Right Ho, Jeeves

It's not Wodehouse's fault that the Jeeves books have become such a cliche since he wrote them that they feel hackneyed now. But I do feel that the premise isn't quite enough to sustain a full length novel. However, the writing is just so well done and timed that it kept me enjoying the book. Every time I started to get too tired of the upper class twits, their inability to just talk to each other, and the pettiness of their gripes, I would reach a passage so perfectly written that it would draw me back in.

I think in future I'll stick to the short stories, but there is a lot that's really delightful in here.

This novel is the transitional fossil of comic novels. In its plot you can trace its genes all the way to the ancient Greeks, its mistaken identities and botched schemes; in its prose you see traits expressing themselves, quotations and elegant allusions to every poet and playwright in the canon, from Shakespeare to Harriet Beecher Stowe. And its genetic code appears in every modern comedy worth the name written afterwards, especially any Brit who went near Footlights at Cambridge, but even 4-camera sitcoms, and standup comedians, and Jeff Lebowski.

And it's funny. So funny! Drunk jokes, public speaking jokes, constant clever puns and allusions, malapropisms, comedy of manners and meals and muddled misdirection.