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Jeeves #9
Любовният сезон на търтеите
„Е, ако бях някой средновековен рицар, например рицарят Роланд, в дните, когато човек не би могъл да хвърли тухла, без да уцели по главата някой магьосник, вълшебник или чародей и хората час по час са се превръщали в какво ли не, нямаше да му обърна и нула внимание. Просто щях да си кажа: „А, значи Джийвс е омагьосан и се е, превърнал в Коко. Кофти работа. Но какво да се прави, такъв е животът“, и щях най-непринудено да му поискам лулата и тютюна. Но в наши дни човек е склонен да позагуби широките си възгледи и определено ще излъжа публиката, ако заявя, че не се стреснах. Вторачих се в него, очите ми изхвръкнаха като на охлюв и се залюляха на стебълцата си...“
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
139 people are currently reading
3879 people want to read
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,680 books6,925 followersSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 713 reviews
June 24, 2018
When Catsmeat Pirbright and Gussie Fink-Nottle come to Bertie Wooster with their lady problems, he has no choice but to help. Before you know it, Gussie's in stir, Bertie's pretending to be Gussie and Catsmeat is pretending to be Jeeves. Can Bertie get Jeeves to sort things out?
Spoiler alert: Yes.
Way back in 2012-ish, I decided to reread all of the Jeeves novels I read in that hazy time before Goodreads. Then I forgot about that goal until a few days ago.
I read this one ages ago so it was like a new book in a lot of ways. The only parts I remembered were the allusions to Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, since I'm a Dark Tower junkie, and the bit with the cosh.
First, the primer for anyone who has never read a Jeeves book before: Bertie Wooster is one of the idle rich in Edwardian England and Jeeves is his valet (or Gentleman's Personal Gentleman) who specializes in extricating him from trouble.
Like pretty much all of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves tales, this one involves romantic misunderstandings and Bertie Wooster trying his best to sort them out without Jeeves. Once things are suitably dire, Jeeves swoops in with his super-brain and works things out. Not usually by coshing someone, though...
Wodehouse's tales always have a superb rhythym and this one is no exception. You can feel the reversals of fortune coming several pages away. Since I forgot most of this one, I thought for sure Bertie would wind up in stir for a month without the option, It was all sweetness and light by the end, though, as it usually is.
The Jeeves books all tend to blend together in my mind since they all have the same basic plot but Wodehouse manages to take things into different directions each time, keeping them fresh. Wodehouse does his one trick very, very well, I suppose. While I still put The Code of the Woosters at the top of the Jeeves list, this one is still in the upper echelon of Wooster and Jeeves books. Four out of five stars.
Spoiler alert: Yes.
Way back in 2012-ish, I decided to reread all of the Jeeves novels I read in that hazy time before Goodreads. Then I forgot about that goal until a few days ago.
I read this one ages ago so it was like a new book in a lot of ways. The only parts I remembered were the allusions to Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, since I'm a Dark Tower junkie, and the bit with the cosh.
First, the primer for anyone who has never read a Jeeves book before: Bertie Wooster is one of the idle rich in Edwardian England and Jeeves is his valet (or Gentleman's Personal Gentleman) who specializes in extricating him from trouble.
Like pretty much all of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves tales, this one involves romantic misunderstandings and Bertie Wooster trying his best to sort them out without Jeeves. Once things are suitably dire, Jeeves swoops in with his super-brain and works things out. Not usually by coshing someone, though...
Wodehouse's tales always have a superb rhythym and this one is no exception. You can feel the reversals of fortune coming several pages away. Since I forgot most of this one, I thought for sure Bertie would wind up in stir for a month without the option, It was all sweetness and light by the end, though, as it usually is.
The Jeeves books all tend to blend together in my mind since they all have the same basic plot but Wodehouse manages to take things into different directions each time, keeping them fresh. Wodehouse does his one trick very, very well, I suppose. While I still put The Code of the Woosters at the top of the Jeeves list, this one is still in the upper echelon of Wooster and Jeeves books. Four out of five stars.
September 8, 2019
“I was losing the old pep and… unless the clouds changed their act and started dishing out at an early date a considerably more substantial slab of silver lining than they were coming across with at the moment, I should soon be definitely down among the wines and spirits.”
Right ho, what never fails to ginger up the old vim? Wodehouse, of course. This is tip top Plum fun, with nary a hoppity-hoppity-hop to impede the pleasure.
Image: Programme for Edward Duke’s solo show ″Jeeves Takes Charge″, which I was fortunate to see in my late teens (Source.)
What it’s Got
“This is springtime, Bertie, the mating season, when, as you probably know, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove and a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
This has all the expected Wodehousian joys of Jeeves, Bertie, more than the usual number of awful aunts (five + Aunt Agatha), disguises, mistaken identity, tangled wooing, a country house, a country parson, a jobsworth copper, Haddock’s Headache Hokies, a talent show, a plot summary of a Rosie M Banks romance, Haddock (Esmond), Catsmeat (Pirbright), God’s daisy chains (Madeline Bassett), newts (Gussie Fink-Nottle, who gets as tight as one, so finds himself in the clink, via a fountain in Trafalgar Square), and a plague of frogs.
In particular, I'd forgotten how much the plot has echoes of The Importance of Being Earnest (see my review HERE), tinged with Cyrano de Bergerac. It also meets Miss Prism’s definition of fiction, “The good end happily, and the bad unhappily”. Bertie does a tally of sundered and reunited hearts at the end, though of course, there’s no one really bad.
Jokes
Bertie tells a really weak joke (deaf people mishearing Wembley/Wednesday, Thursday/thirsty). What makes it funny is his trying to explain it, on two separate occasions, killing it deader than a dead horse on St Beatings Day.
Even better is the Malapropian exchange between Bertie and Jeeves:
“‘What’s that tiling of Shakespeare’s about someone having an eye like Mother’s?’
‘An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, is possibly the quotation for which you are groping sir.’”
There’s a subtler and sadder sort of running joke in this 1949 novel: repeated lampooning of the triviality of Christopher Robin poems versus the more exciting comic poem about Ben Battle (Faithless Nelly Gray). AA Milne was a prominent and vocal critic of Wodehouse’s innocuous but ill-advised broadcasts when he was interned by the Germans in France, as a result of which, he moved to the US and never returned to the UK.
Four Walls
Bertie, acknowledging his reputation as a “resilient sort of bimbo”, narrates. He’s conscious of “my public” and the fact that “there are always new members coming along”, so tailors his telling “for family consumption”. Nevertheless, it’s not the most suitable story for maiden aunts who may be turned into the giddy variety.
Quotes vs Plot
Wodehouse writes wonderfully and skilfully entangled plots, and this is no exception. But it’s the creative descriptions I especially love. The style continues with Blackadder and his sidekick, Baldrick.
Image: “'Jeeves,' I said, 'I'm in a bit of a difficulty.'” (Source.)
Quotes about Appearance
• “The only occupant of the more posh saloon bar was a godlike man in a bowler hat with grave, finely chiselled features and a head that stuck out at the back, indicating great brain power. To cut a long story short, Jeeves. He was having a meditative beer at the table by the wall.”
• “She is the sloppiest, mushiest, sentimentalest young Gawd-help-us who ever thought the stars were God’s daisy chain and that every time a fairy hiccoughs a wee baby is born… Her favourite reading is Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.”
• “A broad-shouldered bozo of about thirty, with one of those faces… known as Byronic. He looked like a combination of a poet and an all-in wrestler.”
• “A tall, drooping man, looking as if he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist”
• “Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp’.”
Quotes about Mood, Expression, Behaviour
• "A sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon."
• “The tense, set expression on my face, rather like that of a starving wolf giving a Russian peasant the once-over.”
• “Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a Dying Rooster.”
• “He withdrew, walking on the tips of his toes and conveying in his manner the suggestion that if he had had a hat and that hat had contained roses, he would have started strewing them from it.”
• “Jeeves… had… described him as disgruntled, and it was plain at a glance that the passage of time had done nothing to gruntle him.”
• (A variant of the more quoted line from The Code of the Woosters a decade earlier, “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”.)
• “I made for it like a man on a walking tour diving into a village pub two minutes before closing time.”
Quotes about Aunts
• “As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention.”
• “It is bad to be trapped in a den of slavering aunts, lashing their tails and glaring at you out of their red eyes.”
• “In this life it is not aunts that matter, but the courage that one brings to them.”
• Other Quotes
• “Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to sock me on the occiput.”
• “It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.”
Right ho, what never fails to ginger up the old vim? Wodehouse, of course. This is tip top Plum fun, with nary a hoppity-hoppity-hop to impede the pleasure.
Image: Programme for Edward Duke’s solo show ″Jeeves Takes Charge″, which I was fortunate to see in my late teens (Source.)
What it’s Got
“This is springtime, Bertie, the mating season, when, as you probably know, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove and a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
This has all the expected Wodehousian joys of Jeeves, Bertie, more than the usual number of awful aunts (five + Aunt Agatha), disguises, mistaken identity, tangled wooing, a country house, a country parson, a jobsworth copper, Haddock’s Headache Hokies, a talent show, a plot summary of a Rosie M Banks romance, Haddock (Esmond), Catsmeat (Pirbright), God’s daisy chains (Madeline Bassett), newts (Gussie Fink-Nottle, who gets as tight as one, so finds himself in the clink, via a fountain in Trafalgar Square), and a plague of frogs.
In particular, I'd forgotten how much the plot has echoes of The Importance of Being Earnest (see my review HERE), tinged with Cyrano de Bergerac. It also meets Miss Prism’s definition of fiction, “The good end happily, and the bad unhappily”. Bertie does a tally of sundered and reunited hearts at the end, though of course, there’s no one really bad.
Jokes
Bertie tells a really weak joke (deaf people mishearing Wembley/Wednesday, Thursday/thirsty). What makes it funny is his trying to explain it, on two separate occasions, killing it deader than a dead horse on St Beatings Day.
Even better is the Malapropian exchange between Bertie and Jeeves:
“‘What’s that tiling of Shakespeare’s about someone having an eye like Mother’s?’
‘An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, is possibly the quotation for which you are groping sir.’”
There’s a subtler and sadder sort of running joke in this 1949 novel: repeated lampooning of the triviality of Christopher Robin poems versus the more exciting comic poem about Ben Battle (Faithless Nelly Gray). AA Milne was a prominent and vocal critic of Wodehouse’s innocuous but ill-advised broadcasts when he was interned by the Germans in France, as a result of which, he moved to the US and never returned to the UK.
Four Walls
Bertie, acknowledging his reputation as a “resilient sort of bimbo”, narrates. He’s conscious of “my public” and the fact that “there are always new members coming along”, so tailors his telling “for family consumption”. Nevertheless, it’s not the most suitable story for maiden aunts who may be turned into the giddy variety.
Quotes vs Plot
Wodehouse writes wonderfully and skilfully entangled plots, and this is no exception. But it’s the creative descriptions I especially love. The style continues with Blackadder and his sidekick, Baldrick.
Image: “'Jeeves,' I said, 'I'm in a bit of a difficulty.'” (Source.)
Quotes about Appearance
• “The only occupant of the more posh saloon bar was a godlike man in a bowler hat with grave, finely chiselled features and a head that stuck out at the back, indicating great brain power. To cut a long story short, Jeeves. He was having a meditative beer at the table by the wall.”
• “She is the sloppiest, mushiest, sentimentalest young Gawd-help-us who ever thought the stars were God’s daisy chain and that every time a fairy hiccoughs a wee baby is born… Her favourite reading is Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.”
• “A broad-shouldered bozo of about thirty, with one of those faces… known as Byronic. He looked like a combination of a poet and an all-in wrestler.”
• “A tall, drooping man, looking as if he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist”
• “Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp’.”
Quotes about Mood, Expression, Behaviour
• "A sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon."
• “The tense, set expression on my face, rather like that of a starving wolf giving a Russian peasant the once-over.”
• “Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a Dying Rooster.”
• “He withdrew, walking on the tips of his toes and conveying in his manner the suggestion that if he had had a hat and that hat had contained roses, he would have started strewing them from it.”
• “Jeeves… had… described him as disgruntled, and it was plain at a glance that the passage of time had done nothing to gruntle him.”
• (A variant of the more quoted line from The Code of the Woosters a decade earlier, “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”.)
• “I made for it like a man on a walking tour diving into a village pub two minutes before closing time.”
Quotes about Aunts
• “As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention.”
• “It is bad to be trapped in a den of slavering aunts, lashing their tails and glaring at you out of their red eyes.”
• “In this life it is not aunts that matter, but the courage that one brings to them.”
• Other Quotes
• “Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to sock me on the occiput.”
• “It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.”
December 4, 2024
The plot sets up like an absolute farce with cantankerous and sly aunts, unbearable ex-fiancées, honors to be preserved, women to be charmed, and people to be bribed. First, Wooster has to pretend to be someone else to protect his childhood. Then, finally, who is in love with a girl who herself gets picked up by a guy who acts because he is in love with Wooster's friend's sister, and he wants to make her jealous. You see the kind. Ultimately, we turn down the cackle of aunts, the lovers meet again, and all is well in the best possible world.
April 19, 2023
Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett are possibly on the outs.
Why does this matter to Bertram Wooster?
Well, as all fans of Wodehouse's Jeeves series know, the soppy Madeline hasthreatened promised to marry Bertie if ever her romance with Gussie falls through.
For those of you who don't know, Madeline is convinced that Bertie is desperately in love with her, and Bertie is unable to tell any woman no when they decide that he has somehow proposed to them.
In an effort to keep the drippy Madeline with his newt-loving friend, Bertie pretends to be Gussie at a house party. <--it somehow makes sense, I swear!
Crazy shenanigans ensue when everything goes tits up, as things inevitably do in one of these books.
So.
Between a gaggle of intimidating aunts, a plethora of mistaken identities, and lots and lots of misunderstandings that only Jeeves can sort out, Bertie scrabbles to stay one step ahead of a very unhappy marriage with the mushy Madeline.
And yes, it is the same old, same old. But if you like these characters, you already know what you're getting when you open up one of Wodehouse's books.
Recommended.
Why does this matter to Bertram Wooster?
Well, as all fans of Wodehouse's Jeeves series know, the soppy Madeline has
For those of you who don't know, Madeline is convinced that Bertie is desperately in love with her, and Bertie is unable to tell any woman no when they decide that he has somehow proposed to them.
In an effort to keep the drippy Madeline with his newt-loving friend, Bertie pretends to be Gussie at a house party. <--it somehow makes sense, I swear!
Crazy shenanigans ensue when everything goes tits up, as things inevitably do in one of these books.
So.
Between a gaggle of intimidating aunts, a plethora of mistaken identities, and lots and lots of misunderstandings that only Jeeves can sort out, Bertie scrabbles to stay one step ahead of a very unhappy marriage with the mushy Madeline.
And yes, it is the same old, same old. But if you like these characters, you already know what you're getting when you open up one of Wodehouse's books.
Recommended.
September 17, 2020
If you're me and I'm you, who are or are not these other two chaps? That's the sort of question one might ask when diving into a terribly tangled web of deceit such as you'll find in P.G. Wodehouse's The Mating Season, where a faked identity might be the only thing that saves our hero Bertie Wooster from the horrors of marriage!
This is one of my personal favorite Wodehouses. It amps up the daffy mishaps tenfold! The storyline gets delightfully twisted intentionally as half the cast pretends to be someone they're not in an effort to get out of one fix or another. Even the usually incorruptibly proper Jeeves gets in on the ruse, doing his utmost for his employer Wooster, who's doing his utmost to remain unmarried to the utmost drip, aka Madeline Bassett, while possibly hitching her up with his loopy, newt-loving friend Gussie.
Bassett indeed! Wodehouse pushes his penchant for ridiculous names to the absolute limit in this volume. There are Haddocks, Fink-Nottles and even a Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright! And practically none are willing to lay claim to their true names. Do you blame them?
I highly recommend you go ahead and embroil yourself up to the eyeballs in the confusticatingly good-time comedy that is The Mating Season.
Update: I listened to the Fredrick Davidson-narrated version of this as a "re-read" in 2020 and I have to say, I wasn't a big fan. I like Davidson for other books, especially Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. Davidson has a biting tone that works in the Cornwell books, but in a Wodehouse book, especially one wherein he's voicing Bertie Wooster, Davidson sounds too snide for how I view Wooster. Certainly the tone works for the times when Wooster is feeling cynical, which does happen quite a bit in The Mating Season. However, I prefer Jonathan Cecil's take on Bertie. Cecil's got a lighter touch all around and I feel like it's more in keeping with Wooster's "oh well!" attitude.
This is one of my personal favorite Wodehouses. It amps up the daffy mishaps tenfold! The storyline gets delightfully twisted intentionally as half the cast pretends to be someone they're not in an effort to get out of one fix or another. Even the usually incorruptibly proper Jeeves gets in on the ruse, doing his utmost for his employer Wooster, who's doing his utmost to remain unmarried to the utmost drip, aka Madeline Bassett, while possibly hitching her up with his loopy, newt-loving friend Gussie.
Bassett indeed! Wodehouse pushes his penchant for ridiculous names to the absolute limit in this volume. There are Haddocks, Fink-Nottles and even a Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright! And practically none are willing to lay claim to their true names. Do you blame them?
I highly recommend you go ahead and embroil yourself up to the eyeballs in the confusticatingly good-time comedy that is The Mating Season.
Update: I listened to the Fredrick Davidson-narrated version of this as a "re-read" in 2020 and I have to say, I wasn't a big fan. I like Davidson for other books, especially Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. Davidson has a biting tone that works in the Cornwell books, but in a Wodehouse book, especially one wherein he's voicing Bertie Wooster, Davidson sounds too snide for how I view Wooster. Certainly the tone works for the times when Wooster is feeling cynical, which does happen quite a bit in The Mating Season. However, I prefer Jonathan Cecil's take on Bertie. Cecil's got a lighter touch all around and I feel like it's more in keeping with Wooster's "oh well!" attitude.
January 25, 2021
There are a lot of tangled love lives which have to be untangled and a lot of sundered hearts which have to be reunited.
Identities get swapped and lovers get exchanged.Bertie becomes Gussie Fink Nottle and Gussie becomes Bertie,to the chagrin of both.
Gussie leaves Madeline Bissett and falls for Corky Pirbright,while Bertie is faced with a fate worse than death,marriage to Madeline Bissett,who thinks he is in love with her.
Catsmeat Pirbright wants Gertrude Winkworth but finds her with his cousin Esmond Haddock.
He in turn wants Corky Pirbright who has left him,but now wants him back.
But to get her back,he must defy his five aunts,a fearsome prospect.He does that eventually,inspiring Bertie Wooster to defy his own aunt Agatha.
Not bad,but the laughs aren't as plentiful as in some of the other Jeeves and Wooster books.
Identities get swapped and lovers get exchanged.Bertie becomes Gussie Fink Nottle and Gussie becomes Bertie,to the chagrin of both.
Gussie leaves Madeline Bissett and falls for Corky Pirbright,while Bertie is faced with a fate worse than death,marriage to Madeline Bissett,who thinks he is in love with her.
Catsmeat Pirbright wants Gertrude Winkworth but finds her with his cousin Esmond Haddock.
He in turn wants Corky Pirbright who has left him,but now wants him back.
But to get her back,he must defy his five aunts,a fearsome prospect.He does that eventually,inspiring Bertie Wooster to defy his own aunt Agatha.
Not bad,but the laughs aren't as plentiful as in some of the other Jeeves and Wooster books.
November 18, 2011
There are books which you read and think: "Psh.. I could write that. And better."
Well, this is not one of those books. There is no doubt in my mind that I could never produce anything of such brilliance. Wodehouse has such a way with words. The sentences are full of rhythm and flow effortlessly. The punchline is delivered with a perfect timing and will have you chuckle.
The plot is as you would expect it to be from a comedy of manners. There are romantic entanglements and romantic misunderstandings, mistaken identities, blunders, and on top of that, five horrid aunts (four old maidens and one widow) that form the biggest obstacle on our characters' road to happiness. Personally, I feel the five aunt plot device was underdeveloped. There was so much potential in it but it seemed that Wodehouse decided to let the aunts be on this occasion.
I am surprised that most people seem to think that Wooster is bit of a saphead. How can that be so? First of all, he is Hugh Laurie, that is, Doctor House, who is very smart*. So that alone rules out his stupidity. Second of all, Wooster is the narrator, and the narrative, as I have already said, is nothing short of genius. So I ask you, how can he be stupid? I say, give me Wooster anytime of the day and I will take him gladly, keep him and never let him go. Also he is a very patient man as well, because I thought I would have definitely punched Jeeves if he said: "Indeed, sir?" one more time.
And to end this review, shall I leave you with a quote?
"Except for knowing that when you've heard one, you've heard them all, I'm not really an authority on violin solos, so cannot state definitely whether La Pulbrook's was or was not a credit to the accomplices who had taught her the use of the instrument. It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did."
* in case you have just landed on this planet recently, I am referring to the popular British show in which Wooster was played by Hugh Laurie.
Well, this is not one of those books. There is no doubt in my mind that I could never produce anything of such brilliance. Wodehouse has such a way with words. The sentences are full of rhythm and flow effortlessly. The punchline is delivered with a perfect timing and will have you chuckle.
The plot is as you would expect it to be from a comedy of manners. There are romantic entanglements and romantic misunderstandings, mistaken identities, blunders, and on top of that, five horrid aunts (four old maidens and one widow) that form the biggest obstacle on our characters' road to happiness. Personally, I feel the five aunt plot device was underdeveloped. There was so much potential in it but it seemed that Wodehouse decided to let the aunts be on this occasion.
I am surprised that most people seem to think that Wooster is bit of a saphead. How can that be so? First of all, he is Hugh Laurie, that is, Doctor House, who is very smart*. So that alone rules out his stupidity. Second of all, Wooster is the narrator, and the narrative, as I have already said, is nothing short of genius. So I ask you, how can he be stupid? I say, give me Wooster anytime of the day and I will take him gladly, keep him and never let him go. Also he is a very patient man as well, because I thought I would have definitely punched Jeeves if he said: "Indeed, sir?" one more time.
And to end this review, shall I leave you with a quote?
"Except for knowing that when you've heard one, you've heard them all, I'm not really an authority on violin solos, so cannot state definitely whether La Pulbrook's was or was not a credit to the accomplices who had taught her the use of the instrument. It was loud in spots and less loud in other spots, and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did."
* in case you have just landed on this planet recently, I am referring to the popular British show in which Wooster was played by Hugh Laurie.
March 23, 2024
I’ve spent a lifetime not reading P.G. Wodehouse: too artificial, too contrived, too cosy. I was adamant on the matter. Having, over the last couple of years, taken the radical step of actually reading some of his books, I am happy to confirm that the rest of the world was correct when they said Wodehouse is one of the most entertaining writers who ever drew breath.
I can also attest that Wodehouse on the page is much better than any of the various television adaptations. I say this with the total authority of a man who has never watched any of the various television adaptations. It’s a safe bet, though, as the greatness of Wodehouse lies in the narrative voice and that’s a tricky thing to replicate on the telly. He was a poet wearing cap ‘n’ bells. Words? He made them dance.
He could also whip up a delightful soufflé of a farcical plot with the best of them. This one concerns the course of true love never running smooth and a gaggle of obligatory fearsome aunts at the equally obligatory country house. For the purposes of the obligatory labyrinthine plot, Wooster arrives at Deverill Hall pretending to be Augustus Fink-Nottle followed by Fink-Nottle pretending to be Wooster. The expected hilarious, not to mention convoluted, consequences ensue.
The world of Jeeves and Wooster never existed so it never dates. Wodehouse creates a prelapsarian universe peopled with benign characters (‘fearsome aunts’ very much included) and renders it blissfully funny. No mean feat and, given the cynicism and darkness of much of what passes as contemporary comedy, a blessed relief.
I can also attest that Wodehouse on the page is much better than any of the various television adaptations. I say this with the total authority of a man who has never watched any of the various television adaptations. It’s a safe bet, though, as the greatness of Wodehouse lies in the narrative voice and that’s a tricky thing to replicate on the telly. He was a poet wearing cap ‘n’ bells. Words? He made them dance.
He could also whip up a delightful soufflé of a farcical plot with the best of them. This one concerns the course of true love never running smooth and a gaggle of obligatory fearsome aunts at the equally obligatory country house. For the purposes of the obligatory labyrinthine plot, Wooster arrives at Deverill Hall pretending to be Augustus Fink-Nottle followed by Fink-Nottle pretending to be Wooster. The expected hilarious, not to mention convoluted, consequences ensue.
The world of Jeeves and Wooster never existed so it never dates. Wodehouse creates a prelapsarian universe peopled with benign characters (‘fearsome aunts’ very much included) and renders it blissfully funny. No mean feat and, given the cynicism and darkness of much of what passes as contemporary comedy, a blessed relief.
May 25, 2012
[9/10]
Once again P.G.Wodehouse explores the subject of romance in this new Jeeves and Wooster novel. It is somewhat inevitable, because:
This is springtime, the mating season, when, as you probably know, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove and a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
As a result of a hilarious opening scene involving Gussie-Fink-Nottle, the search for newts inside the fountain in Trafalgar Square and a policeman, Bertie is forced to intervene in order to save his relationship with Madeline Bassett. He reluctantly leaves the comfort of his London apartment for a weekend in the country at Deverill Hall, Hampshire. In this idyllic location ( one of those villages where picturesque cottages breed like rabbits ) , Cupid has been real busy and only the stalwart Jeeves could hope to unravel the tangled relationships involving : Claude Cattermole Pirbright - a.k.a. Catsmeat, his sister Cora Pirbright a.k.a. Corky - a persuasive young gumboil and former partner of Bertie in dancing school, Esmond Haddock - amateur singer at village festivals, his cousin Gertrude Winkworth, Queenie - a parlourmaid at Deverill Hall and her beau - village Constable Ernest Dobbs. Complicating matters as usual are a bevy of aunts - no less than five, when usually one is more than enough. Adding to the mayhem are Bertie's nephew Thomas and a dog with an intense animosity for policemen.
In all this romance saturated atmosphere, Bertie Wooster is the only one who regards marriage with dread, as exemplified in this dialogue with Jeeves:
- I tell you Jeeves, the spirits are low. I don't know if you have been tied hand and foot to a chair in front of a barrell of gunpowder with an inch of lighted candle on top of it?
- No, sir, I have not had the experience.
- Well, that's how I'm feeling. I'm just clenching the teeth and waiting for the bang.
His Nemesis is once again Madeline Bassett, an encounter between the two producing my favorite scene from the book, when in trying to retrieve a compromising letter, Bertie is caught in flagrante and compared to a tragedy stricken lover from a book by Rosie M. Banks.
As usual for a P. G. Wodehouse novel, his similes are insanely hilarious, like this introduction of reverend Sidney Pirbright : A tall, drooping man, looking as if he has been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist . My respect for him as an author was raised to a new high when I come upon this passage, where he rips the "fourth wall" and addresses the reader directly with his professional credo:
In dishing up this narrative for family consumption, it has been my constant aim throughout to get the right word in the right place and to avoid fobbing the customers off with something weak and inexpressive when they have a right to expect the telling phrase. It means a bit of extra work, but one has one's code.
The passage was originated when the author, not satisfied with the word "came" in a previous phrase, replaced it with "curvetted". To give an idea of his incredible range, here is what Wodehouse substitutes in the book for "drunk" :
- scrooched,
- fried to the tonsils,
- pie-eyed,
- lathered,
- a mite polluted,
- doing the Lost Weekend,
- getting tight,
- pleasantly mellowed
I've reached the end of the book, as usual, with a happy smile on my face, and with the pleasant thought that there are still so many books by the author waiting patiently for their turn on my reading list.
Once again P.G.Wodehouse explores the subject of romance in this new Jeeves and Wooster novel. It is somewhat inevitable, because:
This is springtime, the mating season, when, as you probably know, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove and a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
As a result of a hilarious opening scene involving Gussie-Fink-Nottle, the search for newts inside the fountain in Trafalgar Square and a policeman, Bertie is forced to intervene in order to save his relationship with Madeline Bassett. He reluctantly leaves the comfort of his London apartment for a weekend in the country at Deverill Hall, Hampshire. In this idyllic location ( one of those villages where picturesque cottages breed like rabbits ) , Cupid has been real busy and only the stalwart Jeeves could hope to unravel the tangled relationships involving : Claude Cattermole Pirbright - a.k.a. Catsmeat, his sister Cora Pirbright a.k.a. Corky - a persuasive young gumboil and former partner of Bertie in dancing school, Esmond Haddock - amateur singer at village festivals, his cousin Gertrude Winkworth, Queenie - a parlourmaid at Deverill Hall and her beau - village Constable Ernest Dobbs. Complicating matters as usual are a bevy of aunts - no less than five, when usually one is more than enough. Adding to the mayhem are Bertie's nephew Thomas and a dog with an intense animosity for policemen.
In all this romance saturated atmosphere, Bertie Wooster is the only one who regards marriage with dread, as exemplified in this dialogue with Jeeves:
- I tell you Jeeves, the spirits are low. I don't know if you have been tied hand and foot to a chair in front of a barrell of gunpowder with an inch of lighted candle on top of it?
- No, sir, I have not had the experience.
- Well, that's how I'm feeling. I'm just clenching the teeth and waiting for the bang.
His Nemesis is once again Madeline Bassett, an encounter between the two producing my favorite scene from the book, when in trying to retrieve a compromising letter, Bertie is caught in flagrante and compared to a tragedy stricken lover from a book by Rosie M. Banks.
As usual for a P. G. Wodehouse novel, his similes are insanely hilarious, like this introduction of reverend Sidney Pirbright : A tall, drooping man, looking as if he has been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist . My respect for him as an author was raised to a new high when I come upon this passage, where he rips the "fourth wall" and addresses the reader directly with his professional credo:
In dishing up this narrative for family consumption, it has been my constant aim throughout to get the right word in the right place and to avoid fobbing the customers off with something weak and inexpressive when they have a right to expect the telling phrase. It means a bit of extra work, but one has one's code.
The passage was originated when the author, not satisfied with the word "came" in a previous phrase, replaced it with "curvetted". To give an idea of his incredible range, here is what Wodehouse substitutes in the book for "drunk" :
- scrooched,
- fried to the tonsils,
- pie-eyed,
- lathered,
- a mite polluted,
- doing the Lost Weekend,
- getting tight,
- pleasantly mellowed
I've reached the end of the book, as usual, with a happy smile on my face, and with the pleasant thought that there are still so many books by the author waiting patiently for their turn on my reading list.
August 1, 2022
Bertie is due to make a reluctant visit to friends of his Aunt Agatha at Deverill Hall, but there’s one bright gleam on the horizon. His old friend Catsmeat Potter Pirbright (possibly my favourite fictional name in the universe) is putting on a cross-talk act for the local village entertainment and Bertie relishes the chance to don a green beard and hit his fellow performer with an umbrella! But the dark clouds are gathering. Gussie Fink-Nottle is also due at Deverill Hall, at the behest of his fiancée, Madeline Bassett, she who thinks that the stars are God’s daisy chain, but due to an unfortunate incident involving a fountain and a policeman, Gussie has been unavoidably detained at His Majesty’s Pleasure. Should Madeline discover this, the engagement will be off, and Madeline may well decide to marry Bertie instead! So to avoid this dreadful fate, Bertie decides to impersonate Gussie, but when Gussie then escapes his durance vile and turns up, there’s only one solution – Gussie must impersonate Bertie…
Yet another wonderful treat from the master, this one involves most of the characters being disguised as each other, adding to the general mayhem and allowing them all tae see theirsels as ithers see them, as the Bard once said. Bertie is not at all happy at people thinking that he’s the teetotal newt-fancier Gussie, but is amazed to learn that Gussie is equally horrified to be mistaken for the natty boulevardier Bertie considers himself to be. Add in five aunts – five! - and it’s easy to see why Deverill Hall could easily be mistaken for a House of Horror…
Great stuff, and as always the narration by Jonathan Cecil is perfection!
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Yet another wonderful treat from the master, this one involves most of the characters being disguised as each other, adding to the general mayhem and allowing them all tae see theirsels as ithers see them, as the Bard once said. Bertie is not at all happy at people thinking that he’s the teetotal newt-fancier Gussie, but is amazed to learn that Gussie is equally horrified to be mistaken for the natty boulevardier Bertie considers himself to be. Add in five aunts – five! - and it’s easy to see why Deverill Hall could easily be mistaken for a House of Horror…
Great stuff, and as always the narration by Jonathan Cecil is perfection!
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
January 19, 2024
Once again Jeeves to the rescue as Bertie impersonates Gussie and faces five aunts. Hilarious farce as Bertie tries to having to marry the Madeleine Bassett when Gussie falls for Corky. The word play is brilliant.
‘Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a dying rooster.’
‘Oh? he said, and gave a sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon.’
‘He looked like a vicar who had just seen the outsider on whom he has placed his surplice nose its way through the throng of runners and flash in the lead past the judge’s box.’
This book gives endless guffaws and chuckles.
‘Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a dying rooster.’
‘Oh? he said, and gave a sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon.’
‘He looked like a vicar who had just seen the outsider on whom he has placed his surplice nose its way through the throng of runners and flash in the lead past the judge’s box.’
This book gives endless guffaws and chuckles.
June 30, 2016
The best pick me up for a soul suffering the doldrums of an ugly flu. Read it almost at a stretch while sniffling away to glory.
Jeeves, as is his habit, comes to the rescue of many an asundered soul.
This book involves hoards of aunts, their nephews, nieces, Bertie, Jeeves and guest appearance by Thos, Bertie's transmitting of a cousin.
The sundered hearts are Corky - Edmond, Catsmeat - Gertrude, Gussy - Madeline, Queenie - Dobbs
the masquerades are Gussy - Bertie who impersonate each other (due to a peculiar set of circumstances involving Traffalgar square and its fountains, newts, policemen, judges, heartbreaks) and Catsmeat impersonating a butler, Meadows.
There are 6 aunts, each a terror,on her own, and withering nephews, plucky girls and hilarious plots.
my advice - never read a Wodehouse in public. People will get a wrong impression about your sanity.
Jeeves, as is his habit, comes to the rescue of many an asundered soul.
This book involves hoards of aunts, their nephews, nieces, Bertie, Jeeves and guest appearance by Thos, Bertie's transmitting of a cousin.
The sundered hearts are Corky - Edmond, Catsmeat - Gertrude, Gussy - Madeline, Queenie - Dobbs
the masquerades are Gussy - Bertie who impersonate each other (due to a peculiar set of circumstances involving Traffalgar square and its fountains, newts, policemen, judges, heartbreaks) and Catsmeat impersonating a butler, Meadows.
There are 6 aunts, each a terror,on her own, and withering nephews, plucky girls and hilarious plots.
my advice - never read a Wodehouse in public. People will get a wrong impression about your sanity.
December 9, 2014
The interconnectivity of things, part 94. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, as the fiction of Wodehouse is nothing if not brimming full of literary allusions, but I was distinctly pleased to come across a direct reference to Robert Browning’s ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’. Having spent the previous two weeks reading the fourth volume of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which takes its inspiration from that very poem, it seemed as if the world was all coming together in a series of exciting connections. The synapses of my mind fizzed and popped as a consequence.
Okay, on a very basic level this is man reads book which reminds him of previous book, but I always like the thrill when coincidence takes two very different things and folds them over each other. After all these are two very disparate examples of popular literature (in tone, plot and style) and I was expecting little which would directly connect them. But here it was. And it set me thinking, if there are doorways which take Roland of Gilead into New York, why aren’t there doorways to take him into Bertie Wooster’s world? Wouldn’t we all like to see Roland and Bertie try to find some space on common ground? Once you think of it, isn’t there a gap in that Ka-Tet for a dashing young hero in spats? Wouldn’t Jeeves come up with a doozy of a plan to reach The Dark Tower quicker and do what needs to be done? I don’t know if King is planning to write another Dark Tower novel, but if he is he need look no further than Pelham Grenville for inspiration.
As well as being one of the best prose stylists in the English language, what really sets Wodehouse apart in these novels is the way he sets plate after plate spinning and keeps them all going long after they should have shattered to the ground. Here we have Bertie pretending to be Gussie Fink-Nottle, Gussie pretending to be Bertie, Catsmeat Pirbright pretending to be faux Gussie’s valet, a terrifying butler in the shape of Jeeves’s uncle, a Hollywood goddess working her charms on an English village, an atheist policeman, a legion of aunts and the constant fear of the arrival of Bertie’s Aunt Agatha and/or Madeline Bassett. The whole thing is a joy from start to finish, with confusion piled riotously onto calamity and more jokes than most writers manage to cram into an entire career. Until it reaches a point where you know there’s only one man who can shimmer unobtrusively forward and sort everything out.
I particularly liked the categorization of the six different types of hangover: “the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie.” Which of us, after a particularly rambunctious wedding reception, hasn’t woken up with a case of the gremlin boogies?
Okay, on a very basic level this is man reads book which reminds him of previous book, but I always like the thrill when coincidence takes two very different things and folds them over each other. After all these are two very disparate examples of popular literature (in tone, plot and style) and I was expecting little which would directly connect them. But here it was. And it set me thinking, if there are doorways which take Roland of Gilead into New York, why aren’t there doorways to take him into Bertie Wooster’s world? Wouldn’t we all like to see Roland and Bertie try to find some space on common ground? Once you think of it, isn’t there a gap in that Ka-Tet for a dashing young hero in spats? Wouldn’t Jeeves come up with a doozy of a plan to reach The Dark Tower quicker and do what needs to be done? I don’t know if King is planning to write another Dark Tower novel, but if he is he need look no further than Pelham Grenville for inspiration.
As well as being one of the best prose stylists in the English language, what really sets Wodehouse apart in these novels is the way he sets plate after plate spinning and keeps them all going long after they should have shattered to the ground. Here we have Bertie pretending to be Gussie Fink-Nottle, Gussie pretending to be Bertie, Catsmeat Pirbright pretending to be faux Gussie’s valet, a terrifying butler in the shape of Jeeves’s uncle, a Hollywood goddess working her charms on an English village, an atheist policeman, a legion of aunts and the constant fear of the arrival of Bertie’s Aunt Agatha and/or Madeline Bassett. The whole thing is a joy from start to finish, with confusion piled riotously onto calamity and more jokes than most writers manage to cram into an entire career. Until it reaches a point where you know there’s only one man who can shimmer unobtrusively forward and sort everything out.
I particularly liked the categorization of the six different types of hangover: “the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie.” Which of us, after a particularly rambunctious wedding reception, hasn’t woken up with a case of the gremlin boogies?
May 10, 2020
‘Still,’ I said, feeling that it was worth trying, ‘it’s part of the great web, what?’
‘Great web?’
‘One of Marcus Aurelius’s cracks. He said: “Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.”’
From the brusque manner in which he damned and blasted Marcus Aurelius, I gathered that, just as had happened when Jeeves sprang it on me, the gag had failed to bring balm. I hadn’t had much hope that it would. I doubt, as a matter of fact, if Marcus Aurelius’s material is ever the stuff to give the troops at a moment when they have just stubbed their toe on the brick of Fate. You want to wait till the agony has abated.
This was ridiculously good fun. I love Jeeves and Wooster series but some stories are better than others, and this was one of the best ones. Dare I say, it was on the same level as the one with Aunt Dahlia and the cow creamer? I like that one, too.
Anyway, in this one Bertie is trying to help a couple of his friends to untangle some obstacles in their love lives, and of course, just makes it worse. What stood out from the start in this one, however, is that Bertie is not just having to deal with one of his own aunts, but also no less than five aunts of one of his friends' betrothed...and five aunts is really more than anyone should be expected to deal with.
While there is slapstick galore in this story, we also get to see Bertie from new angles. For example, we learn that he - as many of us do - resorts to reading to calm his nerves:
"I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea."
‘Great web?’
‘One of Marcus Aurelius’s cracks. He said: “Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.”’
From the brusque manner in which he damned and blasted Marcus Aurelius, I gathered that, just as had happened when Jeeves sprang it on me, the gag had failed to bring balm. I hadn’t had much hope that it would. I doubt, as a matter of fact, if Marcus Aurelius’s material is ever the stuff to give the troops at a moment when they have just stubbed their toe on the brick of Fate. You want to wait till the agony has abated.
This was ridiculously good fun. I love Jeeves and Wooster series but some stories are better than others, and this was one of the best ones. Dare I say, it was on the same level as the one with Aunt Dahlia and the cow creamer? I like that one, too.
Anyway, in this one Bertie is trying to help a couple of his friends to untangle some obstacles in their love lives, and of course, just makes it worse. What stood out from the start in this one, however, is that Bertie is not just having to deal with one of his own aunts, but also no less than five aunts of one of his friends' betrothed...and five aunts is really more than anyone should be expected to deal with.
While there is slapstick galore in this story, we also get to see Bertie from new angles. For example, we learn that he - as many of us do - resorts to reading to calm his nerves:
"I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea."
March 20, 2023
My first dip into Jeeves and Wooster, and PG Wodehouse. Plenty of laughs and chuckles along the way, although the farcical setup didn't quite deliver the finale it deserved. The wealthy buffoon Bertie Wooster has a tough job to keep any sympathy on his side in the modern world, given his upper class toff kind have run and ruined the country and brought untold misery onto millions. At the time, I'm sure people thought him a harmless fool. Blame Boris for the view the modern reader will take of him.
May 1, 2020
"Um génio cómico reconhecido em vida como autor clássico e mestre da farsa."
The Times
Assim sendo, o meu sentido de humor anda pelas ruas da amargura.
The Times
Assim sendo, o meu sentido de humor anda pelas ruas da amargura.
August 11, 2022
The great P.G. Wodehouse !!! So hilarious… and, as a special treat, he serves we Bertie-Jeeves fans a second helping of the Village Concert ! I don’t know if all comedic authors do this, but Wodehouse seems to stand alone with his brand of climactic storytelling. Specifically, while every story-teller in human history works the plot to a climax, only Wodehouse understood that his sole job was to make readers laugh. In a 6-hour narration by Jonathan Cecil, hour 5.5 brings you some of the funniest, side-splitting verbiage known in the English language… inside an event that’s not even germane to the tale. If I’m not mistaken, only Wodehouse has achieved this stratagem, or perhaps, gotten away with it :) No matter; he’s brilliant and we love him.
January 6, 2020
Other Wodehouse fans might argue, but I think that the 1940s rival the the 1930s as the prime decade for Wodehouse. This is in spite of, or possibly partially because of, the tribulations he faced in those years - internment by the Nazis and denunciation in England for his harmless, but ill-conceived broadcasts on German radio during the war. His comedy seems to have toughened up a bit in the immediate post-war years.
In any case, The Mating Season might be ranked a step behind Right Ho, Jeeves, Plum's masterpiece, but only a step. The latter's comic set-piece is the prize-giving ceremony at the Market Snodbury Grammar School -one of the funniest scenes in English literature. The Mating Season doesn't have anything quite that good, but a tipsy Bertie Wooster assisting Esmond Haddock with the improvement and rehearsal of a song for the King's Deverill village concert comes pretty close, as does the concert itself.
The imposter-at-a-country-house is a favorite device of Wodehouse, and it could be argued that he overdoes it here. Bertie arrives at Deverill Hall purporting to be Gussie Fink-Nottle, who later shows up impersonating Bertie. Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright is supposedly Meadowes, Bertie's valet, but he later is mistaken for Gussie (who is supposedly Bertie). It makes sense, really - they were both wearing fake green beards at the time.
But it's all pretty funny, and it all works in terms of the Wodehouse universe.
In any case, The Mating Season might be ranked a step behind Right Ho, Jeeves, Plum's masterpiece, but only a step. The latter's comic set-piece is the prize-giving ceremony at the Market Snodbury Grammar School -one of the funniest scenes in English literature. The Mating Season doesn't have anything quite that good, but a tipsy Bertie Wooster assisting Esmond Haddock with the improvement and rehearsal of a song for the King's Deverill village concert comes pretty close, as does the concert itself.
The imposter-at-a-country-house is a favorite device of Wodehouse, and it could be argued that he overdoes it here. Bertie arrives at Deverill Hall purporting to be Gussie Fink-Nottle, who later shows up impersonating Bertie. Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright is supposedly Meadowes, Bertie's valet, but he later is mistaken for Gussie (who is supposedly Bertie). It makes sense, really - they were both wearing fake green beards at the time.
But it's all pretty funny, and it all works in terms of the Wodehouse universe.
May 14, 2019
"בימי חלדי, בימים בהם 2 ערוצים בטלביזיה לא היו סימן לפרובינציאליות נטולת שיק ומודעות חברתית, הייתי מכורה לסדרות הומור בריטיות: אני לא חושבת שפיספסתי פרק בסידרה ""מישהו מטפל בך"" או ""כן אדוני השר"". בחלומותי הורודים, אביר בריטי מלא הומור מושחז ואינטיליגנטי נושא אותי אל ארץ קרירה שבה החיים משעשעים יותר. ""עונת הזיווגים"" הוא השלישי מספרי וודהאוס שתורגם לעברית. למרות שהשניים הראשונים ממתינים על מדפי, התחלתי דווקא בשלישי, בשל העובדה הפשוטה שהוא נקרא ישר משקית הקניות. וודהאוס, שהתגורר רוב חייו הבוגרים בארצות הברית, כותב בסיגנון בריטי שופע הומור ושנינה. הוא מקצין סיטואציות והופך אותן לגרוטסקיות עד כדי גיחוך. היו קטעים בספר שפשוט בכיתי מצחוק. הבעיה הפעוטה בספר, שההתחלה שלו מקרטעת, עשרות דמויות שלא ברור הקשר בינהן ומה תפקידן בכח. העיניין מתבהר והחל מפרק 4 מדובר בתענוג צרוף (גם של תרגום שהוא אמנות בפני עצמה בספר הזה בשל כפל המשמעויות הדקות). וציטוט : ""מוזר איך אפשר להכיר בן אדם מקרוב ומשחר נעוריות ועם זאת לשמור על אי ידיעה לגבי פן אחד שלו. במשך שנים נתקלתי בגאסי דרך קבע ולמדתי להכיר אותו כחובב טריטונים, כמאהב וכמטומטם, אבל מעולם לא חשדתי שיש לו איכויות יוצאות דופן כאצן במישור, ונדהמתי לנוכח היכולת הגבוהה שהפגין בצורת הפעילות הזאת התובעת התמחות רבה ביותר. הוא התקדם כמו ארנבת בערבות המערב, ראשו לאחור וזקנו הירוק מתבדר ברוח. מצאה חן בעיני עבודת הקרסולים שלו. תנועותיו של דובס, לעומת זאת, היו מאומצות יותר, ולעין כשלי, שאומנה להשקיף על מרוצי סוסים בשטח פתוח, הוא נראה חסר סיכוי. ניכרו בו סימנים של צניפה משתנקת, ואני משוכנע שאם לגאסי היה מספיק שכל להפוך את זה לתחרות ריצה פשוטה, הוא היה מקדים אותו בסיבוב ומגיע למטרה בלי בעיות. אנשי משטרה אינם בנויים למהירות. הם במיטבם כשהם עומדים בפינות רחוב ואומרים ""תעבור לשם"". אבל, כפי שציינתי לפני רגע, אוגוסטוס פינק נוטל היה לא רק אצן בעל יכולת מרשימה, אלא גם מטומטם, ועכשיו, כשהניצחון היה כבר בהישג יד, הטמטום השתלט..."" (216 - 217) אני לא מתכוונת לגלות לכם את ההמשך ולהרוס לכם את חווית הקריאה המשעשעת :-) מומלץ בחום. ""עונת הזיווגים"" פ. ג´. וודהאוס הוצאת חרגול, 2010, 253 עמודים "
January 22, 2022
Jeeves and Wooster are my favorite of Wodehouse's mad cap characters. The turn of phrase in these, especially in regards to how Bertie describes everyone around him, just cannot be beat. His marveling at Jeeves' enormous brain, and his constant need for one Jeeves' special concoctions to brace him against the perils of being a Wooster, with its noble code and excess of aunts . . . well! There's just nothing else like it!
This book sees the perils of convincing Gussie Finknottle to dive into a fountain in his evening dress, as well as agreeing to do anything for Corky Pirbright (Cat's Meat Pirbright's sister, you know), though she's quite a "promising young gum boil." And Bertie befriends someone who, to his utter horror, has FIVE aunts. This definitely calls for a rather stiff one, Jeeves!
This book sees the perils of convincing Gussie Finknottle to dive into a fountain in his evening dress, as well as agreeing to do anything for Corky Pirbright (Cat's Meat Pirbright's sister, you know), though she's quite a "promising young gum boil." And Bertie befriends someone who, to his utter horror, has FIVE aunts. This definitely calls for a rather stiff one, Jeeves!
May 20, 2013
I'd read the collected Jeeves and Wooster short stories a few years ago, and this is the first of their novels I've read. Very funny, very light, many excellent lines, like when Wodehouse describes someone as, "a tall, drooping man, looking as if he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist."
Two other examples:
"He looked like a peevish halibut."
...
"I am told by those who know that there are six varieties of hangover – the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie, and his manner suggested that he had got them all."
Two other examples:
"He looked like a peevish halibut."
...
"I am told by those who know that there are six varieties of hangover – the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie, and his manner suggested that he had got them all."
July 29, 2017
One of Wodehouse's very best. The village concert scene in particular is deeply cathartic for anyone who's been roped into that kind of event!
July 17, 2022
If there is anything to brighten the day up it is a Jeeves and Wooster novel and predictably 'The Mating Season' provides some laugh-out-loud moments as Bertie ventures to Deverill Hall, an idyllic Tudor manor in the picture-perfect village of King's Deverill.
Initially Bertie hears that his good friend Claude Cattermole Pirbright, known colloquially as Catsmeat, is going there to partake in the village concert in which another friend Gussie Fink-Nottle is also scheduled to appear. And it is the latter who gets himself arrested that provides the reason for Bertie making his way there.
Bertie has already discussed with Jeeves the situation at the Hall as there are a number of love affairs going on, or at least pending, and Bertie is anxious not to get involved in any of them because at one time or another he has been known to have had arrangements with at least one of the ladies in question, Madeline Bassett.
With Gussie in jug after being caught taking an unscheduled dip in the fountains of Trafalgar Square, Bertie, much against his better wishes, is persuaded, mainly by Jeeves, who has an uncle, Charlie Silversmith who is a valet at the Hall, to impersonate Gussie. One of the reasons Bertie is reluctant to go is the fact that his favourite, or more appropriately, least-favourite species, disgruntled aunts are at the Hall ... and there are five of them! A sixth, Bertie's bête noire Aunt Agatha is scheduled to appear but circumstances conspire so that she does not arrive.
Imagine the difficulties of Bertie pretending to be Gussie within a circle, some of whom do know him, and, sure enough this provides plenty of problems along the way. The situation worsens when Gussie turns up, having had his sentence changed from 30 days to a £5 fine ... confusion understandably reigns with Madeline not sure where her allegiance lies. Others involved in the romance scenario are Catsmeat, Gertrude Winkworth, and Esmond Haddock but Bertie's main worry is that Gussie's simpering fiancée Madeline may turn her wide eyes on him instead.
It becomes more and more complicated - it is even difficult for the reader to keep track of who is who with all the impersonating going on - and Jeeves adds to the confusion by turning up as someone else. The reason for this is that he could hardly appear as Bertie's valet when Bertie is playing Gussie!
Bertie desperately seeks Jeeves' advice, behind everybody's back needless to say, and, after visiting London and wracking his brain the man who Bertie refers to as 'the Mayfair counsellor' comes up trumps. But it is all so complicated that Plum Wodehouse has to set up what he calls a 'balance sheet' of whose hearts are 'Sundered' and whose are 'Reunited' and this even includes Officer Dobbs, who gets involved over an incident with Gussie, and Queenie one of the below stairs staff.
The village concert proves to be another source of irritation, particularly to Bertie, but fortunately it all comes out okay for as Bertie, speaking of the balance sheet, states to Jeeves, 'No flaws in that, I think?' And it is all down to Jeeves' unremitting efforts. Jeeves' reply, 'Most gratifying, sir', exactly what this amusing tale is!
Initially Bertie hears that his good friend Claude Cattermole Pirbright, known colloquially as Catsmeat, is going there to partake in the village concert in which another friend Gussie Fink-Nottle is also scheduled to appear. And it is the latter who gets himself arrested that provides the reason for Bertie making his way there.
Bertie has already discussed with Jeeves the situation at the Hall as there are a number of love affairs going on, or at least pending, and Bertie is anxious not to get involved in any of them because at one time or another he has been known to have had arrangements with at least one of the ladies in question, Madeline Bassett.
With Gussie in jug after being caught taking an unscheduled dip in the fountains of Trafalgar Square, Bertie, much against his better wishes, is persuaded, mainly by Jeeves, who has an uncle, Charlie Silversmith who is a valet at the Hall, to impersonate Gussie. One of the reasons Bertie is reluctant to go is the fact that his favourite, or more appropriately, least-favourite species, disgruntled aunts are at the Hall ... and there are five of them! A sixth, Bertie's bête noire Aunt Agatha is scheduled to appear but circumstances conspire so that she does not arrive.
Imagine the difficulties of Bertie pretending to be Gussie within a circle, some of whom do know him, and, sure enough this provides plenty of problems along the way. The situation worsens when Gussie turns up, having had his sentence changed from 30 days to a £5 fine ... confusion understandably reigns with Madeline not sure where her allegiance lies. Others involved in the romance scenario are Catsmeat, Gertrude Winkworth, and Esmond Haddock but Bertie's main worry is that Gussie's simpering fiancée Madeline may turn her wide eyes on him instead.
It becomes more and more complicated - it is even difficult for the reader to keep track of who is who with all the impersonating going on - and Jeeves adds to the confusion by turning up as someone else. The reason for this is that he could hardly appear as Bertie's valet when Bertie is playing Gussie!
Bertie desperately seeks Jeeves' advice, behind everybody's back needless to say, and, after visiting London and wracking his brain the man who Bertie refers to as 'the Mayfair counsellor' comes up trumps. But it is all so complicated that Plum Wodehouse has to set up what he calls a 'balance sheet' of whose hearts are 'Sundered' and whose are 'Reunited' and this even includes Officer Dobbs, who gets involved over an incident with Gussie, and Queenie one of the below stairs staff.
The village concert proves to be another source of irritation, particularly to Bertie, but fortunately it all comes out okay for as Bertie, speaking of the balance sheet, states to Jeeves, 'No flaws in that, I think?' And it is all down to Jeeves' unremitting efforts. Jeeves' reply, 'Most gratifying, sir', exactly what this amusing tale is!
July 19, 2015
Reading Wodehouse is pure bliss. His writing style seems simple but it is not. Wodehouse is a genius and he painstakingly creates humor out of ordinary everyday situations. It is not slap stick, satire or comic. It is pure unadulterated humor. Reading Wodehouse is the best stress buster and anti-depressant. He doesn’t claim to very highly literary writing prowess. In his own words “I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going deep down into life and not caring a damn...”.
Wodehouse believed that one of the factors that made his stories humorous was his view of life, and he stated that "If you take life fairly easily, then you take a humorous view of things. It's probably because you were born that way."
"For a humorous novel you've got to have a scenario, and you've got to test it so that you know where the comedy comes in, where the situations come in … splitting it up into scenes (you can make a scene of almost anything) and have as little stuff in between as possible."
Bandings castle and its characters is one the best of his creations. All other charaters Jeevs, Ukridge, Bertram Wooster, Psimth, Mulliner, Clarence Threepwood, Sebastian Beach, Ashe Marson, Joan Valentine, J. Preston Peters, Aline Peters, Freddie Threepwood, Mrs. Twemlow, Mrs. Bell, Richard Jones, George Emerson, Lord Stockheath, Adams, Rupert J. Baxter, Thorne, George Threepwood, Ann Warblington, Merridew, James, Alfred, Mildred Mant, Horace Mant, Judson, Algernon Wooster, Bishop of Godalming, Billy, Muriel, Dr. Bird, Slingsby, Chester, Ferris, Miss Willoughby etc are highly likable.
I think there will not be a single person who cannot like Wodehouse.
Wodehouse believed that one of the factors that made his stories humorous was his view of life, and he stated that "If you take life fairly easily, then you take a humorous view of things. It's probably because you were born that way."
"For a humorous novel you've got to have a scenario, and you've got to test it so that you know where the comedy comes in, where the situations come in … splitting it up into scenes (you can make a scene of almost anything) and have as little stuff in between as possible."
Bandings castle and its characters is one the best of his creations. All other charaters Jeevs, Ukridge, Bertram Wooster, Psimth, Mulliner, Clarence Threepwood, Sebastian Beach, Ashe Marson, Joan Valentine, J. Preston Peters, Aline Peters, Freddie Threepwood, Mrs. Twemlow, Mrs. Bell, Richard Jones, George Emerson, Lord Stockheath, Adams, Rupert J. Baxter, Thorne, George Threepwood, Ann Warblington, Merridew, James, Alfred, Mildred Mant, Horace Mant, Judson, Algernon Wooster, Bishop of Godalming, Billy, Muriel, Dr. Bird, Slingsby, Chester, Ferris, Miss Willoughby etc are highly likable.
I think there will not be a single person who cannot like Wodehouse.
April 28, 2020
Classic farce of mistaken identities, love triangles, forbidding aunts and a riotous concert. Bertie Wooster finds himself masquerading as Gussie Fink-Nottle and as always getting into the kind of scrapes that can only be fixed by referring to his manservant Jeeves.
This is one of Wodehouse's best books, demonstrating his ability to craft a complicated plot and make it seem effortless. I always enjoy the literary references that Bertie has picked up from Jeeves and reproduces more or less faithfully, and the comic characters that recur in the series. This book has provided a little spark of joy at a time when I'm in a bit of a reading slump, and Wodehouse can always be relied on for that.
This is one of Wodehouse's best books, demonstrating his ability to craft a complicated plot and make it seem effortless. I always enjoy the literary references that Bertie has picked up from Jeeves and reproduces more or less faithfully, and the comic characters that recur in the series. This book has provided a little spark of joy at a time when I'm in a bit of a reading slump, and Wodehouse can always be relied on for that.
April 23, 2024
Usually in Wodehouse's books there is at least one broken engagement. Here there are 4 couples in various stages of breakup, and we have Jeeves and Bertie to the rescue! We also have not 1, but 5 aunts (actually 6 including Bertie's aunt Agatha). Then there are dogs (no pigs in this one) and there are masqueraders (Gussie and Bertie swap identities - Reminds me of the Hindi movie 'Andaaz Apna Apna' - "Woh jo hai woh main hoon ... aur main jo hoon woh woh hai"🤣🤣" )
Naturally it was lots of fun.
It was a treat listening to Jonathan Cecil's Audible narration. Just listen to him say "Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!". 😀
Naturally it was lots of fun.
It was a treat listening to Jonathan Cecil's Audible narration. Just listen to him say "Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!". 😀
July 12, 2010
Note: The synopsis on the back of this audio edition really annoys me...it refers to Jeeves as Bertie's "Butler". Jeeves would be incensed!
Again Wodehouse comes through in a book that defines "hilarity" and "uproarious" with Gussie sentenced to jail and Bertie having to impersonate him...with the dangers of Madeline Basset looming again, Jeeves will again come to the rescue.
Maybe he should have some extra fish?
Again Wodehouse comes through in a book that defines "hilarity" and "uproarious" with Gussie sentenced to jail and Bertie having to impersonate him...with the dangers of Madeline Basset looming again, Jeeves will again come to the rescue.
Maybe he should have some extra fish?
March 15, 2020
Just the ticket for a great distraction in times like these. Perfect audio by Jonathan Cecil.
January 23, 2022
Bertie is set adrift from Jeeves as he undertakes his hardest role yet - pretending to be Gussie Fink-Nottle. To make matters worse he must stay in a house that's practically overflowing with aunts.
There are four different couples whose love lives are in danger and Bertie must do his darndest to keep them together. All while playing the role of a fathead. Things get even more crazy when Gussie shows up pretending to be Bertie. Luckily he brought Bertie's best asset - Jeeves. Bertie has to pull this off so that nothing happens to keep Gussie and The Bassett from marrying. Nothing could be worse for Bertie than having The Bassett run around untethered.
This book required a lot more active listening than I usually have to give a Jeeves book. It took a minute to get all the roles and plots straight. Once I got the swing of it things were thoroughly delightful. I do have to agree with Bertie, though, Gussie really is a fathead.
There are four different couples whose love lives are in danger and Bertie must do his darndest to keep them together. All while playing the role of a fathead. Things get even more crazy when Gussie shows up pretending to be Bertie. Luckily he brought Bertie's best asset - Jeeves. Bertie has to pull this off so that nothing happens to keep Gussie and The Bassett from marrying. Nothing could be worse for Bertie than having The Bassett run around untethered.
This book required a lot more active listening than I usually have to give a Jeeves book. It took a minute to get all the roles and plots straight. Once I got the swing of it things were thoroughly delightful. I do have to agree with Bertie, though, Gussie really is a fathead.
December 6, 2020
Wodehouse se repite mucho. Especialmente con las situaciones que provocan risa (en este caso con los perros y el show de vodevil), pero siempre es un gran placer de leer para relajarse entre lecturas.
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