G. Wodehouse was able to recycle his own plots and characters over the course of his seventy year writing career. By my count, I've now read 25 of his works, as novels and short story collections. Wodehouse tropes abound in Jeeves and The Feudal Spirit. I'm always looking for an excuse to read more Wodehouse, and the timing couldn't have been better as I could count it for Simon and Kaggsy's 1954 Club!  It runs this whole week from April 18 to 24. 

Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves return for their eleventh adventure and with them some beloved returning characters and situations. Somehow Bertie just never learns to avoid young upper-class women who want to marry him and mold him into respectability, their jealous ex-fiancés who want to sock him, and devious aunts who want him to commit petty crimes. Naturally the faithful Jeeves with his superior brain power is there to save the day (and Bertie's skin).

In this installment, Bertie has been summoned to help Aunt Dahlia out of yet another scrape -- she's desperately trying to unload her women's magazine, Milady's Boudoir, to a wealthy publisher, and has enlisted Bertie to help wine and dine him, in London and at Brinkley Court, her country estate. She has also tasked Bertie with picking up a pearl necklace for her in London from a jewelry store. Little does Bertie know that Aunt Dahlia has made a cheap copy of some extremely valuable pearls, which she has subsequently pawned to infuse cash into her insolvent periodical. She is in a panic because her husband Tom is planning on showing off the pearls to another weekend guest, Lord Sidcup, a supposed expert of antiques and jewelry.

Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and Nicholas Palliser as Stilton Cheesewright from the 1993 TV adaptation, the episode entitled "The Delayed Arrival." Jeeves does not approve of Bertie's mustache.

Bertie is also in the soup, so to speak, because the Brinkley Court guest list includes Florence Craye, a strong-willed young writer who has managed to entangle the unwitting Bertie into an unwanted engagement. She's on the rebound after jilting her overbearing fiancé, D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright, who has appeared to have it out with Florence and wring Bertie's neck. It also includes the aforementioned publisher, Trotter; his social-climbing wife; and his stepson, Percy Gorringe, a playwright who is adapting Florence's novel for the stage, and is madly in love with her. 

You always know what you are getting with Wodehouse, and therein lies the charm. I don't really want to time-travel to aristocratic England between the wars, but it would be amusing to be a fly on the wall and observe the hapless Bertie in all his slapstick charm. It honestly doesn't bother me that Wodehouse recycles plots and character types -- they're so beautifully drawn and so funny, just the thing if you need a light read, and who couldn't use some diversion right now? 

And now time for a little bonus Wodehouse! If you like musical theater, I strongly recommend watching the upcoming TV broadcast of Anything Goes, airing in the US this May on PBS Great Performances. It had a short run on the big screen in US theaters in March and I was lucky enough to go see it. It's a professionally shot recording of the 2021 West End production starring Sutton Foster (currently starring on Broadway in The Music Man). Wodehouse co-wrote the original book, lyrics by Cole Porter. The plot is classic Wodehouse, about wacky characters on an ocean liner in the 1930s. There are mobsters, star-crossed lovers, a ridiculous English lord, and an American cabaret singer, giving ample opportunity for hijinks and great musical numbers. It was an absolute joy to watch and I can't wait to watch it again. I suspect I'll save it on the DVR so I can watch the fabulous tap dancing numbers again and again. 

Here's the preview from Youtube: 

So -- my first read for the 1954 Club! I have two or three more I'd like to read for this event, hopefully I'll get through them all. What are you reading for the 1954 Club?

1956 Club: French Leave By P. G. Wodehouse

 

I've been reading a lot of P. G. Wodehouse lately and it occurred to me that it was very likely that he had published a book in 1956 that I could read for Simon and Kaggsy's 1956 Club! I depend on Wodehouse to cheer me up whenever I need a light read, and once again he came through with French Leave, a slight and amusing novel. 

This one digresses from the normal Wodehouse setting of London or the English countryside -- it's mostly set along the French coast, in fictional resort towns of Picardy and Brittany. The characters are primarily American and French and I don't think there's even a single English character which is very unusual for Wodehouse. 

But here's the setup. The book starts in America, on Long Island. The three Trent sisters, Kate, Jo and Teresa (known as Terry), are trying to make a go of a farm, selling eggs, milk, and honey, and having a pretty hard time of it. Conveniently, they have a windfall of $2000 each, and the two younger sisters, Jo and Terry, decide to risk it all on a trip to France, in search of millionaire husbands. Eldest sister Kate is aghast and is determined to go along as a chaperone. Jo and Terry will each pose as a wealthy American, with her sister playing her maid, for a month each. Jo goes first in Picardy but is unsuccessful and returns home; Terry continues to try her luck in St. Rocque.

Terry does meet up with some genuine millionaires, but she also meets the slightly shady and very broke Nicolas Jules St. Xavier Auguste, the Marquis de Maufringneuse et Valerie Mauberanne, also known as Old Nick. Old Nick is an impoverished French nobleman who prefers living off wealthy wives (he's had at least three), questionable business deals, and his son Jefferson, from his first marriage to a wealthy American. Jeff mostly lived with his mother in America but fought with the maquis, the French resistance, and has a dashing scar on his face to show for it. He's now a struggling writer who refuses to marry for money but is willing to help his father out of a tight spot. In return, Old Nick decides to set up his son with the delightful Terry Trent, whom he believes is loaded with American cash. 

Unfortunately this plot also includes spending time on a yacht with some other wealthy Americans, including Old Nick's second ex-wife Hermione Pegler, who believes that Terry is an adventuress (technically, she is) who will mess up her plans to marry off her niece Mavis. Mrs. Pegler wants to pair Mavis, a fizzy-water heiress, with Freddie Carpenter, another fizzy water millionaire (Mrs. Pegler owns considerable stock in both water companies, and hopes that a marriage between the two would be of financial and personal benefit). She thinks that Terry is after Fred's money, but Terry and Jeff are instantly smitten. The fact that neither of them has any money and assume the other one does leads to misunderstandings, tears, and a lot of physical comedic moments. This being a Wodehouse novel, everything comes right in the end. I can absolutely imagine adapted as a classic screwball comedy from the early 1950s. I recently watched Some Like it Hot and there are some elements that are similar -- wealthy Americans on yachts, husband-hunting, and characters climbing out of hotel windows.)

Not French, it's the historic Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego, California. It was the filming location for Some Like It Hot (which is actually set in Florida). 

I enjoyed French Leave, though it isn't a classic Wodehouse -- I think I've read 17 books by him so far, and I wouldn't count it among his best. There are some characters that seem superfluous, and some definite loose ends that are never resolved. However, it's a fun, short novel, and can easily be finished a day or maybe even one sitting (it would be perfect for a vacation read) -- preferably in a resort town on the coast of France. 

Thanks again to Simon and Kaggsy for hosting this event, can't wait to do it again next time! 

Something Fresh by P. G. Wodehouse: Silliness at Blandings Castle

 

After my visit to Second Story Books in Rockville last month, I realized that nearly all the unread P. G. Wodehouse in my home library were from his Blandings Castle series. I get twitchy about reading books in a series out of order (except for Zola), so I decided to track down the first novel, Something Fresh, first published in 1915 (titled Something New in the U.S.) It was available for digital audio download from my library, and since I was about to embark on a long car trip, it seemed like the perfect choice for a summer read. This book doesn't count for a single one of my reading challenges but it was a break from all the long books I'm reading this summer, and it is so delightful I had to write about it.

The story begins with a young man called Ashe Marson, a young writer of thrillers who is lodging in a cheap rental near Leicester Square in London (though I am sure it would shockingly expensive today). He has drawn the attention of a fellow lodger, Joan Valentine, because he is outside one morning doing calisthenics in the street. They get to talking and it is revealed that Joan is also a writer for the same cheap tabloid, and they both want to get out and do something more interesting (and profitable). 

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the hapless Freddie Threepwood, the second son of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. Freddie is in a tizzy because he has recently become engaged to a young heiress, Aline Peters, daughter of an American businessman. His father is pleased with the engagement, but Freddie is worried that he may be served with a breach-of-promise lawsuit from a pretty chorus girl. Freddie never actually met her but sent her flowers, letters, and poetry, which may have included a proposal. He fears that he may be subject to blackmail or even legal action. 

Then we have Lord Emsworth, a gruff yet lovable but extremely forgetful man, who is liable to steal the silverware from a restaurant as most people would walk off with a cheap ballpoint pen. Whilst visiting his future in-law Mr. Peters, the absent-minded Lord has unwittingly absconded with a valuable Egyptian artifact, a precious Cheops scarab, from Mr. Peters' collection. Mr. Peters will stop at nothing to get it back, including a large reward, and places an ad in the paper for a young man seeking a well-paid adventure, which attracts the attention of Ashe. 

All these characters converge on Blandings Castle for a fortnight's holiday in which everyone is trying to get their hands on the scarab, with the addition of various relatives, hangers-on, secretaries, and servants, and hilarity ensues (and even a little romance). If you're familiar with the Jeeves and Wooster stories, this is definitely in the same vein, especially the classic novel The Code of the Woosters (which also involves an artifact being stolen back). There is even a brief mention of an Emsworth relative named Algernon Wooster -- a precursor of Bertie, perhaps? 

This was the perfect book for a car trip, and I found myself laughing out loud multiple times. It was brilliantly narrated by Frederick Davidson, who does all the voices and accents beautifully (except for a few slips in his attempts at an American southern twang). Davidson also narrated the audio version of Les Miserables that I downloaded earlier this year, and his reading was a big part of keeping my interest for the 56 parts of the novel. He was a prolific narrator of more than 700 audiobooks and I think I could listen to him read a telephone book, if they still exist. 

I'm looking forward to more Blandings novels and maybe even the TV series, which I have yet to watch. Has anyone seen it? And which Wodehouse novels do you recommend? I've read several of the Jeeves and Wooster novels and some of the stand-alone novels. Next up in the Blandings series is Leave it to Psmith, which is #4 in that series, so I don't know if I should go back and start with Psmith #1 and jump back into Blandings. Does it really matter?

Plum Pie by P. G. Wodehouse

For my Back to the Classics Challenge, I needed a volume of short stories, so I turned to my own TBR shelves. Lately, I've been in dire need of fun, escapist reads, and P. G. Wodehouse has never let me down. I chose Plum Pie, a collection of nine stories. First published in 1966, it just made the cutoff for the challenge.

Wodehouse had an amazingly long publishing career -- his first novel The Pothunters was published in 1902; his last complete novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen was published an astonishing 72 years later, in 1974. Though Plum Pie is late in the Wodehouse oeuvre, it still has some stellar moments, and include some of his classic bits, including Jeeves and Wooster, a golf story, a Blandings story, and an Ukridge story.

By far my favorites from the collection were the first story, "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird," in which Jeeves and Aunt Agatha manage to disentangle Bertie from an unwanted engagement once again (seriously, how many times has Bertie inadvertently been betrothed?) and the final story, "Life with Freddie," which is really a 70-plus page novella about Freddie Threepwood of the Drones club. That one involves three different romantic entanglements on a cruise ship; smuggling an expensive diamond necklace to avoid paying stiff import taxes; and Freddie's attempts to land a dog biscuit account with a large department store executive. It's all very slapstick and silly and naturally it ends well for the majority of the characters (well, at least the ones I was rooting for).

Hugh Laurie as the hapless Bertie Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves in the brilliant ITV adaptation from the early 1990s.

I love Wodehouse but some of these stories seemed a bit tired and not very memorable, and I'm quite sure at least one of the stories had a recycled plot about a dog that was given away and had to be stolen back (I swear I've seen that story with Bertie Wooster and a Scottish terrier on the TV adaptation. Is it technically considered plagiarizing if a writer copies his own work?) And when will the members of the Drones club ever learn that it's a very bad idea to bet money on horse races -- especially money that they don't actually have?  However, even if the plots and themes are the same, Wodehouse nearly always manages to amuse me.

Most of the stories in this volume were previously published in magazines; also, there are some bits and pieces between the stories which I believe are excerpts from newspaper columns Wodehouse published in the U.S. They really didn't add much to the collection. However, lesser Wodehouse works are still funnier than most books and stories, so it wasn't a waste of time.

Overall, I'd say this is worth reading if you are a die-hard Wodehouse fan. If you're a Wodehouse beginner, I'd stick with some of the earlier Jeeves collections, like Very Good, Jeeves or The Code of the Woosters, both of which is are just brilliant. I've only read about a dozen of Wodehouse's works so I have plenty of books left before I run out, in which case I will start over from the beginning.

Bloggers, are any of you Wodehouse fans? Which are your favorites?

Frozen Assets by P. G. Wodehouse

My first book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015!!  I wanted to start out the year with a fun, quick read, and I have several unread books by P. G. Wodehouse on the TBR shelves -- just the thing.

Many people are familiar with the works of Wodehouse because of his most famous characters, Jeeves and Wooster, and the brilliant BBC adaptation starring Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as the hapless Bertie Wooster.  No Jeeves and Wooster in this book, but it's classic Wodehouse -- basically, a screwball comedy.  It starts out with a very funny scene in which Jerry Shoesmith, a young English journalist, is trying to report a lost wallet at a Paris police station.  The French policeman, who loves bureacracy, decides to make things difficult for poor Jerry, whose keys were also in the wallet, so he can't get back to his uncle's apartment for the night.  However, all is not lost, because Jerry runs into the beautiful Kay Christopher, an American whom he met on a ship a couple of years ago.  She's at the police station reporting the absence of her brother Edmund, also known as Biff.

Lo and behold, Biff has absconded back to London to avoid the French police.  It seems Biff has a tendency to get drunk and assault policemen.  However, back in London, he discovers that he's become a millionaire overnight, since his eccentric godfather has passed away and left him a fortune -- with strings attached.  It seems Biff has to stay out of trouble until his 30th birthday, which luckily is only a week away.  Unluckily, the fortune would then pass to his godfather's brother, Lord Tilbury, who just happens to be Jerry's former employer.  Tilbury will stop at nothing to get Biff in trouble and get his hands on the money.  Jerry wants to help Biff because he's in love with Kay, who unfortunately is already engaged to a stuffy British diplomat.

The book is short, but delightful, full of witty repartee and downright silliness.  There are love triangles and quadrangles, amazing coincidences, and a great recurring bit about missing trousers.  Being Wodehouse, it all comes right in the end.

Wodehouse wrote more than 70 books, over a period of about as many years.  Frozen Assets is fairly late, published in 1964 (so it just qualifies for the Back to the Classics Challenge), but the humor is timeless.  This was a perfect choice for my Humorous Classic category for the Back to the Classics Challenge.  Originally, I was planning on reading The Pickwick Papers, but it's nearly 800 pages so I'm saving that for my Very Long Classic.

Anyone else a Wodehouse fan?  Which are your favorites?  And has anyone else started on the Back to the Classics Challenge yet?

Jeeves and Wooster and P. G. Wodehouse

My latest obsession is Jeeves and Wooster by P.G. Wodehouse.  I was looking for DVDs that were family-friendly but didn't bore me to death and I thought the kids might enjoy these, especially since they got a hoot out of the audiobook version of Three Men in a Boat that we listened to in the car.

My youngest daughter especially has gotten a real kick out of the videos.  We liked them so much we bought the entire series in a box set, which we found for a great price at Costco.  It worked out to about $1 per episode, which is pretty good since I know we'll watch them over and over.  It's so fun to see Hugh Laurie in his pre-House days, and Stephen Fry is just brilliant as Jeeves.  We particularly enjoy it when Jeeves disapproves of fashion choices:

[There's actually a better and even funnier montage of Jeeves' disapproval on Youtube, but somehow I couldn't imbed the video.  If you're interested, click here.]

Anyhow, I've found watching the series absolutely delightful and it inspired me to pick up more Wodehouse at the library recently.  I have far too many books checked out and on the TBR shelves, but I needed a break from all the big fat Victorians I've been reading lately.  I could not resist this cover: 

Of course it would look so much better without the library sticker covering up the swan on the front.  Oh well.  If you haven't fallen in love with these already, they're the Overlook Press reprints of the works of P. G. Wodehouse.  He published more than 90 books and I think they've reprinted about 75 so far.  Which could be dangerous!!   I had a birthday recently and I strongly hinted to my family that any of these would be greatly welcomed.  Well, I suppose "hint" would be an understatement; I handed my husband a Borders coupon with the words "P. G. Wodehouse Overlook Press" written on it in large printing, so he wouldn't miss it.  I admit that I am not terribly subtle.  The result was this nice little stack:

I've started reading The Man With Two Left Feet, which is a collection of Wodehouse's early stories, including the very first appearance of Bertie and Jeeves.  Jeeves is merely mentioned and Bertie's apparently has no last name, but it's still pretty funny.  The dreaded Aunt Agatha ships Bertie off to America to prevent his cousin from making a ghastly marriage to a chorus girl.  Bertie does not enlist Jeeves' brainpower and it all goes terribly wrong, of course, though hilarity still ensues.  Perfect summer reading!