I don’t know how I first became aware of Jeeves and Wooster: I think possibly through a clip on someone’s blog of an old program of the pair starring a young Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. But after searching around, I discovered that P. D. Wodehouse wrote a whole series of books based on the characters of English gentleman Bertram Wooster and his valet, Jeeves (or, as he calls himself, a gentleman’s personal gentleman) on which the programs were based.
After reading several very good but very serious books, I was in the mood for something lighter. I perused our little branch library and found Carry On, Jeeves. I don’t know if it was the first in the series, but the first chapter told how Jeeves came into Mr. Wooster’s employ, so that seemed a good place to start.
Bertram is a pleasant, but not overly bright gentleman. Jeeves is the quintessential English valet, the soul of decorum, who seems to just noiselessly appear when needed, never offends, always seems to have the right answer and knows what to do, but he is not above quiet, unobtrusive manipulation. Jeeves is particularly offended, however, when Bertram insists on fashion of which Jeeves disapproves.
This particular book seems a collection of stories of Wooster’s various friends who run into some kind of trouble. They appeal to Jeeves for help, and he comes up with some kind of ruse which usually has unintended consequences and is the base for the book’s comedy. Though the plot is a little formulaic, the characters are generally well-drawn. What I enjoyed most about Wodehouse’s writing, though, was his phraseology. For instance, this is one response when Bertram is expecting Jeeves to have a comeback or argue with him, but Jeeves only says, “As you say, sir.”
I felt as if I had stepped on the place where the last stair ought to have been, but it wasn’t. I felt defiant, if you know what I mean, and there didn’t seem anything to defy.
Both the above and this give that feeling of “I know just what you mean — what an imaginative way to say it.”
It was one of those still evening you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away.
After one plan to help a friend went horribly and awkwardly wrong, Bertram says,
I hardly knew what to do. I wanted, of course, to rush down…and grip the poor blighter silently by the hand; and then, thinking it over, I hadn’t the nerve. Absent treatment seemed the touch. I gave it to him in waves.
Another time when Bertram was suddenly challenged about something that had gone wrong and tried unsuccessfully to think of a response, he thinks to himself:
I strained the old bean til it creaked, but between the collar and the hair parting, nothing stirred.
Of course, this is not a Christian book, and there are a few objectionable elements: a handful of instances of the word “damn,” a good bit of alcohol usage, and an abundance of lying.
I don’t now that I’ll visit another volume of Jeeves and Wooster any time soon, but I enjoyed getting a little better acquainted with them.
(This review will be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and the 5 Minutes For Books Classic Bookclub)
