Something Fishy

by P.G. Wodehouse

Something Fishy is top-notch Wodehouse. When Keggs was a butler he eavesdropped on a meeting between his employer, J.J. Bunyan, and a covey of tycoons--J.J. and his associates each agreed to put up fifty-thousand dollars, the total to go to whichever of their sons was the last to marry. Thirty years later, Keggs wants to cash in on what he knows.

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Classics, Comedy, British Literature, Novels, 20th Century

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Sir 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).

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious. A one off but with a few past characters in other books included with Pilbeam the slimy private investigator and Battling Billson making an appearance behind the scenes.

The plot is about a tontine formed by a group of wealthy men weeks before the 1929 stock market crash. The tontine or money goes to the last of their unmarried sons. Almost 30 years later Keggs the butler realizes only two contenders are in the tontine left and he can make some money with this information.

Bill Hollister and Roscoe Bunyan are the last sons left. The one who marries last will earn one million dollars from the tontine. Keggs currently supports his former employer, the confused Lord Uffenham, and Uffenham's niece Jane. Keggs also liked to make a little money.

Roscoe is a millionaire, engaged and a miser. Bill is poor. Bill meets Jane and love blossoms. Roscoe finds out about the tontine and plots to get unengaged and Bill married. However, the elderly curmudgeonly Mortimer Bayliss has other ideas.

This is pure fun and with a lovely twist at the end.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane was puzzled.
'But how,' she asked, 'did you know who I was?'
'I recognized your voice.'
'Recognized my voice?' Jane stared. 'After half a dozen words on the telephone?'
'One would have been ample,' said Bill. He had now got over his initial nervousness and was feeling his affable self once more. 'It is a lovely, unique voice, in a class of its own and once heard never forgotten, limpid as a woodland brook and vibrant with all the music of the spheres.'

A rather late entry in the Wodehouse catalogue - perhaps not among his very best, but that's mainly because it's a modest effort; it stands out for its lack of complexity. 

The novel hinges on an unusual circumstance - something of a joke - established shortly before the stock market crash of 1929. The set-up then lies dormant for a few decades - and we learn this as the action shifts to 1955 in chapter 2. The upshot will involve chicanery designed to remain unnoticed until nothing can be done legally to undo the deceit. 

The initial situation may be in shadow but the way it plays out is not particularly layered (though there's a fair amount of lying and a few scuffles as the story nears conclusion). So it's one of Wodehouse's simplest tales. ~ which, unfortunately, causes it to be a bit less memorable than when the author is being more complex. 

As well - and this is a rare experience in following a Wodehouse cast of characters - I had some difficulty keeping regular track of who was who; who was duplicitous and who wasn't. Maybe it was the particular names used (or maybe it was just me), or maybe there were fewer reminders regarding who to watch out for. It seems to me that Wodehouse has elsewhere been sharper about that sort of thing. 

Still, there are solid plus-factors: i.e., the central romance between the charming Bill and his adorable and feisty Jane is marvelous, as is the characterization of Jane's somewhat doddering uncle (Lord 'George' Uffenham), whose consternation over modern crossword puzzles is an indication of his amiable nature. 

All told, the story is well-above engaging - with, as expected, a good number of lively exchanges - but, when it comes to Wodehouse, my preference is when he has elaborately laid out something more full throttle. 

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

J.J. Bunyan and his cronies each put $50,000 dollars in a fund just before the stock market crash and form a tontine. The last of their heirs to get married wins the whole pot, expected to be one million dollars when considering compound interest, etc. Years later, only two heirs remain...

Like all Wodehouses, this one delivers the laughs. Bill Hollister is the dashing leading man, Jane the fiery heroine, and Lord Uffenham is the much abused nobleman. The younger Bunyan keeps trying to get the million dollars while expending as little of his cash as possible. Augustus Keggs makes a return appearance and quickly becomes my third favorite Wodehouse butler. Without giving away too many details, how can you not love a Wodehouse story where someone paints a Roman beard on a giant statue?

Later: On a side note, reading bits of a Wodehouse out loud to innocent bystanders increases the enjoyment level immensely.

[Gastjäle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The synchronised siege of climatic gloom and inner dusk can make any old soul wilt before the onslaught, and I certainly stick out no more than the next man. When stronger forces are at play, the human actor is consigned to the long line outside, peeping with faint hope over shoulders of avid theatre-goers for any sudden change in the queueing policy. Some are suddenly singled out for special treatment and let into the velvet box seats, and some thrash it out with themselves, pulling a savvy ruse and convincing themselves to be all patience. Some, however, collapse under the strain and start forecasting a good spell of fire and brimstone, akin to the touchy prophets in the Old Testament; some lose patience and skip under a careering bus with grim determination, something that the witnesses always note with hushed awe. Others, less Shakespearian at core, find it expedient to look behind and buck up from the trailing line of unluckier individuals, and some try their hand at intermittent somnambulism. To each their own, as they say.

In such situation, I've found that the most immediate pick-me-up lies not further away than in the laughing world of Wodehouse. But let the reader not aim the finger of scorn and ship a scathing tut-tut at yours truly, for the world of Wodehouse is not mere escapism. Nothing wrong with escapism overall, in small doses, but Wodehouse does better than that.

His Muse drinks from the same crystal brooks as those of Spenser, Keats and Wordsworth; she partakes of the same tuns of glee as Aristophanes and Rabelais; and she paints the skyline with the colours of Shakespeare, Joyce and Proust. For Wodehouse's language simply brims with poesy, and particularly with the music of all that is clear, light and of splendid hue—his mastery resonates with the same shepherds' flutes and song as the Faerie Queene, Eclogues or the pastoral poetry of Keats, Wordsworth or Yeats. It crushes the unworthy, nay-to-life thoughts with its booming belly-laughter, knowing exactly when to exact a laid-back chortle and when to make one cry with laughter with a sudden viciousness. And it shows the superb administration of the pen, making the words flow fluidly and dance with bewitching harmony, not simply showing the reader the goods, but showing it with the most varied gestures, from highfalutin to lowfalutin, but always refined.

One has every right to object to my analogues, and the shrewdest of the lot can with considerable justice point out that Wodehouse has not the formal prowess and inventiveness of Joyce, the painstakingly perspicacious skills of observance shown by Proust or the soul-baring brutality of Shakespeare. He is not tapping into the essence of human existence or pushing the horizons of art with the far-sightedness of a fine voyager. His prowess lies in claritas and comfiness.

Something Fishy showcases this to a tee. It is painstakingly crafted, it deviates from the master's style only in ways that can be marked by an aficionado (and even then with approval), and it flows like liquid honey down a slide of ice. (The detractors can make what they will of that simile; the crux of the matter being, that it flows like the dickens.) It works its healing through the usual ways of pushing away needless complexities of real or imagined life, and removing all nastiness. Not even the nastiest of the characters, Bunyan, is really nasty, since Wodehouse does not dwell on his Scrooge-like psychology, neither do the other characters react to him in a way that would engender sympathetic indignation and make us shed a tear at the world's injustice. The personalities are there, the deeds have their own particular hue (some darker, some lighter), but the gravitas is AWOL. We move from the residence of J.J. Bunyan to Valley Fields to Shipley Hall and back with buoyant strides, tickled with exhilaration and basking in the salubrious tide of Fun.

And the way this mastery can continue to work its magic in the real world is by allowing certain elements, so unfortunately tangled with the everyday, to take the back seat, and to let the joy of celebration take the stage for a bit. We should feel proud to have had such individuals in our at times doubtful human race, who beavered away to lighten our minds with perfect craftsmanship. It is through such individuals that I can continue to stand in the line, even outside the auditorium, with a little lighter heart.

[Tessa Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rainy Sunday evening, potato & leek soup, apple & strawberry crumble and a lovely Wodehouse romp. Delightful.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Mira · Rating 4 out of 5]

very witty and hilarious writing, literally everything is laughing matter in this book
there was a huge amount of dialogue which made the book very tiring to read at times as you got no break from the conversations
overall the book felt like a gossip sesh with a friend
i think this book would work great adapted as a play

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent fairly late Wodehouse 1957. This one stars the Wodehouse second eleven, no one as famous as Jeeves or Lord Emsworth, but instead we get Keggs, Lord Uffenham and Percy Pilbeam. The set up is slightly contrived but Wodehouse delivers the goods and his touch is as light and as airy as at any point in is career.

[Aarathi Burki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book , very funny loved all the characters especially lord Uffenham. His language, his use of words, his craze for crossword puzzles were hilarious. It was a very enjoyable read with great and justified ending. Would recommend this book to anyone in need of a good laugh...

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an enormous fan of the great P.G. Wodehouse and have almost the entire collection of his 90+ books, so you’re going to see a few of these along the way!

First published in the UK on the 18th of January 1957 and ten days later in the US (under the title The Butler Did It), Something Fishy begins at a dinner party held by multi-millionaire J.J. Bunyan and his cronies. Each put $50,000 dollars in a fund just before the 1929 stock market crash and form a secret tontine. The last of their heirs to get married wins the whole pot, expected to be one million dollars when considering compound interest, etc. Years later, only two heirs remain: Bill Hollister and Roscoe Bunyan.

Augustus Keggs, the former butler to Bunyun’s father, informs Roscoe of the tontine who then plans to bribe his sole competitor for the fortune into getting married before he does, whilst spending as little cash as possible. But Keggs has his own agenda: fattening his own wallet. Keggs is now retired and wealthy and supports his impoverished former employer, the genial and often confused Lord Uffenham, and Uffenham’s niece, Jane. A chance meeting between Bill and Jane turns to romance, Keggs’ plan is undone by Roscoe, and Lord Uffenham and Keggs plot to save the day for Bill and Jane…

“It was precisely this that was giving Jane that feeling of bafflement and frustration. She was in the position of the Big Four at Scotland Yard when they know perfectly well that it was Professor Moriarty who put the arsenic in the Ruritanian ambassador’s soup but have no means of proving it to the satisfaction of a jury. On such occasions the Big Four knit their brows and bite their lower lips, and Jane knit and bit hers. A momentary urge to bang her uncle on the head with the coffee pot came and passed. It is at times such as these that breeding tells.”

Something Fishy is a sequel of sorts to Money in the Bank (1942) and, once again, Lord Uffenham is short of money. He’s been forced to let out his country pile to Roscoe Bunyan but this time rather than hunting for diamonds he intends to revive the family fortunes by the sale of some forged paintings. Once again another relative is engaged to the wrong man and Lord Uffenham must right this wrong while ensuring that his finances will stretch to the wedding.

Bill Hollister joins a long line of Wodehouse heroes who are charming, witty and thoroughly deserving of getting the girl. Jane too, is a cheerful, optimistic heroine. Another Wodehouse campaigner of old, Keggs, esteemed butler of A Damsel in Distress and The Coming of Bill, now retired from business (his last employer being Lord Uffenham) has never lost his passion for money making schemes and has hatched such a scheme which he believes will make his retirement all the more comfortable. A nice touch is that Keggs’ brother in law is former boxer Battling Billson, who was previously managed by Wodehouse rogue/charmer, Ukridge. Unscrupulous detective Percy Pilbeam also reappears as a man unrivalled in the art of stealing compromising letters. A new character I loved immediately was art expert Mortimer Bayliss. Devious, rude but ultimately a good egg, he’ll make one further appearance in about ten years time when he turns up (as everyone seems to eventually) at Blandings Castle.

One of the things I love in Wodehouse stories are that the levels of chance are set extremely high. Even though I should have seen it coming, the fact that when Bill and Jane first meet it turns out that they knew each other as children, when Bill rescued Jane from the clutches of young bully Roscoe Bunyan, still caught me unawares! Equally surprising, the story took an unexpected turn when a romance plot line I thought was going to dominate was solved in a matter of a few paragraphs and we moved off in a different direction.

It’s not a long book but rips alongs at a happily frantic (for Wodehouse) pace. As ever the plot is almost impossible to review in depth, but I never like giving everything away, so that’s fine. I was especially pleased by the brilliant twists and turns at the end. Although I haven’t yet read all the Wodehouse collection, I haven’t discovered many instances where Wodehouse uses a series of false endings. It’s a bit like watching a James Cameron film, where he finishes the story, then there’s an ending you didn’t see coming, then when you think it’s all done, he pulls out another one! Although I think sixty years is sufficient time for spoilers not to count I won’t give anything more away, suffice to say that everyone thinks they’ve got the better of everyone else, but only Keggs and Mortimer Bayliss know the whole story. What’s more, Wodehouse plays absolutely fair in that you had all the clues in front of you but you just didn’t see it.

This is an absolute favourite of mine but, as with Arrow’s recent re-issues, it tends to get overlooked in favour of titles such as the (in my view) overrated Piccadilly Jim or the rather bland Adventures of Sally. Still, you can still find the odd second-hand paperback knocking around, or buy the Everyman hardback edition (if you can stomach the awful cover illustration). Hunt it down, you won’t be disappointed.

[John Frankham · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best late (1957) light comedies - boy, could he write.

[Peter Krol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree there is something fishy about this novel. Reading shouldn't be this much fun. I confess this book won't offer up much thoughtful reflection on human existence or the ways of society. It's simply a riotous good time.

My favorite quotes:

"There was rather a lot of Roscoe Bunyan. As a boy, he had been a large, stout boy, inclined to hot dogs, candy and ice-cream sodas between meals, and he was no fonder of diet systems now than he had been in his formative years. Most of his acquaintances would have preferred far less of this singularly unattractive young man, but he had insisted on giving full measure, bulging freely in all directions. His face was red, the back of his neck overflowed his collar, and there had recently been published a second edition of his chin. It is not surprising, therefore, that such passers-by as had a love for the beautiful should have removed their gaze from him after a brief glance and transferred it to the girl who was standing beside him.
"Elaine Dawn unquestionably took the eye. Nobody, looking at her, would have supposed her to be the daughter of a Shoreditch public-house proprietor who had formerly been a heavyweight boxer. It often happens that fathers, incapable themselves of finishing in the first three in a seaside beauty contest, produce offspring who set the populace whistling, and this had occurred in the case of Elaine's parent, Battling Billson. He himself, partly because Nature had fashioned him that way and partly as the result of the risks of his profession, looked like a gorilla which had been caught in machinery of some sort, but this child was a breath-taking brunette of the Cleopatra type. One felt that she would have got on well with Mark Antony. Eyeing her as she stood here, Roscoe could understand why he had made that impulsive proposal of marriage in the later stages of another of those all-night parties two weeks before. She had what it takes to unsettle the cool judgment of the most level-headed young man" (pp.29-30).

[Selling paintings] "It is what is known as easing the sucker into it. It's like when you tell a story that's leading up to a smashing finish and make the early stages of it as dull as possible so as to heighten the effect of the final snapperoo. The one we want to sell her is the Daddi, so we pave the way with the follower and the flower piece and the pupil, each lousier than the last. These you might describe as the come-ons. They are designed to lower the spirits of Mrs Weston-Smythe and make her feel that this is what she gets for belonging to the human race. Then, while she is still wallowing in the depths, wondering what she can do to shake off this awful depression, we flash the Daddi at her. Naturally, after all that build-up, it looks to her like the picture of her dreams, and she buys it. Psychological stuff" (51-52).

"I am in no condition for telephone conversations as of even date. It's curious, the way I'm feeling this morning. Spiritually, I am right up there with the Cherubim and Seraphim and likely at any moment to start singing Hosanna, but physically you see me not at my superb best. My head aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk or emptied some dull opiate to the drains one minute past and Lethe-wards had sunk" (52).

"He was all amiability and old-world courtesy, in sharp contradistinction to Roscoe, who resembled a volcano about to spread molten lava over the countryside while thousands flee" (147).

"How soon can one get married?"
"Like a flash, I believe, if yer get a special license."
"I'll get two, to be on the safe side."
"I would. Can't go wrong if yer have a spare." Lord Uffenham was silent for a moment. He seemed deeply moved. "Did yer know," he said at length, "that the Herring Gull, when it mates, swells its neck, opens its beak and regurgitates a large quantity of undigested food?"
"You don't say? That isn't a part of the Church of England marriage service, is it?"
"I believe not. Still," said Lord Uffenham, "it's an interesting thought. Makes yer realize that it takes all sorts to make a world" (155-156).

[S. Suresh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot for Something Fishy is hatched in America with the creation of a tontine (a money fund), weeks before the 1929 stock market crash. J. J. Bunyan and a group of wealthy financiers’ chip in $50k each into the pool, the entire lot to be won by the last of their heirs to get married. Unknown to them, Bunyan’s butler Keggs is in the know of the sordid details of the tontine, and wants to profit from his knowledge thirty years hence.

The rest of the story unfolds in Valley Fields, Wodehouse’s favorite suburb of London, six miles from Piccadilly Circus (or four, if you are a crow, as he unfailingly reminds us). The affable sixth Viscount of Uffenham, with his penchant for mixing up names, is downright hilarious every time he opens his mouth.

Will J. J. Bunyan’s son Roscoe score the pot? Or will it be Bill Hollister? What about Keggs’ desire to profit from his knowledge? Wodehouse has woven yet another delightful yarn in Something Fishy, with the added pleasure of an incredible twist in the very end.

[Thomas Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something Fishy, P.G. Wodehouse

Amusing. After a preamble September 10, 1929 (p. 7), the rest of the book happens in June, 1955. p. 14.


Battling Bilson, partly because Nature had fashioned him that way and partly as the result of the risks of his profession, looked like a gorilla which had been caught in machinery of some sort. p. 30.

Poverty is the banana skin on the doorstep of romance. p. 40.

… that lifelong habit of his of proposing marriage to girls whenever the conversation seemed to be flagging a bit and a feller felt that he had to say /something/. p. 74.

I'm bad at names. I remember, back in the year 1912, getting the push from a girl called Kate because I wrote her a letter beginning "My own darling Mabel."

Women never forget. They're worse than elephants. p. 107.

[Linbur0100 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very amusing work, although a bit of a challenging read by today's standards, in that the writing style was very dense and sometimes an extremely funny tidbit would be buried deeply within an extremely convoluted sentence. (That was just an example of the way this book would have said something like "This book was funny but you have to pay attention to really catch what it is saying".) Once I really got into it, it went much faster, but the early chapters when it was setting up the characters personalities and backstories definitely slogged on a bit. I will plan to read more by this author.

[Svetlana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Про тонтину нескольких миллиардеров и про их сынков. Ничего особенного, но читать было довольно интересно.

Главное действующее лицо, как я понимаю, даже не сынки, а хитрюга дворецкий Огастес Кеггс – он, собственно, и организовал всю авантюру с женитьбами и изъятием денег из кошелька одного из толстосумов. Вот такая история. Именно им, по всей видимости, и знаменит Вудхауз.

[Chet Makoski]

The setting is Valley Fields, London SE with Lord Uffenham, his niece Jane Benedict, Percy Pilbeam, Battling Bilson and his wife Flossie, Keggs’ sister. Money in the Bank (1946) is also set in Valley Fields with characters from Something Fishy, Lord Uffenham and his niece Anne Bennedict, Jane’s sister. Money in the Bank characters are mentioned in Something Fishy on pages 123-128.

[Stig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another enjoyable Wodehouse - Lord Uffenham is back, this time pennyless in Valley Fields with another niece who is engaged to a wrong sort and needs to be attached to a better man. Needless to say, everything works out in the end.

[Puja Killa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it more than I expected to. A simple story line, sparkling wit, flippant dialogues with tongue-in-cheek humour with that old fashioned charm. A genre and a time period I hadn’t touched in ages. A refreshing and welcome change indeed.

[Sharron Kennard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully silly and very, very pointed.

[Pam Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful fluff. "Poverty is the banana skin on the doorstep of romance."

[Sara Leacock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite Wodehouse (I did miss the Jeeves and Wooster repartee) but still a fun story.

[Emlikescake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully enjoyable. Adore.

[Willa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read, the language was of its time, very British expressions.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Wodehouse, hit the spot after a while of not reading any. Not too long and tangled up which is preferred for me got this style of book.

[AishM · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice light read. A good break between heavy books.
Takes bit of a time to understand but the last page makes reading the book worth it.

[Paul Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Herbert Jenkins] (1957). HB/FDJ. 1/1. 199 Pages.

Augustus Keggs, a demonic variation upon Reginald Jeeves, brings sinister sparkle to this signature Wodehouse yarn.

Most amusing.

[Freddie Mansfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

A comedy about a bunch of upper class men who bet on which one of their sons will be a bachelor for the longest. A light read with some funny moments.

[Andrew Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

PGW never lets you down. For sure, some stories are better than others but you are guaranteed a happy and satisfactory ending. You are always left with a warm glow. Are they now dated? Not particularly. When well told, with a gentle sense of humour, a good story - and this is one of those - is timeless. And PGW seemingly crafted these perfectly and effortlessly.

[PAUL DEWSON · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly entertaining read, perhaps not vintage Wodehouse, but pure escapism nonetheless.