A late P.G. Wodehouse novel

The Girl in Blue, P.G. Wodehouse  (TBR shelves, 2011)

This book sat unread for many years, in at least three different homes. I think it was moving a shelf of Wodehouse books for the construction project that nudged me to finally pick this one up. It also made me realize how long it's been since I've read anything by PGW.

This novel was originally published in 1970, when Wodehouse was 89 years old. Even without the somewhat jarring references to Dear Abby and Dr. Joyce Brothers, I would have known this was a later work. It doesn't have the energy and fast pacing of my favorites from the 1930s and 1940s. The characters spend a lot of time sitting around, or walking around, and the the story meanders with them.

The "girl in the title" refers to a miniature painted by Thomas Gainsborough, which Willoughby Scrope has just acquired. It is a portrait of his great-great-grandmother and he is delighted to have it. He is in such a good mood that he happily writes a check for more than two hundred pounds, to help his older brother Crispin with repairs to the family seat, Mellingham Hall. Crispin reminded me of my beloved Lord Emsworth, except that he doesn't even have a pig to cherish. He does however have a debt collector in the house, posing as a butler. He also has paying guests, whom he loathes, because he needs their money.

In return for the cash, Willoughby tells Crispin that he will be hosting Bernadette "Barney" Clayborne. Barney's brother Homer Pyle, a wealthy attorney, has brought her over to Britain after she was caught shoplifting in a New York City department store. Pyle was advised to place Barney at some country estate far from temptation and stores, and his good friend Willoughby has suggested Crispin's private hotel. While the siblings are staying with Willoughby, Pyle starts to worry that Barney will steal the miniature, so he takes it himself and hides it away. When Willoughby finds it gone, he assumes Barney stole it, and he tries to get Crispin to search her rooms for it. After that fails, he enlists his nephew Jerry West to go down to Mellingham.

Jerry brings romantic complications to the story. He is engaged to the beautiful but unpleasant Vera Upshaw, but he has just finished serving on a jury with a young woman with whom he has instantly fallen in love. Jane is an air hostess, another modern note in the story, as is their jury service. Of course she ends up at Mellingham, and so does Vera eventually. I felt that the love story was not handled with Wodehouse's usual deft touch, and I think there might be a breach of promise suit in the end, which rather undercuts the happy ending in my mind.

This was a perfectly pleasant story with some comic moments, and I spent most of Sunday reading it. I'm glad to have crossed it off the TBR list, but I don't think this is one I'll read again.

Spring Fever, by P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse loved imposters in his stately homes the way Patricia Wentworth loved people suffering from amnesia in her mysteries. In PGW's stories, Person A is prevented or refuses, for a good reason, to make a visit to a stately home. Person B volunteers for his own reasons to go in his place (it's usually a him). Though there are usually at least two people in on the secret, Person B generally carries off the masquerade - until Person A shows up, under false pretenses and pretending to be someone else entirely (let's call him Person C).

In Spring Fever, published in 1948, Person A is Stanwood Cobbold. His father has sent him over to England to get him away from Eileen Stoker, a Hollywood star with whom he has fallen in love. Discovering that Miss Stoker has just arrived in London, for a two-picture contract, Cobbold Senior orders Stanwood off on a visit to Beevor Castle. The Castle is the Kentish home of the fifth Earl of Shortlands, the head of Cobbold family. The American Mr. Cobbold has discovered that his family is a colonial branch of this noble family, and he has developed (from afar) a great reverence for and devotion to the Earl. Lord Shortlands has no idea who this American person is, and certainly didn't invite his son for a visit. But then his masterful daughter Adela, whose husband's money keeps the Castle running, learns that Stanwood is the heir to a fortune. She immediately plans to marry him to her youngest sister Theresa.

Stanwood, however, has no intention of leaving London while Eileen Stoker is there. So his friend Mike Cardinal, a Hollywood agent, volunteers to go in his place. His motive: he is in love with Theresa (Terry), who is steadfastly refusing to marry him. When Lord Shortlands comes up to London, with Terry, to collect Stanwood, he hits it off with Mike and agrees to the impersonation. The Earl has troubles of his own. He needs £200, to win the hand of his cook Mrs. Punter, who wants to retire from service and open a pub in London. Lord Shortlands has a rival in his handsome butler Melvin Spink. His only consolation is that Spink regularly loses all his money on the ponies.

At first all goes well, except that Terry continues to refuse Mike's proposals and won't tell him why. But then Stanwood appears, pretending to be a Mr. Rossiter, an expert in rare stamps (about which he really knows nothing). An expert is needed because a rare Spanish stamp turned up in an old album, which both Lord Shortlands and his butler claim belongs to them. The stamp may be worth as much as £1500, which is more than enough to win Mrs. Punter's hand.

This book was such fun, with a capital "F". Lord Shortlands is one of those persecuted fathers, but he and Terry have a close and loving alliance. She is just a good egg, and I was curious to find out why she kept turning Mike Cardinal down when she's clearly not immune to his charm and beauty. Maybe it's the influence of his Hollywood career, but their flirtatious conversations flow like the best screwball comedy. At one point, he woos her by reading selections from "Percy's Promise, by Marcia Huddlestone (Popgood and Grooly, 1869)" - which is how it's referred to in the text every time, and that made me giggle.

And then there's Augustus Robb, Stanwood Cobbold's personal attendant. He is a massive man, an ex-burglar who has found religion, quotes constantly from the Scriptures, calls Stanwood "cocky" - and wears horn-rimmed glasses. I thought immediately of Magersfontein Lugg, Albert Campion's man, though it's Campion who wears the glasses. Did PGW ever read Margery Allingham's books, I wonder? And that reminded me of Peter Wimsey telling Bunter in Strong Poison, "Well, then, don't talk like Jeeves. It irritates me."

A Few Quick Ones, by P.G. Wodehouse

I haven't read all of P.G. Wodehouse's books - there are more than 100 - but I thought I was familiar with most of the titles. So it was a happy surprise to come across this one recently at Half Price Books. This is a short-story collection, first published in 1959. And it's something of a Wodehouse smorgasbord, with stories featuring his popular characters Bertie and Jeeves, Lord Emsworth, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, the Oldest Member, and Mr Mulliner. Three are set at the Drones Club, but rather than the amiable Eggs, Beans and Crumpets, we get Oofy Prosser, the rich but tight-fisted blot who never puts himself out to help a friend in trouble.

I complained recently about short stories being too short, but reading these reminded me how well P.G. Wodehouse handles them. And I've noticed before how often his stories are about stories. It's not just Bertie addressing the reader. When the Oldest Member and Mr Mulliner appear (in this and other books), they're telling stories to those around them. Likewise, most of the Drones Club stories consist of members relating the adventures (and mishaps) of fellow members.

I don't think that Psmith ever appeared in a short story, so I didn't expect to see him. I was hoping though that Uncle Fred, the fifth Earl of Ickenham, might. After all, his long-suffering nephew Pongo Twistleton is a member of the Drones. (It's from the club windows that Uncle Fred uses a slingshot to fire on someone's hat, setting off the action in Cocktail Time.) But no such luck. I was happy though to see another earl, Clarence, the ninth Earl of Emsworth. In his story, "Birth of a Salesman," he is far away from his ancestral Blandings Castle. In the United States to attend a wedding, he is staying with his son Freddy on Long Island. His overbearing sisters tend to treat Lord Emsworth like he is dumber than a pile of rocks, and Freddy has unfortunately developed something of the same scornful attitude. Left to his own devices, Lord Emsworth gets to rescue a damsel in distress and score a point against Freddy. It was lovely to see him blossom out a bit, even if he is acting under a major misapprehension most of the time. I think his brother Galahad would be proud of him.

I still have a couple of Wodehouse books on the TBR stacks, but I'll keep an eye out too for the serendipitous ones that I didn't even know I was missing.

Bibliotherapy at the end of a tough week

This was a full-moon week, for sure. Too many things to do, too many deadlines and appointments. I felt off-balance all week, like the Red Queen running as fast as I could just to stay in place. And to cap the week off, I had a meeting with my tax adviser this afternoon. (At least it looks like I'll owe less money this year.) Heading home afterwards, I felt I deserved a treat - or a prize for getting through the week. I started with a chai latte at Starbucks and then plotted a course for Kaboom Books. Though I had Willa Cather and Margery Sharp in mind, I wasn't looking for anything in particular. As usual, I found some irresistible books there.

I had not come across this 1935 novel before. The back cover has a quote from the Times Literary Supplement that sold me on it: "In Lucy Gayheart, Willa Cather seems to be writing the lightest and slightest of records of a short life: the obscure life of a young girl in an American village who goes to Chicago to study music . . . but the impression left on the reader is not slight . . . The unity of Miss Cather's design, the clarity and distinction of this book should put it beside her first great success, My Antonia."

Another book I knew nothing of, despite my years of collecting P.G. Wodehouse's books. The back-cover blurb says that this is "the nearest Wodehouse ever came to a serious story," but it also mentions "a series of of comic mishaps in a book which features a galaxy of vintage Wodehouse characters." I see it was published in the U.S. as Their Mutual Child. I just mentioned in a post on Indiscretions of Archie that I've never read a Wodehouse book with a pregnant character - and here apparently is another. Though if the woman on the cover is pregnant, she is carrying that child in a very odd place.

This book sold itself on the title and cover alone. I see that Isabella Bird and Amelia Edwards are included, and I'm looking forward to meeting more of their intrepid sisterhood. I also see many lovely illustrations  - and maps! Lots of maps, for the geographically-challenged!

I instantly thought of Jane of Beyond Eden Rock when I saw this book. I enjoyed reading the three volumes of Rev. Francis Kilvert's diaries from the 1870s, but I was frustrated by the editing, which (as often happens) cut out things that I wanted to read about in favor of things the editor wanted to talk about. (See also: the diaries of George Templeton Strong.) This small volume covers a holiday that Kilvert spent in Cornwall in 1870. "This is the first complete edition of Kilvert's Journal No. 4..." I love the words "complete edition," as well as "Copiously illustrated with contemporary photographs and engravings - some of which are published here for the first time..."

Some time ago, I came across Vol. II of Anthony Trollope's 1862 travelogue North America, in the edition above. Having already read an extremely condensed one-volume edition, I bought it, even though Vol. I was not on the shelf, because complete editions of these books are hard to find (in print). I felt sure that someday I would come across the first volume, and today I did. But it was on sale with the second volume, as a set. I can understand that the proprietor didn't want to be left with an odd Vol. II that was unlikely to sell (except to a hopeful reader like me). So I bought the set, which at least wasn't expensive. If anyone would like the orphaned Vol. II, I'd be happy to send it along. I think it may be the more interesting of the two anyway, since it covers Trollope's visit to Washington and to the western theatre of the Civil War and its armies.

More for the TBR stacks, but at least I think I can resist them for the remainder of the TBR Dare (I've resisted Vol. II of North America for quite a while now).

Indiscretions of Archie, by P.G. Wodehouse

    Archie attached himself to the top button of Mr Brewster's coat, and was immediately dislodged by an irritable jerk of the other's substantial body.
    'Listen, old thing! I came over to this country to nose about in search of a job, because there doesn't seem what you might call a general demand for my services in England. Directly I was demobbed, the family started talking about the Land of Opportunity and shot me on to a liner. The idea was that I might get hold of something in America -'
    He got hold of Mr Brewster's coat-button, and was again shaken off.
    'Between ourselves, I've never done anything much in England, and I fancy the family were getting a bit fed. At any rate, they sent me over here -'
    Mr Brewster disentangled himself for the third time.
    'I would prefer to postpone the story of your life,' he said coldly; 'and be informed what is your specific complaint against the Hotel Cosmopolis.'

Mr Brewster loves his hotel, second only to his daughter Lucille. He doesn't react well to Archie's complaints, finally asking him to vacate his room. Archie does so willingly, since he has been invited to a house-party in Miami. Some time later, Mr Brewster gets a telegram from his daughter, who has been staying in Miami: "Returning New York today with darling Archie." Having no idea who this Archie might be, he is by no means pleased to find his daughter married to his complaining guest - one who moreover has no job and no prospects. He has no intention of supporting this unwelcome son-in-law, though he does reluctantly allow the couple a suite in the hotel (and meals in the restaurants).

I started this 1921 novel just after I finished Margery Sharp's Harlequin House. Initially I found Archie a little too much like the feckless young man in that book, a little annoying, and I set this aside to read something else. I am very glad I came back to it, though, because Archie is a good egg. He has the kindly nature of a Wodehouse hero, he is always willing to help out a friend in trouble, he loves his wife and wants to make her happy. He does look for work in a desultory kind of way, finding all kind of adventures along the way. Eventually he finagles his way into a job. I admired his nerve, though I'm not sure he'll really be a success at it.

The scrapes that Archie gets himself into - and out of - follow a familiar Wodehouse pattern. I could imagine Bertie Wooster or the Eggs, Beans and Crumpets of the Drones Club landing themselves in similar situations. I did however notice some unusual elements in this story. I think this is the first Wodehouse book I have read that features a Great War veteran, who occasionally reminisces about his war-time experiences - in a light-hearted way, of course. Archie isn't haunted by the war. But at one point he meets an army acquaintance, down and out on the streets, who has lost his memory. Archie does everything he can to help this man, out of gratitude for food shared in the middle of a campaign (Archie calls him "The Sausage Chappie"), even though his friend has no memory of him (or the sausage). It felt a little odd to have the shadow of the Great War fall, however lightly, on a Wodehouse story. And this is the only book of his I have read so far that features a pregnant character. Children in Wodehouse's books are usually trouble, it seems to me - at least the younger ones.

Ring for Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse

I've said before that I prefer the Jeeves and Wooster stories with more Bertie and less Jeeves.  Well, this story is all Jeeves and no Bertie.  There is a Bertie-ish character of course: Bill, the ninth Earl of Rowcester.  "Intensely amiable and beloved by all who knew him," he is "far from being a mental giant."  He inherited the title and a damp crumbling stately home, Rowcester Abbey, from his uncle, but not the means to support either.  This book was published in 1953, and in P.G. Wodehouse's view, it's a dark time in Great Britain, particularly for the upper classes.  Everyone has to work, there's never enough money, and what there is goes to the income tax.  Bill's brother-in-law Sir Roderick Carmoyle is working at the London department store Harrige's, where he is "Floorwalker in the Hosepipe, Lawn Mower and Bird Bath department."  But he has hopes of a transfer to Glass, Fancy Goods and Chinaware. "And from there to the Ladies' Underclothing is but a step."  However, his wife Monica (known as the Moke) seems to be a lady of leisure.

Bill needs work closer to home, especially since he is engaged to Jill Wyvern, a neighbor who is a veterinarian and the daughter of the Chief Constable. ("We're all working at something," she tells Monica.)  Jill is under the impression that Bill is working for the Agricultural Board, which explains his frequent absences.  In reality, though, Jeeves has helped him set up as a bookie, Honest Patch Perkins.  With Jeeves as his clerk, Bill has been bringing in a steady income.  As the story opens though, disaster has struck in the form of Captain C.G. Brabazon-Biggar, whose double bet on two races came in for just over £3000.  Not having the funds to pay out, Bill and Jeeves ran like rabbits from the race-course.  Unfortunately for them, Captain Biggar is a Great White Hunter, who never loses his prey.  He arrives at Rowcester Abbey in hot pursuit, having tracked their car all the way.  Meanwhile another visitor has arrived, a twice-widowed American millionaire, Rosalinda Spottsworth.  Monica, who met her in New York, has high hopes that she will buy the Abbey.  Bill thinks that is a wonderful idea, because then he can pay off the Captain. There are a couple of small complications (of course): Bill has never mentioned to Jill that he met Mrs. Spottsworth when she was between husbands, and she doesn't appreciate hearing her fiancé called "Billikens" by another woman. The Captain doesn't like it any better, since he has been in love with Mrs. Spottsworth from afar for years.  However, it is against The Code to play a fortune-hunter, so he needs that £3000 more than ever.

Naturally, it is for Jeeves to sort all this out.  He does it while spouting tags and quotes from great thinkers, though told repeatedly to knock it off.  He is actually quite talkative in this book!  He explains early on why he was free to accept the position of butler and bookie's clerk at the Abbey:

"Mr. Wooster is attending a school which does not permit its student body to employ gentlemen's personal gentlemen . . . An institution designed to teach the aristocracy to fend for itself, m'lord.  Mr. Wooster, though his finances are still quite sound, feels that it is prudent to build for the future, in case the social revolution should set in with even greater severity.  Mr. Wooster . . . I can hardly mention this without some display of emotion . . . is actually learning to darn his own socks.  The course he is taking includes boot-cleaning, sock-darning, bed-making and primary grade cooking."

This seems unusually pointed and political for P.G. Wodehouse.  He was living in the United States at the time, so he wasn't facing any social revolutions himself.  I learned from a biography that I have on hand (unread) that this book was written from a play he had recently finished with Guy Bolton.  Looking back, I can see that it would work well on stage, with most of the action taking place indoors.  I enjoyed this more than I expected to, primarily because of Rory and the Moke.  His enthusiasm for Harriage's is funny and a little touching, and he also has his foot perpetually stuck in his mouth.  He can't resist pointing out all the Abbey's defects to Mrs. Spottsworth, to his wife's despair.  I'd be happy to come across them again, in other stories.

Bertie tries his best

Jeeves in the Offing, P.G. Wodehouse

Last month I commented that the Jeeves stories are not my favorites among P.G. Wodehouse's many books.  But the other day I was browsing in Half Price Books [which has been dangerous for the TBR stacks lately], and I saw this one on the shelves, in a bright shiny new-looking Arrow edition.  I didn't recognize the title - I keep thinking I've finally seen them all, and then another one sneaks up on me.  This book opens with Bertie answering a call from his Aunt Dahlia, who is the only decent aunt I've ever come across in Wodehouse's world.  She is telephoning to invite her favorite nephew down to her country home, Brinkley Court in Market Snodsbury.  Brinkley Court is the setting for two of my favorite of the Bertie and Jeeves books, Right Ho, Jeeves, and The Code of the Woosters.  So that pretty much sold me from the first page.  To discover that this book also involves the famous sterling silver cow creamer, which plays such a prominent role in The Code of the Woosters, just proved how right I was to add it to my shelves.

Aunt Dahlia, also known as Mrs. Thomas Travers, hasn't invited Bertie just for the pleasure of his company.  She has a mission for him.  Staying at Brinkley Court are Aunt Dahlia's god-daughter Phyllis Mills and her stepfather Aubrey Upjohn, Bertie's old headmaster from prep school, a martinet with a heavy caning hand.  Also in residence are Mrs. Adela Cream and her son Willie, who are staying with Aunt Dahlia while the senior Mr. Cream works out a big business deal with Dahlia's husband Tom.  Dahlia is under strict instructions to make the Creams' visit a pleasant one, to sweeten the business deal.  Unfortunately, before Bertie arrives, she learns that Willie Cream is a New York playboy, and since he is spending a lot of time with Phyllis, she assigns Bertie to play third wheel.  However, Bertie arrives reeling from an announcement in the Times of his engagement to Bobbie Wickham, who also happens to be staying at Brinkley Court.  And while Bertie did once propose to Bobbie, who turned him down, he can't remember doing it again recently, and he isn't as keen on the idea now anyway.

Bertie arrives not only reeling but alone, since Jeeves is off on his annual holiday, shrimping in Herne Bay.  As usual, he tries to cope as best he can with his new fiancée, his aunt's expectations, the unusual butler he finds installed at Brinkley Court, and the sudden disappearance of the cow creamer.  Of course he gets into trouble.  Stephen Fry wrote that Bertie is "not intelligent within the meaning of the act," but "he is loyal, kind, chivalrous, resolute and magnificently sweet-natured."   That's what gets him into trouble, time and again.  He can't resist a friend in need or a damsel in distress - and they know it.  As usual, Jeeves is the only one who can find a way out of the coils that wind around poor Bertie.  Here he nobly cuts short his shrimping holiday to join Bertie at Brinkley Court.

I really enjoyed this book.  There was one plot twist that caught me by surprise - well, two, if you count the fate of the cow creamer.  I hereby retract any slighting comments I have made about the Jeeves and Wooster stories.  Actually, I think I'll start calling them the Bertie stories, since he's really the reason I read them.

The rightful heir?

If I Were You, P.G. Wodehouse

When I go into a bookstore, there are certain names I automatically check for, starting with Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope and Angela Thirkell.  P.G. Wodehouse is also on that list, and it was a pleasant surprise the other day to find a title I didn't recognize.  The blurb on the back sold me with the first line:

If I Were You is Wodehouse's comic variation on a favorite theme of Victorian melodrama - the changeling.  Did old Nannie Price really substitute her own child for the infant son of the late Lord and Lady Droitwich while they were away in India?  If so, Tony Droitwich is the heir, not to rolling acres and a stately pile, but to a barber's shop in London's West End.  With Socialist Syd Price determined to prove himself the new earl, and Tony's haughty relations determined that he shall not, the stage is set for an amusing battle, waged by a familiar Wodehousian cast of fat butlers, tough aunts, lively American girls and drawling dandies.

I should point out that there is actually only one of each from the above list (butler, aunt, girl and dandy).  The cast also includes Tony's uncle and former guardian, Sir Herbert, married to his aunt Lydia  (the Prices usually call him Sir Rerbert, which made me giggle every time, and sometimes picture Kermit the Frog).  There is also Tony's new fiancée Violet Waddington, heiress to a soup fortune.  She is one of those pillish young women you meet in Wodehouse, usually engaged to some hapless male, who you know are destined to grow up into termagant aunts.  Tony, on the other hand, is a gentleman and a good guy.  I figured he was going to get the happy ending he deserved, though I wasn't sure exactly how.

In a light-hearted way, this book is about Nature vs. Nurture.  Syd may be the heir to a hundred earls (or he may not be), but hairdressing is in his blood too. Tony's aunt and uncle want to deny him the title in favor of Tony, who may or may not be the rightful heir, but who fits their idea of an earl much better than the Cockney Syd.  Yet they don't seem as concerned about Tony himself as they do about having a proper Earl of Droitwich in place.

The reference in the backcover blurb to the stage being set for the cast is very appropriate.  The story could easily be adapted for the stage, and I wondered if in fact it had started as a script.  The cast is small, with a couple of walk-on roles.  The action is divided into three scenes, two of which take place in the drawing room at Langley End, Lord Droitwich's estate in Worcestershire, book-ending one set in Syd Price's barber shop near Hyde Park.  Langley End is described in glowing terms, nestled like Blandings Castle in its gardens and terraces, but unusually for Wodehouse (at least in the books I've read), the action is confined to the drawing-room, and to Syd's shop.  The characters move constantly in and out of the rooms, like actors exiting stage left and right.

This book was published in 1931, and for the first part of that year, Wodehouse was in Hollywood under contract as a screenwriter for MGM.  Maybe that explains why it reads rather like a script at times.  But however it was written, this is a fun book, and I really enjoyed it.

A week at Blandings

Full Moon and Galahad at Blandings, P.G. Wodehouse

These days I wouldn't usually read two Wodehouse books back to back, because past binge readings have taught me that, wonderful as they are, they lose some of their savor when read too closely together.  But half-way through Galahad at Blandings, I realized that I had its prequel of sorts on the TBR stacks as well, and I couldn't resist picking it up next.

I think I've mentioned before that for years, all I knew of P.G. Wodehouse were the Bertie and Jeeves stories.  I had no idea that he wrote so many different series or connected stories, let alone all the stand-alone books.  I feel like I only truly came to appreciate Wodehouse in 2004, when a comment on the Georgette Heyer listserv I belong to led me to Leave It to Psmith, my introduction not just to the inimitable Rupert Psmith (of the Shropshire Psmiths), but also to Blandings Castle.  Blandings is of course the Shropshire home of Clarence Threepwood, ninth Earl of Emsworth, and his prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings.

The Earl is afflicted with four sisters, the kind of domineering women that haunt so many of Wodehouse's characters, frequently as interfering aunts.  He also has a younger brother, the Honorable Galahad Threepwood, who is a much more welcome visitor at Blandings, except to whichever of his sisters is currently in residence.  He's another of my favorite characters.

Gally Threepwood was the only genuinely distinguished member of the family of which Lord Emsworth was the head.  Lord Emsworth himself had once won a first prize for pumpkins at the Shropshire Agricultural Show and his pig, Empress of Blandings, had three times been awarded the silver medal for fatness at that annual festival, but you could not say that he had really risen to eminence in the public life of England.  Gally, on the other hand, had made a name for himself.  The passage of years had put him more or less in retirement now, but in his youth he had been one of the lights of London, one of the great figures at whom the world of the stage, the racecourse and the rowdier restaurants had pointed with pride.  There were men in London - bookmakers, skittle sharps, jellied eel sellers at race meetings and the like - who would have been puzzled to know whom you were referring to if you had spoken of Einstein, but they were all familiar with Gally.

Gally has a kind heart and ready sympathy for young people in trouble, especially in matters of the heart.  He still remembers the love of his own younger days, Dolly Henderson, a music-hall singer from whom he was forcibly separated by his appalled family, who shipped him out to South Africa and the army.  He is always ready to help young lovers torn apart by families or fate - or by their own rash actions.  He finds plenty of scope for his good deeds at Blandings.  As Freddie, Lord Emsworth's younger son, explains,  "I ought to mention that all the younger generation of my family get sent to Blandings when they fall in love with the wrong type of soul mate.  It's a sort of Devil's Island."

In Full Moon, it is Prudence Garland, the daughter of Freddie's aunt Dora, who is sent to Blandings, because she has gotten engaged to William Lister.  Bill is an aspiring artist with no money and no prospects, except an inn near Oxford that he recently inherited.  That makes him a completely ineligible suitor for a member of the Threepwood family, even though he is Gally's godson. (Actually, for Gally's sisters, that is a strike against Bill.)  Already in residence at the castle is another aunt, Hermione, with her husband Colonel Wedge and their beautiful but witless daughter Veronica. Though like his father the elder Wedges look on Freddie with a jaundiced eye, they are thrilled to hear that he is bringing a friend to stay, since the friend is a young millionaire, Tipton Plimsoll, who recently inherited America's largest chain of grocery stores.  But the course of love doesn't run smoothly for either Bill or Tipton, until Gally takes a hand to sort everything out.

Galahad at Blandings was written almost twenty years later, but little time has passed at the castle.  It is a shorter and more compact book than Full Moon, despite the three couples who need Gally's help to a happy ending this time.  In my new favorite line, at one point he tells one of the young women, "Take that lemon out of your mouth, Mona Lisa."  Unlike his usual role, Gally here has to protect his brother Clarence against a designing female, a widow with a loathsome young son, whom Lady Hermione has invited to Blandings.  This book features another resident of the Castle, Beach the butler, who knows most of the family secrets and often takes a hand in the complicated affairs of the younger generation.  He had only a cameo in the earlier book, and it was good to see him again on center stage in the later one.  In the course of the story, he loses a beloved silver watch, the prize of a darts tournament, to one of the distraught young lovers.  We're never told if he gets it back in the end.  Perhaps I'll find out in the next installment, A Pelican at Blandings, which is still on the TBR stacks.

My Arrow edition of Full Moon has a quote from Stephen Fry on the back cover: "You don't analyze such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour" (you can read the essay from which it's taken here).  I couldn't agree more, and I am always happy to spend a few days at Blandings.

Complications at the Château Blissac

Hot Water, P.G. Wodehouse

I think I've found the quintessential P.G. Wodehouse novel.  My Penguin edition has a back-cover blurb from the Daily Telegraph, "He has done nothing funnier than this," which initially left me a bit skeptical, a bit suspicious of hyperbole.  I wasn't half-way through the book before I found myself in complete agreement and reaching for superlatives of my own.  Hot Water was published in 1932, and I've mentioned before that I find the books written in the late 1920s and 1930s to have a brilliance, a comic energy, which show Wodehouse at the top of his game, which the later books sometimes lack, wonderful as they still are.

The story is set in St. Rocque in Brittany, where Mrs. J. Wellington Gedge has rented the Château Blissac for the season.  Mr. J. Wellington Gedge is oblivious to the charms of the resort and its famous Casino, homesick for his beloved Glendale, California.  Having lost all his money in the stock market crash, however, he must go where his wife leads.  Even when he had money, he would have found it hard to assert himself.

Mrs Gedge herself would have fought in the light-heavy division.  She was a solidly built, handsome woman a few years younger than her husband, and you could see from a glance at her why he always did what she told him to.  Even in repose, her manner was forceful. Of her past life before their marriage, except that she was the widow of a multi-millionaire oil man named Brewster who had left her all his multi-millions, Mr Gedge knew nothing. He sometimes thought she might have been a lion tamer.

Mrs Gedge summons her husband to her room to inform him she is leaving unexpectedly for England, and that guests will be arriving in her absence: an American Senator, Mr Opal, and his daughter Jane, as well as the Vicomte de Blissac.  These guests have been invited because they can influence the appointment of the next American Ambassador to France.  Mr Gedge is stunned and horrified to learn that he will be their candidate. He dislikes France and the French, he wants to go home to California, and worst of all, "Didn't Ambassadors have to wear uniforms and satin knickerbockers?"  However, he well knows that resistance is futile.

Also staying in St Rocque are two fellow Americans, Soup Slattery and Oily Carlisle, a safe-cracker and a con man respectively.  Both have their eye on Mrs Gedge's jewels, securely locked in her bedroom safe at the Château.  They aren't the only ones with their eyes on that safe.  It also contains a letter from Senator Opal that explains why he is reluctantly supporting Mrs Gedge's ambassadorial ambitions.  He wants that letter back.  His daughter Jane is engaged to a rising young writer named Blair Eggleston, whose recent novel Worm i' the Root thrilled the critics if not the people who actually buy books.  When Jane sends her fiancé to ask for her hand, her father mistakes him for the latest in a long line of valets and hires him on the spot.  The Senator is the male equivalent of Mrs Gedge, and Eggleston can't even manage to get a word in edgewise, let alone explain that far from being a valet, he hopes to marry the Senator's daughter.  Meanwhile, Jane has met Patrick (Packy) Franklyn, a young American millionaire, recently graduated from Yale, where he was a football star.  He is engaged to Lady Beatrice Bracken, an earl's daughter, a society beauty with higher thoughts and highest ideals.  Packy doesn't quite measure up to her standards, but she is trying to improve him through exposure to the arts and to writers like Eggleston (whom Packy considers "A gosh-awful pill with side-whiskers"). Lady Beatrice is setting off for a visit to her parents, and in her absence Packy is drawn into helping Jane recover the damaging letter, purely in a spirit of friendship of course.  He ends up in St Roque, where he meets his old friend the Vicomte and makes new friends in Soup and Mr Gedge.  I took to Packy straight off.  He has the high spirits of the Drones Club members, with the good heart and loyalty of Bertie Wooster, combined with the devious plotting of Psmith (though not his persiflage).

Hot Water has one of Wodehouse's more complicated plots, which is saying something.  It's full of surprises right to the end - the last of which I never saw coming.  The Château is crawling with impostors, and there are double- and triple-crosses, long-buried secrets, lovers' quarrels and reunions.  I had a pretty good idea how it would all end, but oh the fun in getting there!  From now on, if anyone asks me where to start, among P.G. Wodehouse's many marvelous books, with all due respect to Uncle Fred and Psmith, Mr Mulliner and the Oldest Member, I'm going to say Hot Water.

In the bar at the Angler's Rest

Mr Mulliner Speaking, P.G. Wodehouse

Thinking about this book, I realized that P.G. Wodehouse, a master storyteller, wrote a lot of stories about storytellers. Does that count as metafiction? The ones set in the Drones Club consist of members recounting the various adventures that have befallen their fellow Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (the title of one such collection). Bertie Wooster often narrates his own adventures, and he occasionally acknowledges his audience: "I don't know if you were among the gang that followed the narrative of my earlier adventures with Gussie Fink-Nottle - " (The Code of the Woosters).

And then there are Wodehouse's two supreme raconteurs, the Oldest Member of the golf stories, and Mr Mulliner, the star of this book and two others. Where the Oldest Member spends his time in the clubhouse and out on the links, Mr Mulliner can usually be found of an evening in the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest, a glass of hot Scotch and lemon before him. Inevitably, as the conversation flows, he is reminded of a story, most of which involve his nephews and nieces (given the number of these stories, his must be a very extended family). Like the Oldest Member's, the stories are often about young men in love and the difficulties of courtship. In the Mulliner family, the course of true love rarely runs smooth, at least at first. For a change, three of the stories here are about Mr Mulliner's niece Roberta Wickham, who "like so many spirited girls of today . . . is inclined to treat her suitors badly."

Unlike the Oldest Member, whose audience often tries to escape when they feel a story coming on, Mr Mulliner's stories are always welcome. Or almost always - ironically, in this book, he comes across two golfers in the bar, to whom he tells the golfing story of "Those in Peril on the Tee," ignoring their efforts to evade him (the title of that story makes me giggle every time I think of it).

There is just so much fun to be found in Wodehouse, and in such variety. Both "Those in Peril on the Tee" and "The Long Hole" (in The Clicking of Cuthbert) are about a golf match, the outcome of which will decide whom a particular young lady will marry. Wodehouse takes the same setting in two completely different directions, and both in their own way are very funny (I still think "The Long Hole" is the best Wodehouse story ever). I'll just leave you with a quote from the first story in this collection, "The Reverent Wooing of Archibald":

People who enjoyed a merely superficial acquaintance with my nephew Archibald (said Mr Mulliner) were accustomed to set him down as just an ordinary pin-headed young man. It was only when they came to know him better that they discovered their mistake. Then they realized that his pin-headedness, so far from being ordinary, was exceptional. Even at the Drones Club, where the average of intellect is not high, it was often said of Archibald that, had his brains been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.

Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge

Ukridge, P.G. Wodehouse

I've had this book on the TBR shelves for a couple of years, and I did try it once or twice, but I always put it back to try again later. As hard as it is to find Wodehouse in the libraries and bookstores around here, I don't give up on one easily. It was only when I read Lord Emsworth and Others, which includes some Ukridge stories, that I finally fell under his spell.

The stories are narrated by James Corcoran, Corky to his friends, who first met Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge at school. Both attended Wrykyn, as did Mike Jackson of the Psmith stories, who was removed by his father after failing most of his subjects. Ukridge was expelled, for sneaking out at night to the local village's fair, disguised in scarlet whiskers and a false nose, but unfortunately still wearing his school cap. While Corky continued on to Cambridge and a career as a free-lance journalist, Ukridge gave up on education, "flitting about the world like a snipe." They meet again several years later in London. Ukridge is living on his wits, constantly in debt but always at work on the next scheme to make his fortune, like a school to train performing dogs for theatrical work. In the first story, he sets off with six Pekingese for a cottage in Kent. A few days later, Corky receives a telegram, begging him to come to Kent: "Life and death matter, old horse. Desperate situation. Don't fail me."

This sets the pattern for the stories that follow, as Corky is called again and again to the rescue. Sometimes he finds himself in the middle of Ukridge's schemes before he knows it. He arrives home to find his friend ensconced in his flat, drinking his whiskey, wearing his shirts and socks, and frequently hitting him up for a loan. Through it all he stands by Ukridge, who can generally talk him into anything. That's not to say that Corky can't be pushed too far, and he will occasionally balk, particularly in any situation involving Ukridge's Aunt Julia, a successful novelist and one of Wodehouse's most formidable aunts.

Several of the stories follow Ukridge's attempts to turn Wilberforce Billson, a ship's trimmer whom he met on his travels, into "Battling Billson," a professional boxer. Billson's physique and skills, honed in bar-room fights around the world, are impressive, and Ukridge jumps enthusiastically into the role of manager. Boxing, like golf, seems to have been one of P.G. Wodehouse's favorite sports, and boxers turn up regularly at least in his early books. Since I don't share the enthusiasm, I sometimes find that those books drag a bit. Not here, though, where the focus is on Ukridge's plots and plans. There is also a wonderful section on one of Billson's bouts at the Universal Sporting Club, which Corky describes at length as taking place in almost a religious atmosphere:

When we arrived, two acolytes in the bantam class were going devoutly through the ritual under the eye of the presiding minister, while a large congregation looked on in hushed silence. As we took our seats, this portion of the service came to an end and the priest announced that Nippy Coggs was the winner. A reverent murmur arose for an instant from the worshippers. Nippy Coggs disappeared into the vestry, and after a pause of a few minutes I perceived the familiar form of Battling Billson coming up the aisle.

This book was published in 1924, but the stories seem to take place even earlier. Automobiles feature in some of them, but no telephones. Corky and Ukridge exchange letters and telegrams, but just as frequently they have to track each other down to share vital information. Ukridge plans to train his dogs for the music-hall stage, with no mention of films, nor of radio. Of course Wodehouse's stories are generally timeless, his characters untouched by the later 20th century, Blandings standing unchanged in the golden light of a perfect summer afternoon. I'm certainly not complaining.

A wonderful Wodehouse sampler

Lord Emsworth and Others, P.G. Wodehouse

When I finished P.G. Wodehouse's The Heart of a Goof last New Year's Eve, I thought I'd read the last of the golf stories.  So I was delighted to find that the "others" in the title to this book include three more, with the Oldest Member in fine form.  This gives me hope that there may be yet more golf stories to be discovered.

There are nine stories in this book.  None of them features Bertie and Jeeves, or Uncle Fred, but otherwise they are a perfect sampler of Wodehouse characters, and this might be a good introduction for a new reader.  The first story is set at Blandings, with its "ancient battlements, the smooth green lawns, the rolling parkland, the majestic trees, the well-bred bees and the gentlemanly birds . . ."  Into this Eden slithers the inevitable serpent, in this case the detestable Rupert Baxter, Lord Emsworth's former secretary and constant bête noire.

The three golf stories are bookended by a Mulliner story on one end and a Drones Club story on the other.  I was lucky enough to find Mr Mulliner Speaking recently at Half Price Books, one of the three books in that mini-series, and I also have the second volume of Drones stories, Eggs Beans & Crumpets, still to read.  Mr Mulliner reminds me a bit of the Oldest Member, with a story for every occasion, except that his audience never grows restless or tries to make their escape when they sense a story coming on.  And the Drones Club is at the heart of so many Wodehouse stories.  It is there that we first meet Uncle Fred, Bertie Wooster is frequently to be found there, and it is from the smoking-room window that Psmith first sees Eve Halliday and sets forth to rescue her with a purloined umbrella.

But the real surprise for me was in the last three stories, which feature Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.  I found a Penguin edition of the Ukridge stories after reading about them in a marvelous essay that Stephen Fry wrote on Wodehouse (which you can find here).  But I didn't take to Ukridge, and that book is still on the TBR pile.  The three Ukridge stories here, though, are a delight, particularly the first one, "Ukridge and the Home from Home," in which he recounts to his long-suffering friend Corky how he turned his aunt's Wimbledon home into a residential hotel in her absence.  When he learns that she is returning three months earlier than he expected, he has to figure out how to evict six comfortably-settled lodgers, all of them with watertight rental agreements that still have three months to run.  Some of his dodges are spectacularly successful, and others are complete disasters, and the fun is in watching it play out.  I've moved Ukridge up the TBR stack (the Wodehouse section of the stack is surpassed only by the Trollope).

A last post for 2011

The Heart of a Goof, P.G. Wodehouse

I finished out my reading year with P.G. Wodehouse, and who could ask for anything better?  This is the second of his collections of golf stories (I posted about the first, The Clicking of Cuthbert, back in July).  Here again the Oldest Member sits in the clubhouse or on the terrace overlooking the ninth hole, always glad to see a fellow member and always ready for a chat about golf, or love.  These chats end up being a bit one-sided, of course, since the Sage is inevitably reminded of a story, which he proceeds to tell, deaf to any protests, attempts to change to subject, or even snoring from his listener.

Most of the stories, as so often with Wodehouse, deal with lovers divided, though one is also about a magical pair of plus-fours. (Reading this, I realized I had no idea where the name "plus-fours" comes from, but thanks to Google I do now: they are four inches longer than the traditional knickerbockers. Honestly, the things you learn from reading!)  I enjoyed the stories, though none quite reaches the comic heights of "The Long Hole" in the first volume, which I still consider Wodehouse's funniest.  Much of the humor comes from watching the trap close on the Oldest Member's chosen victim, and the futile attempts at escape that follow:

     "The whole affair recalls irresistibly to my mind the story -"
     The secretary rose with a whirr like a rocketing pheasant.
     "- the story," continued the Sage, "of Jane Packard, William Bates, and Rodney Spelvin - which, as you have never heard it, I will now proceed to relate."
     "Can't stop now, much as I should like - "
     "It is a theory of mine," proceeded the Oldest Member, attaching himself to the other's coat-tails, and pulling him gently back into his seat . . .

He rather reminds me of Jane Austen's Miss Bates, another implacable conversationalist.  They are great fun to read about, though if I met either in real life, I would probably be trying to make my escape too, as quickly as possible.

It's still a few hours to midnight here, but I'll wish you a Happy New Year now.  Here's to another great year of reading and sharing books!

The Girl on the Boat

The Girl on the Boat, P.G. Wodehouse

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that as wonderful as P.G. Wodehouse is, not all his books are created equal.  For me, The Girl on the Boat isn't one of his best.  All the Wodehouse elements are there, but they don't quite come together.

The plot - well, it's tough to do justice to a Wodehouse plot!  This one revolves around two cousins, Eustace Hignett and Sam Marlowe. Eustace is the son of Mrs Horace Hignett, "the world-famous writer on Theosophy" who has come to America on a lecture tour. 

"About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to affect them all simultaneously . . .  on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded, that there was ready money to be picked up on the lecture-platforms of America, and that they might just as well grab it as the next person  . . .  [Mrs Hignett] was halfway across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary booked, before ninety per cent of the poets and philosophers had finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs taken for the passports."

After that marvelous introduction, I had high hopes of Mrs Hignett, but she soon disappears from the story.  In the first chapter, learning that Eustace is to be married that afternoon to a young woman of whom she does not approve, she takes steps to stop the wedding.  Eustace and Sam then sail for England.

Sailing on the same ship is Eustace's jilted fiancée, Billie.  Despite the presence of her second string suitor, Bream Mortimer, she and Sam fall in love.  They quickly become engaged, but she dumps Sam after he and Eustace muff an appearance at the ship's concert, because she can only love the strong, noble type, a Lancelot or Galahad.  Meanwhile her friend Jane Hubbard, "a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood . . . a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl," retiring from life as a big-game hunter, has fallen in love with Eustace.  She wants to settle down with "some gentle clinging man who would put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let me pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face." 

After the ship docks in England, the story follows Sam as he attempts to win Billie back by various complicated stratagems and ruses, all of which fall apart in typical Wodehouse ways.  The story moves between London and the Hignetts' country home, Windles. Eustace has rented the home to Billie's father, with the proviso that he will remain in residence, so that he can be close to Jane.  Adding to the crowd, and the complications, Mortimer and his father are also staying there, in hopes of winning Billie back himself.

This book definitely has its moments of Wodehouse joy, and I'm glad to have read it, but to my mind it can't compare with Uncle Dynamite or Big Money or Leave It To Psmith.

Golf, Wodehouse style

The Clicking of Cuthbert, P.G. Wodehouse

As I've mentioned before, it was Psmith who converted me completely to P.G. Wodehouse.  When I started looking for PGW's books, though, I passed over the ones labeled "Golf" in the lists, because I know little and care less about golf.  Besides, there were all those books listed under "Blandings" and then "Uncle Fred" to read.  A couple of months ago a friend assured me that the stories aren't really about golf, but they are prime PGW.  Then I came across something Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote in an article about his own addiction to Wodehouse:

"I have paid extra attention to Wodehouse's golfing stories (which I thought would be a closed book to non-golfers, whereas they are in fact open to anybody with a keen sense of the ridiculous; namely, non-golfers)."

I don't think it's a coincidence that copies of The Clicking of Cuthbert and The Heart of a Goof then showed up at Half Price Books.  I'm so glad that I obeyed the omens, because I wouldn't have missed The Clicking of Cuthbert for anything, even if I still can't tell a brassey from a niblick. The format reminds me of the Mulliner stories, with the Oldest Member sitting around the clubhouse primed with stories to fit any occasion.  Unlike Mr Mulliner, the Sage often takes an active part in the events that make up the stories.  In my favorite, "The Long Hole," he is one of the judges for a very unusual sixteen-mile, one-hole match.  This one gets my vote as the funniest Wodehouse story, which I'd previously given to "Portrait of a Disciplinarian" in Meet Mr Mulliner, which had in turn deposed "Tried in the Furnace," in Young Men in Spats.

The New Yorker book blog recently noted that Norton is publishing new editions of the Jeeves books, suggesting that summer is the perfect time to get lost in Wodehouse.

The small bachelor and the tall policeman

The Small Bachelor, P.G. Wodehouse

After such an intense read as The Fiery Trial, I needed something completely different, and I pulled The Small Bachelor off the TBR pile almost at random.  It was an inspired choice, since this is one of the funniest Wodehouse books that I've read in a long time.

As I've mentioned before, for many years I thought of P.G. Wodehouse only in terms of Jeeves and stories set in England.  The Small Bachelor is a stand-alone, set in New York City.  PGW wrote in the Introduction that he took the plot from a show he did with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, called Oh Lady!  The book was originally published in 1926, and I am finding that the books of the 1920s and the early 1930s have a comic energy and a fizz that are missing in some of the later books.  This book had me laughing out loud in almost every chapter.

The story revolves around George Finch, originally from East Gilead, Idaho, who thanks to an early inheritance has come to New York, to Greenwich Village, to be an artist. A rotten painter, he is the small bachelor of the title, who has fallen in love - from afar - with Molly Waddington. Abetting and obstructing the course of true love is a typical Wodehousian cast, including George's friend J. Hamilton Beamish, author of the famous Beamish Booklets ("Read Them and Make the World Your Oyster"); George's servant, a reformed burglar named Mullett;  a tall policeman named Garroway, whom Beamish is teaching to write poetry; Molly's father, Sisgbee H. Waddington, whose dreams of life on the open prairie are nourished by a secret stash of Zane Grey novels; his wife and Molly's stepmother, a shrewish and ambitious woman; and a medium named Madame Eulalie.

The edition I have was printed in the 1970s, and it has a most unfortunate cover.  The women that presumably represents Molly looks like an Edward Gorey figure, with a tiny face enveloped in a huge black hooded coat.  But worse than that is her long orange skirt, printed with figures of half-peeled bananas.  Really, what art director, even in the 1970s, approved that?

Quick Service

Quick Service, P.G. Wodehouse

I don't know that I could pick a single favorite Wodehouse character, but Psmith would have to be one of the top four or five.  After all, it was Psmith that really put me under PGW's spell, as I mentioned before.  So when I saw a reference to Joss Weatherby, the hero of Quick Service, as "Psmith with the volume turned up three or four notches" (by a favorite book blogger, Will Duquette, I thought I needed to meet Joss.

Quick Service has quite a cast of characters, familiar Wodehouse types, including two imperious American women who aren't technically aunts but should be; Joss's fussbudget boss, J.B. Duff the ham king; and Lord Holbeton, who sings Trees in a reedy tenor and seems too wet for the Drones Club.  There is also an ex-boxer, married to one of the ladies, which worried me a bit at first, because PGW seems to find boxing fascinating.  Books like The Adventures of Sally can get a bit bogged down in boxing detail and language.  Perhaps because Howard Steptoe is retired from the ring, PGW restrained himself here.  But just to shake up the cast, the butler is a young man, engaged to a local barmaid, and the hero takes a post as a valet.

Joss is a painter scraping a living doing ad posters who ends up taking the job as valet, to be near Sally Fairmile (the ladies' poor relation and fiancée of the wet Lord Holbeton).  He's no Jeeves, though he does manage Steptoe pretty firmly, but he is a great character who can piffle with the best. He is quick-witted, resourceful and chivalrous, and he can charm anyone from the cook up to the lady of the house.  But pace Mr. Duquette, he's no Psmith!

Still, this one is great fun and a keeper.

Piccadilly Jim

Piccadilly Jim, P.G. Wodehouse

For the longest time, all I knew of PG Wodehouse was Jeeves.  At some point I bought an omnibus edition of the Jeeves & Bertie stories - and that turned out to be too much of a good thing.  So I sort of mentally shelved PGW away, and though at some point I also picked up a used copy of Leave It To Psmith, I left it on the TBR pile.

Then one day on the Georgette Heyer listserv, someone quoted Psmith's favorite poem ("Of all sad words of tongue or pen...").  That intrigued me, and I remembered that I had a copy of a Psmith book sitting around.  I took it with me on a plane trip, and by the time the plane landed I was head over heels for Psmith.

When I got back to Houston after that trip, I immediately went looking for more Psmith.  It was depressing to find that the chain stores had only Jeeves, and the same few books at that (much like the Trollope sections, with only The Warden and Barchester Towers).  Still overstuffed with Bertie stories, I wasn't interested.  My last stop should have been my first: Murder by the Book, which had a small but varied selection, including the Psmith books.  And thus it was just a short step from Psmith to the rest of Blandings books, and then the discovery that there were Bertie novels (The Code of the Woosters being possibly my favorite).  And while I bought Uncle Fred in the Springtime because it was a Blandings book, I instantly lost my heart to Uncle Fred (though I keep a corner for Uncle Gally).  And then there were the stand-alones! Big Money, Summer Moonshine, A Damsel in Distress - and Mr Mulliner, and the Drones.

I think I discovered (or re-discovered) PGW just at the right time, with more & more books being reprinted, by Penguin, Vintage and Overlook.  And suddenly Arrow editions have been popping up in our local UBS chain, Half Price Books.  That's where I found Piccadilly Jim, originally published in 1918.

One of the surprises with PGW is how many of his books are set outside England.  Piccadilly Jim moves from New York to London and back again.  The settings are entertaining, there is a big and varied cast, the hero is funny and quick-witted and sympathetic - as is the heroine.  There are two imperious, overbearing aunts, and a butler of the Beach school.  But somehow it didn't quite gel for me.   It's not bad, it's just not one of his best, imo.  And these days my Wodehouse bar is pretty high.