Very Good, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse
A cabinet minister getting attacked by a swan. A Yuletide prank gone terribly awry. And an inimitable valet to the rescue! As usual.
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Vintage Fiction | Humor | Short Stories
Very Good, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse
Description
Bertie Wooster—young, rich, hapless scamp of an English gentleman—and associates of his have their ways of getting into alarming predicaments. When a grumpy cabinet minister is marooned and attacked by a swan, and Roberta Wickham catches the notion to give away fierce Aunt Agatha’s beloved dog, and Wooster finds himself in the soup after a Yuletide prank gone terribly awry, his inimitable valet Jeeves is there to help, as usual. But not in ways that his employer expects.
My Thoughts
Now that I’ve read three of the Jeeves and Wooster books (technically four, but Book Three is actually a light revision of Book One), and I’ve watched two seasons of the British period comedy, I picture the two main characters like the actors as I read. Jeeves’s calmly dignified facial expressions and Wooster’s wacky ones and all.
I even speak Jeeves’s shorter lines aloud, with his accent.
“Very good, sir.”
Lol! Literally.
This book was just the break I needed: some good old-fashioned chuckle-worthy to laugh-out-loud silliness.
Now, while it isn’t strictly necessary, I would suggest reading Carry On, Jeeves and The Inimitable Jeeves before this book. There is a chronology to the various returning characters’ doings, and Wooster often references past events from the previous novels.
Well. Sort of “Novels,” Anyway.
Even as the books in the series are called novels, they’re collections of loosely connected short stories. So you don’t even need the energy to follow a full-blown narrative through this read.
You only need to be in the mood for some hours of ludicrous capers and whatnot to refresh your brain. I’ll be going on to Book Five at another time when I’m in such a mood.
Content Note
There’s a a super-brief instance or two of racial stereotyping used in jest, though my contemporary American-English-speaking self wasn’t completely sure in one instance, and I didn’t stop to look it up.
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