My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Reading A Christmas Carol put me in the mood for reading other short stories. Since we’re still in the festive period I wanted something light and easy – sort of the literary equivalent of an appy. I was chuffed to remember that around the same as the Munro’s bargain book table yielded some Dickens, it also offered another quintessential English (and I say English advisedly) author – P. G. Wodehouse and My Man Jeeves.

As with A Christmas Carol, my impressions of P.G. Wodehouse are coloured by adaptations, most notably by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry in Jeeves and Wooster, but also by the BBC’s Wodehouse Playhouse and not least by the Croft Original Sherry ads starring a stately Michael Denison as Jeeves. To that end I was concerned that as with Dickens it would be difficult to put my previous experience aside to enjoy the ‘source material’ without preconceptions. However, the thing about P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster is that they are archetypes. Bertie really is a scatterbrained toff with a good heart who uses words like ‘pipped’ and ‘deuce’ a lot, while Jeeves really is the perfect manservant; inscrutable, immaculate and the ‘power behind the throne’ who keeps Bertie’s life on track and rescues him and his chums from a variety of scrapes. To that end, my experiences of adaptations of Jeeves and Wooster didn’t colour my reading and enjoyment of the text – they were the text. It’s difficult (but not impossible) to meddle with an archetype because to do so it to create a completely different set of characters who just happen to share names with the original.

Anyway, enough deep, or not so deep thoughts and on with the book. My Man Jeeves is a slim volume of eight short stories. Four follow the trials and tribulations of Bertie Wooster, his valet Jeeves and a variety of Bertie’s hapless friends and acquaintances in New York City (where Bertie has relocated to avoid his formidable Aunt Agatha back in England). The other four stories feature Reggie Pepper, a kind of proto-Bertie. Although all eight stories are delightful, I have to say I enjoyed the four Jeeves and Wooster stories more. In the Reggie stories it feels like Wodehouse is still finding a style and a voice for his characters, although that might just be a matter of hindsight knowing that Reggie came before Bertie.

As with Dickens, reading these stories is as much about the way they are written as it is about the characters. Dickens is dense and full of sub-clauses and sometimes I think ‘what the hell is the point of this sentence because I’ve lost track’. Wodehouse is light, to the point and the language style sums up the characters almost as much as any description or exposition. Bertie (and Reggie) don’t feel as if they could actually construct a long, complex sentence because they are uncomplicated men. Jeeves is more complicated, but his role as servant (and problem-solver) means that his role doesn’t allow for complicated conversations. I don’t mean Jeeves isn’t complicated, because I think he is, but he’s a subtle man who knows his place in the pecking order and also knows that complexity would only confuse Bertie.

The powerplays between Bertie and Jeeves are very funny. They usually come down to Bertie trying to rebel against Jeeves’ advice of what tie or hat or suit to wear, or whether Bertie looks good in a moustache. Spoiler, he doesn’t. Part of the delight is knowing that even as Bertie tries to assert himself, he’ll always finish up admitting Jeeves is right in the end without Jeeves labouring the point – a raised eyebrow and an ego-quashing “very good, sir” are usually enough to make Bertie see the error of his ways.

I also like that, despite not being particular clever, neither Bertie nor Reggie are selfish. They are genuinely nice chaps, who happen to be well-to-do and are always up for helping their chums out of a spot of bother whether that entails helping Corky find a clever way to introduce his actress fiancé to his stickler of a rich uncle, or working out how Bicky should explain to another rich uncle why he’s in New York and not in Colorado where he is supposed to be. (it seems Wodehouse is peppered with rich uncles and aunts and their wayward and cash-strapped nephews with names like Corky and Bicky!) Bertie himself, while not being cash-strapped, is terrified by his formidable Aunt Agatha and she’s a phantom presence in many of the stories. Then there’s dealing with young Wilmot who has led a very sheltered life and is commended into Bertie’s care by his very controlling aunt Lady Malvern and of course Wilmot slips his leash the minute his aunt is off the scene. In all cases Bertie takes on his chums’ problems as his own and does his best to help, although inevitably he turns to Jeeves for solutions. And while Jeeves' solutions usually work, there is always plenty of scope for misunderstandings and hijinks along the way which is part of the joy of the stories.

I should say that another joy with Wodehouse’s writing is his ability to draw characters in a single sentence. Going back to Wilmot’s aunt, Lady Malvern (who inevitably is a friend of Bertie’s Aunt Agatha…), Wodehouse memorably describes her through Bertie’s eyes – “She fitted in my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built around her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight around the hips this season.” Bwaaah, I can picture her ladyship from that sentence alone.

All in all, My Man Jeeves was just the kind of light, frothy, delightful read that I wanted to round off 2020. My only nag, and it is such a nitpick, is that in my view at least, the stories are portioned out oddly. The first three are Jeeves and Wooster stories, the next four are Reggie Pepper stories and then we go back to Jeeves and Wooster for the final one. I’m not quite sure why they didn’t just divide the book up into two halves, but at the same time it was delightful to find Jeeves and Bertie at their best in the final story helping Bertie’s chum Rocky who is in a damnable dilemma because the poor chap is happy living a peaceful life as a poet on Long Island but his aunt Isabel who is in failing health, demands that he move to New York and partake in all that such a cosmopolitan city offers so that she can live life vicariously. What’s a poor chap to do? Well, of course the answer is to ask Bertie for help, and by default, Jeeves. The solution as always is fraught with missteps and misunderstanding, but all comes right in the end.

In a year like we’ve had in 2020, ‘All comes right in the end’, feels like a pretty satisfying outcome for any story, so thank you to P.G. Wodehouse, to Bertie and Jeeves, and yes to Reggie for giving me a delightful read.

My copy of My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse was published in 2019 by Arcturus Publishing.