Monday, June 25, 2012

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - Book Review

Right Ho JeevesRight Ho Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Stimulated by the juice, I believe, men have even been known to ride alligators."

With lines like these, it is definitely not difficult to love a Wodehouse book. Right Ho, Jeeves sits right there amongst the best of Wodehouse that includes almost all of his books. :)

Right Ho, Jeeves goes on to narrate a story about the suggestively piscine Gussie Fink-Nottle (or as Aunt Dahlia prefers to call him eventually Spink-Bottle, and you will know why!) and his problematic betrothal to Madeline Bassett and along with that a story about the lover's rift between Hildebrand AKA Tuppy Glossop and Cousin Angela. Thrown in are some sub-plots about Aunt Dahlia and her gambling issues, the sensitive cook Anatole (god's gift to gastric juices), the paranoid Uncle Tom, and the overall happenings at Brinkley Manor.

Who takes charge of solving all of these cases? No, not Jeeves, it's Bertram Wilberforce Wooster! (For an insight into the Woosters, do take a gander at the Wooster Guide: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....)

Bertie believes that Jeeves is unable to pull swift ones as before and decides to take over the reign. So, then the Unstoppable farce meets the Immovable object:

Unstoppable farce: "You see now how right I was."
Immovable object: "Yes, sir."
U.f: "It must have been rather an eye-opener for you, watching me handle this case."
I.o:"Yes, sir."
U.f:"The simple, direct method never fails."
I.o:"No, sir."
U.f:"Whereas the elaborate does."
I.o:"Yes, sir."
U.f:"Right ho, Jeeves."


When the farce, better known as Bertie, is aggressively convinced that the supreme spin-doctor, problem-solver Jeeves is not in his right elements, and decides to take control of the thoughtful steering wheel, all falls down. Or at least some of them do.

Wodehouse, in his own inimitable style, then goes on to describe the fun and at times laugh-out-loud events that happen and things tumble down, and eventually rise up. It's fun to read his descriptions about a certain fishy chap who become highly inebriated and delivers a superb speech!

Eventually, Bertie has to shake off his illusion about the not-in-form Jeeves after he sees how everything is solved by the trustworthy chap. Jeeves actions thoroughly convince us about the aberration that the Wooster spirit is. As Sheldon Cooper would say, there seems to be too much chlorine in the Wooster gene pool!

Oh and not to mention about the white mess jacket! All it took was a hot instrument...

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2 comments:

Archana said...

Wonderful review!
I rememer this book very well, despite reading it 1.5 years ago, because I was reading it 'while' givng birth - just to distract myself from the cacohony around!

k said...

Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Archana. That's some zany anecdote there. I hope you were going all Right HO HO HO HO (and breathing rhythmic) and all went well later. :)