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A review by professorfate
Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
4.0
When I was in tenth grade, I had my best English teacher ever, Mrs. DelCampo. I was not partial to English class in high school because I did not like tearing novels apart looking for symbols that the teacher could see but nobody else could (probably because they weren’t there?). But in her class, I didn’t mind things as much. She seemed to take a shine to me (or maybe I’m finding a symbol in our relationship), and she recommended P.G. Wodehouse to me a few times. I never took her up on it—I think mainly because the fact that it was British scared me (what can I say?).
Then along came #1book140, a book club run through the auspices of Atlantic magazine, where every month you read a book and discuss it on Twitter. I had seen the hashtag many times in FridayReads (another group on Facebook and Twitter where every Friday you post what you are reading) and was curious, so I investigated. For December, the book was “Right Ho, Jeeves” by Wodehouse, so I elected to try it (the book and the club).
Bertram Wooster is a well-off English gentleman who thinks the world of himself and his intellectual abilities. Jeeves is his manservant who is quiet but is a lot smarter than his employer. In this book, Wooster hears from two friends whose relationships with women are falling apart, so Wooster decides he can and must fix things. Instead, he makes things hilariously worse.
The novel is decidedly British, and there are many terms that I found I had to look up because I was unfamiliar with them. Given that, however, I wish I had listened to Mrs. DelCampo back then and started these novels earlier. A quick analogy is that this book is like Jane Austen meets Monty Python—a sitting-room-type situation combined with madcap quirkiness.
A lot of fun and I will be reading more adventures of Jeeves and Wooster. Now to go put the first season of the BBC series on my Netflix list to see Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves.
Then along came #1book140, a book club run through the auspices of Atlantic magazine, where every month you read a book and discuss it on Twitter. I had seen the hashtag many times in FridayReads (another group on Facebook and Twitter where every Friday you post what you are reading) and was curious, so I investigated. For December, the book was “Right Ho, Jeeves” by Wodehouse, so I elected to try it (the book and the club).
Bertram Wooster is a well-off English gentleman who thinks the world of himself and his intellectual abilities. Jeeves is his manservant who is quiet but is a lot smarter than his employer. In this book, Wooster hears from two friends whose relationships with women are falling apart, so Wooster decides he can and must fix things. Instead, he makes things hilariously worse.
The novel is decidedly British, and there are many terms that I found I had to look up because I was unfamiliar with them. Given that, however, I wish I had listened to Mrs. DelCampo back then and started these novels earlier. A quick analogy is that this book is like Jane Austen meets Monty Python—a sitting-room-type situation combined with madcap quirkiness.
A lot of fun and I will be reading more adventures of Jeeves and Wooster. Now to go put the first season of the BBC series on my Netflix list to see Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves.