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Jeeves #11
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
When Bertie Wooster goes to stay with his Aunt Dahlia at Brinkley Court and finds himself engaged to the imperious Lady Florence Craye, disaster threatens from all sides. While Florence tries to cultivate his mind, her former fiancé, hefty ex-policeman 'Stilton' Cheesewright, threatens to beat his body to a pulp, and her new admirer, the bleating poet Percy Gorringe, tries to borrow a thousand pounds. To cap it all, Bertie has incurred the disapproval of Jeeves by growing a moustache. Throw in a disappearing pearl necklace, Aunt Dahlia's magazine Milady's Boudoir, her cook Anatole, the Drones Club Darts match and Mr and Mrs L.G. Trotter from Liverpool, and you have all the ingredients for a classic Wodehouse farce.
231 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 1954
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,243 books6,522 followersSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
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January 23, 2023
In the 11th book, Wodehouse deviates shockingly from the usual Jeeves and Wooster formula.
Bertie gets accidentally engaged to a woman he can't stand.
What? What?
One of his aunts demands he steal something.
Hullo?
Bertram has something gaudy that Jeeves wants gone.
I say!
Someone, somewhere, is pretending to be something they are not.
What, ho?!
And if Jeeves doesn't come through with something clever, young Bertie is in the soup!
Indeed, sir.
Ok. I'm kidding.
If you've ever picked up a Jeeves story, then you know that's exactly what happens when you get this cast of characters together.
This time around Bertie's fabulous mustache attracts Florance Cray and causes a rift between her and her fiance Stilton Cheesewright. Within a few pages, she's attached herself to Bertram in a most unwelcome way, and begun to try to improve his Woosterness with serious books and trips to the art gallery.
Meanwhile, his beloved Aunt Dalhia has found herself in quite the pickle with her publication of Milady's Boudoir refusing to churn out a profit. In the hopes of selling it, she's invited the henpecked newspaperman Mr. Trotter and his wife to her home in order to woo him with her chef Anatole's cooking.
Needless to say, everything goes tits up.
In the best way possible, of course!
On a funny side note, Bertie tells Jeeves that he has a mustache just like David Niven (who played Bertie in the 1936 movie Thank You, Jeeves), to which Jeeves replies that it looks good on Mr. Niven but terrible on Bertie.
I really loved the humor in this one. I mean, it's hard to find a bad Jeeves book, but this one stands out to me as exceptionally funny.
Highly Recommended!
Bertie gets accidentally engaged to a woman he can't stand.
What? What?
One of his aunts demands he steal something.
Hullo?
Bertram has something gaudy that Jeeves wants gone.
I say!
Someone, somewhere, is pretending to be something they are not.
What, ho?!
And if Jeeves doesn't come through with something clever, young Bertie is in the soup!
Indeed, sir.
Ok. I'm kidding.
If you've ever picked up a Jeeves story, then you know that's exactly what happens when you get this cast of characters together.
This time around Bertie's fabulous mustache attracts Florance Cray and causes a rift between her and her fiance Stilton Cheesewright. Within a few pages, she's attached herself to Bertram in a most unwelcome way, and begun to try to improve his Woosterness with serious books and trips to the art gallery.
Meanwhile, his beloved Aunt Dalhia has found herself in quite the pickle with her publication of Milady's Boudoir refusing to churn out a profit. In the hopes of selling it, she's invited the henpecked newspaperman Mr. Trotter and his wife to her home in order to woo him with her chef Anatole's cooking.
Needless to say, everything goes tits up.
In the best way possible, of course!
On a funny side note, Bertie tells Jeeves that he has a mustache just like David Niven (who played Bertie in the 1936 movie Thank You, Jeeves), to which Jeeves replies that it looks good on Mr. Niven but terrible on Bertie.
I really loved the humor in this one. I mean, it's hard to find a bad Jeeves book, but this one stands out to me as exceptionally funny.
Highly Recommended!
June 15, 2018
Bertie, you worm, your early presence desired. Drop everything and come down here pronto, prepared for lengthy visit. Urgently need you to buck up a blighter with whiskers. Love. Travers.
A summon from Mrs. Travers at Brinkley Court, Brinkley-cum-Snodsfield-in-the-Marsh, Worcestershire is not something Bertram Wooster is likely to ignore, although he might play dumb for our entertainment with a hilariously escalating war of words by way of telegrams. The reader familiar with the happy-go-lucky character knows that he will eventually cave in, even if his trip to the manor would lead to probably the ghastliest imbroglio that had ever broken loose in the history of the human race.
We've been there before, both to Brinkley Court, and to the imbroglios Bertie is always finding himself until his trusted butler Jeeves can swoop in to save his master in true feudal spirit of devotion. But it's so good to be back in this rosy Wodehouse universe, especially after reading a couple of heavy-hitting, harsh modern novels. It's a known side-effect of reading a Jeeves novel that the world seems a better place to live in during and after the lecture:
The days that followed saw me at the peak of my form, fizzy to an almost unbelievable extent and enchanting one and all with my bright smile and merry sallies. During this halcyon period, if halcyon is the word I want, it would not be too much to say that I revived like a watered flower.
But to get back to our current adventure, Aunt Dahlia is in need of moral and material support from Bertie as she tries to sell her weekly paper, 'Milady's Boudoir', to a Liverpoodlian publishing magnate and to his socially ambitious wife, L.G. and Ma Trotter.
Well, this Aunt Dahlia is my good and deserving aunt, not to b confused with Aunt Agatha, the one who kills rats with her teeth and devours her young, so when she says 'Don't fail me', I don't fail her.
Also at Brinkley Court will be found the young lovers G. D'Arcy ('Stilton') Cheesewright and Florence Craye, both familiar from previous episodes in the series and both needing a little help now from Bertrand Wooster: Stilton to win a bet at the Drones Club on the next darts tournament ( 'Wooster', the word flew to and fro, 'is the deadest of snips. He throws a beautiful dart.' ) and Florence to get some research done in London for her next novel. To complicate matters even further, another young man with aspirations to the hand of the beautiful Florence is roaming the grounds in Worcestershire. Percy Gorrringe may make a poor first impression ( He may have just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wants to eat, but no more. He's a half-witted gargoyle. exclaims the jealous Stilton while Aunt Dahlia calls him a ghastly sheepfaced fugitive from hell ), but he is entitled just as anybody else for a place in the sun, especially if he can save Bertie from another unwanted marriage proposal. Without further ado, let Bertie jump into his sporty two-seater and head for the countryside:
Get going, laddie. Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead. Yoicks! Tally-ho! Hark for'ard!
It is almost impossible to write a synopsis for one of Wodehouse's long form novels, despite the fact that most of the elements are recycled from short stories or from previous novels, but he always finds new ways to trip Bertie into the 'bouillon' and to tangle the rest of the characters into a Gordian knot of mishaps that only the mighty brain of Jeeves can untangle. This time, besides the darts tournament and the 'Milady's Boudoir' woes, there will be of course the misunderstandings between young people in love, police chases from 'garrish' night clubs named either "The Startled Shrimp" or "The Mottled Oyster" followed by an appearance before a severe judge, a detective novel called "The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish", a spine broken in five places (the threat of), a cosh, a valuable pearl necklace, the cuisine of Anatole the volatile French chef, a visit from Bertie's old Nemesis, Roderick Spode and the by-now-expected-conflict between master and servant on the subject of fashion.
You know how it is when two strong men live in close juxtaposition, if juxtaposition is the word I want. Differences arise. Wills clash. Bones of contention pop up and start turning handsprings. No one was more keenly alive than I to the fact that one such bone was scheduled to make its debut the instant I swam into his ken, and mere martinis, I felt, despite their numerous merits, would not be enough to see me through the ordeal that confronted me.
The ordeal in the present novel takes the form of a ridiculous risque moustache that Bertie is growing and that Jeeves strongly disagrees with. Aunt Dahlia is of a similar choleric disposition:
As I presented myself, she gave the moustache a swift glance, but apart from starting like a nymph surprised while bathing and muttering something about 'Was this the face that stopped a thousand clocks?' made no comment. One received the impression that she was saving it up.
—«»—«»—«»—
Well now, knowing that the 'stache is probably doomed by the end of the novel and that the plot is complicated what else is there to discuss about the novel? The celebration of the language or the inventive insults? I've already mentioned those in previous reviews. Better go with the romance angle, which is on the menu every time Wodehouse puts pen to paper. The engine that drives the story is usually Bertie Wooster's caddishness, his unwillingness to give up his sweet bachelor lifestyle for the dubious benefits of marriage, even with the lovely but brainy Florence ( She is tall and willowy and handsome, with a terrific profile and luxuriant platinum-blond hair, and might, so far as looks are concerned, be the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class Sultans. I have known strong men to be bowled over by her at first sight, and it is seldom that she takes her walks abroad without being whistled at by visiting Americans.) or with the sparkly new heartthrob Daphne Dolores Morehead ( there was a flash of blonde hair and a whiff of Chanel Number Five and a girl came sailing in, a girl whom I was able to classify at a single glance as a pipterino of the first water.)
Which of them will finally manage to get Bertie to the altar and to start 'moulding' his mind into a more responsible character? Can jilted former fiancees or new prospective lovers be induced to step back into the fray and relieve our reluctant knight from half-assed proposals?
All you do is riot and revel and carouse. I am told that you were at that party of Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright's last night. You probably reeled home at three in the morning, rousing the neighbourhood with drunken shouts. complains Stilton Cheesewright as he comes to check on his darts tournament investment. Florence Cray has even more ambitious plans for the sweet wastrel:
'It would be a fascinating task, I told myself, fostering the latent potentialities of your budding mind. Like watching over some timid, backward flower.'
I bridled pretty considerably. Timid, backward flower, my left eyeball, I was thinking. I was on the point of saying something stinging like 'Oh, yes?' when she proceeded.
'I know I can mould you, Bertie. You want to improve yourself, and that is half the battle. What have you been reading lately?'
We already know that Bertie is fond of cheap detective novels about crayfish instead of the recommended Tolstoy or T. S. Elliott and that Florence has her work sabotaged from the start ( 'Oh, dear,' she said, 'I'm afraid it's going to be uphill work fostering the latent potentialities of you budding mind.' ) but there is an undeniable charm in the rogue and frankly dimwit Wooster that seems to wake up the marriage impulse in these lovely girls.
All this nonsense you have been talking, trying to reconcile me and D'Arcy. Not that I don't admire you for it. I think it's rather wonderful of you. But then everybody says that, though you have the brain like a peahen, you're the soul of kindness and generosity.
... and here it is in a nutshell the secret ingredient of all these lovely comedies penned by Wodehouse – 'kindness and generosity' – an appeal to our better nature and a message of hope in times of anguish. For me, the message will never go out of fashion.
Didn't I tell you I had faith in my star? The moral of the whole thing, as I see it, is that you can't keep a good man down, or – I bowed slightly in her direction – 'a good woman. What the lesson this should be to us, old flesh and blood, never to give up, never to despair. However dark the outlook.'
—«»—«»—«»—
This review has been almost as much fun to write as reading the novel and I wish I could have included another couple of pages of notes and bookmarks that I eventually left out (like the drunken test so typical of the English language: say this phrase as fast as you can "Theodore Oswaldtwistle, the thistle sifter, sifting a sack of thistles thrust three thorns through the thick of his thumb." )
I may be biased by the longish interval (about a year) I went without reading one of the Wodehouse farces, but 'Feudal Spirit' is for now my favorite of the whole bunch. It has tough competition, and it will probably require re-reads and further study of the ones still left unread, but it's position near the top is unlikely to be challenged. Until then, I am closing the last page of the book with a big smile on my face, putting down one last fitting quote:
And I came away, walking, as you may well imagine, on air. I deprecate the modern tendency to use slang, but I am not ashamed to confess that what I was saying to myself was the word "Whoopee!"
A summon from Mrs. Travers at Brinkley Court, Brinkley-cum-Snodsfield-in-the-Marsh, Worcestershire is not something Bertram Wooster is likely to ignore, although he might play dumb for our entertainment with a hilariously escalating war of words by way of telegrams. The reader familiar with the happy-go-lucky character knows that he will eventually cave in, even if his trip to the manor would lead to probably the ghastliest imbroglio that had ever broken loose in the history of the human race.
We've been there before, both to Brinkley Court, and to the imbroglios Bertie is always finding himself until his trusted butler Jeeves can swoop in to save his master in true feudal spirit of devotion. But it's so good to be back in this rosy Wodehouse universe, especially after reading a couple of heavy-hitting, harsh modern novels. It's a known side-effect of reading a Jeeves novel that the world seems a better place to live in during and after the lecture:
The days that followed saw me at the peak of my form, fizzy to an almost unbelievable extent and enchanting one and all with my bright smile and merry sallies. During this halcyon period, if halcyon is the word I want, it would not be too much to say that I revived like a watered flower.
But to get back to our current adventure, Aunt Dahlia is in need of moral and material support from Bertie as she tries to sell her weekly paper, 'Milady's Boudoir', to a Liverpoodlian publishing magnate and to his socially ambitious wife, L.G. and Ma Trotter.
Well, this Aunt Dahlia is my good and deserving aunt, not to b confused with Aunt Agatha, the one who kills rats with her teeth and devours her young, so when she says 'Don't fail me', I don't fail her.
Also at Brinkley Court will be found the young lovers G. D'Arcy ('Stilton') Cheesewright and Florence Craye, both familiar from previous episodes in the series and both needing a little help now from Bertrand Wooster: Stilton to win a bet at the Drones Club on the next darts tournament ( 'Wooster', the word flew to and fro, 'is the deadest of snips. He throws a beautiful dart.' ) and Florence to get some research done in London for her next novel. To complicate matters even further, another young man with aspirations to the hand of the beautiful Florence is roaming the grounds in Worcestershire. Percy Gorrringe may make a poor first impression ( He may have just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wants to eat, but no more. He's a half-witted gargoyle. exclaims the jealous Stilton while Aunt Dahlia calls him a ghastly sheepfaced fugitive from hell ), but he is entitled just as anybody else for a place in the sun, especially if he can save Bertie from another unwanted marriage proposal. Without further ado, let Bertie jump into his sporty two-seater and head for the countryside:
Get going, laddie. Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead. Yoicks! Tally-ho! Hark for'ard!
It is almost impossible to write a synopsis for one of Wodehouse's long form novels, despite the fact that most of the elements are recycled from short stories or from previous novels, but he always finds new ways to trip Bertie into the 'bouillon' and to tangle the rest of the characters into a Gordian knot of mishaps that only the mighty brain of Jeeves can untangle. This time, besides the darts tournament and the 'Milady's Boudoir' woes, there will be of course the misunderstandings between young people in love, police chases from 'garrish' night clubs named either "The Startled Shrimp" or "The Mottled Oyster" followed by an appearance before a severe judge, a detective novel called "The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish", a spine broken in five places (the threat of), a cosh, a valuable pearl necklace, the cuisine of Anatole the volatile French chef, a visit from Bertie's old Nemesis, Roderick Spode and the by-now-expected-conflict between master and servant on the subject of fashion.
You know how it is when two strong men live in close juxtaposition, if juxtaposition is the word I want. Differences arise. Wills clash. Bones of contention pop up and start turning handsprings. No one was more keenly alive than I to the fact that one such bone was scheduled to make its debut the instant I swam into his ken, and mere martinis, I felt, despite their numerous merits, would not be enough to see me through the ordeal that confronted me.
The ordeal in the present novel takes the form of a ridiculous risque moustache that Bertie is growing and that Jeeves strongly disagrees with. Aunt Dahlia is of a similar choleric disposition:
As I presented myself, she gave the moustache a swift glance, but apart from starting like a nymph surprised while bathing and muttering something about 'Was this the face that stopped a thousand clocks?' made no comment. One received the impression that she was saving it up.
—«»—«»—«»—
Well now, knowing that the 'stache is probably doomed by the end of the novel and that the plot is complicated what else is there to discuss about the novel? The celebration of the language or the inventive insults? I've already mentioned those in previous reviews. Better go with the romance angle, which is on the menu every time Wodehouse puts pen to paper. The engine that drives the story is usually Bertie Wooster's caddishness, his unwillingness to give up his sweet bachelor lifestyle for the dubious benefits of marriage, even with the lovely but brainy Florence ( She is tall and willowy and handsome, with a terrific profile and luxuriant platinum-blond hair, and might, so far as looks are concerned, be the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class Sultans. I have known strong men to be bowled over by her at first sight, and it is seldom that she takes her walks abroad without being whistled at by visiting Americans.) or with the sparkly new heartthrob Daphne Dolores Morehead ( there was a flash of blonde hair and a whiff of Chanel Number Five and a girl came sailing in, a girl whom I was able to classify at a single glance as a pipterino of the first water.)
Which of them will finally manage to get Bertie to the altar and to start 'moulding' his mind into a more responsible character? Can jilted former fiancees or new prospective lovers be induced to step back into the fray and relieve our reluctant knight from half-assed proposals?
All you do is riot and revel and carouse. I am told that you were at that party of Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright's last night. You probably reeled home at three in the morning, rousing the neighbourhood with drunken shouts. complains Stilton Cheesewright as he comes to check on his darts tournament investment. Florence Cray has even more ambitious plans for the sweet wastrel:
'It would be a fascinating task, I told myself, fostering the latent potentialities of your budding mind. Like watching over some timid, backward flower.'
I bridled pretty considerably. Timid, backward flower, my left eyeball, I was thinking. I was on the point of saying something stinging like 'Oh, yes?' when she proceeded.
'I know I can mould you, Bertie. You want to improve yourself, and that is half the battle. What have you been reading lately?'
We already know that Bertie is fond of cheap detective novels about crayfish instead of the recommended Tolstoy or T. S. Elliott and that Florence has her work sabotaged from the start ( 'Oh, dear,' she said, 'I'm afraid it's going to be uphill work fostering the latent potentialities of you budding mind.' ) but there is an undeniable charm in the rogue and frankly dimwit Wooster that seems to wake up the marriage impulse in these lovely girls.
All this nonsense you have been talking, trying to reconcile me and D'Arcy. Not that I don't admire you for it. I think it's rather wonderful of you. But then everybody says that, though you have the brain like a peahen, you're the soul of kindness and generosity.
... and here it is in a nutshell the secret ingredient of all these lovely comedies penned by Wodehouse – 'kindness and generosity' – an appeal to our better nature and a message of hope in times of anguish. For me, the message will never go out of fashion.
Didn't I tell you I had faith in my star? The moral of the whole thing, as I see it, is that you can't keep a good man down, or – I bowed slightly in her direction – 'a good woman. What the lesson this should be to us, old flesh and blood, never to give up, never to despair. However dark the outlook.'
—«»—«»—«»—
This review has been almost as much fun to write as reading the novel and I wish I could have included another couple of pages of notes and bookmarks that I eventually left out (like the drunken test so typical of the English language: say this phrase as fast as you can "Theodore Oswaldtwistle, the thistle sifter, sifting a sack of thistles thrust three thorns through the thick of his thumb." )
I may be biased by the longish interval (about a year) I went without reading one of the Wodehouse farces, but 'Feudal Spirit' is for now my favorite of the whole bunch. It has tough competition, and it will probably require re-reads and further study of the ones still left unread, but it's position near the top is unlikely to be challenged. Until then, I am closing the last page of the book with a big smile on my face, putting down one last fitting quote:
And I came away, walking, as you may well imagine, on air. I deprecate the modern tendency to use slang, but I am not ashamed to confess that what I was saying to myself was the word "Whoopee!"
March 18, 2016
Another deeelightful romp in the Wodehouse world! Romp-tiddly-romp, I say, what?! What, what?!
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, aka What Ho, Jeeves, is a bit different from others in the Wooster/Jeeves line in that it reads like a play. In my case, it listens like a play, because I ingested this audiobook-style. So, in place of Wodehouse's wonderful narration via Bertie's inner monologue, we get awkward exposition and strange soliloquy. Instead of a witty description of Jeeves' discontent over Bertie's ghastly upper-lip appendage, we hear the actor groaning and moaning in a most peevish manner, in a word: whinging.
All the above sounds odd and irritating, and would be off-putting enough to make most listeners give it up. I'm not most readers when it comes to a Wooster and Jeeves novel, so I stuck it out, and boy am I glad I did! Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit turned out to be a cracking good read!
It's no different than any of the other 101 books (or however many there are) on the dynamic duo in this series. Bertie's having a typically rough morning after a raucous night out when hell breaks out and rings his doorbell. One of his torturous aunts is in need, a former fiancee may or may not wish to marry him again, the significant other of this former fiancee wishes to wring Bertie's neck (or in this case, break his spine in upwards of a half dozen different locations), a minor heist is required of Bertie by his aunt, and Jeeves will save the day 9 times out of 10.
It's a tried and true formula from which Wodehouse seldom varies. So why bother to keep coming back? One likes the well-known rerun and is grateful for the old trusty laugh when so needed. I often pick up a Wodehouse when I'm down or blue or in some other variation on the state of sadness. A dose from a reliable rib-tickler can get one out of a funk as well as an aspirin relieves a headache, and this book is an even more potent remedy for what ails you.
NOTE: I'd like to make a further note, a sidebar if you will, regarding the audiobook. The performances were mostly top-notch. I attribute this to the use of about three actors who've voiced the Bertie character in other Wodehouse books. One played the main role, while the others supported. Fantastic casting!
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, aka What Ho, Jeeves, is a bit different from others in the Wooster/Jeeves line in that it reads like a play. In my case, it listens like a play, because I ingested this audiobook-style. So, in place of Wodehouse's wonderful narration via Bertie's inner monologue, we get awkward exposition and strange soliloquy. Instead of a witty description of Jeeves' discontent over Bertie's ghastly upper-lip appendage, we hear the actor groaning and moaning in a most peevish manner, in a word: whinging.
All the above sounds odd and irritating, and would be off-putting enough to make most listeners give it up. I'm not most readers when it comes to a Wooster and Jeeves novel, so I stuck it out, and boy am I glad I did! Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit turned out to be a cracking good read!
It's no different than any of the other 101 books (or however many there are) on the dynamic duo in this series. Bertie's having a typically rough morning after a raucous night out when hell breaks out and rings his doorbell. One of his torturous aunts is in need, a former fiancee may or may not wish to marry him again, the significant other of this former fiancee wishes to wring Bertie's neck (or in this case, break his spine in upwards of a half dozen different locations), a minor heist is required of Bertie by his aunt, and Jeeves will save the day 9 times out of 10.
It's a tried and true formula from which Wodehouse seldom varies. So why bother to keep coming back? One likes the well-known rerun and is grateful for the old trusty laugh when so needed. I often pick up a Wodehouse when I'm down or blue or in some other variation on the state of sadness. A dose from a reliable rib-tickler can get one out of a funk as well as an aspirin relieves a headache, and this book is an even more potent remedy for what ails you.
NOTE: I'd like to make a further note, a sidebar if you will, regarding the audiobook. The performances were mostly top-notch. I attribute this to the use of about three actors who've voiced the Bertie character in other Wodehouse books. One played the main role, while the others supported. Fantastic casting!
July 6, 2008
I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoy these books. If there is one problem, it is that I’m reading them out of order – but that is hard to avoid. The problem is that they seem to have been out of print for ages and trying to find them in second hand bookshops is also remarkably difficult. I asked a woman in a second hand bookshop I frequent about them and she said they disappear as soon as they come in the door. She has a lovely grey cat that allows you to pat it while you talk to her the lady of the shop about books – I trust this woman implicitly, as one trusts anyone who allows a cat to sprawl on the desk before them.
Bertie is a remarkable creation – I know I’ve said this before, but he really has captivated my imagination. Not least because he breaks all of the ‘rules’ as I would have them. He is not the smartest person in the book – and I would normally recommend stories be told by the smartest person in the book. Secondly, people are constantly telling him he is not the smartest person in the book – often in ways that are breathtakingly rude.
I really like the way he becomes tongue tied around Jeeves, world recognised genius and recurrent saviour of Bertie and his family and friends.
The thing is that although the characters are exaggerated, they are still very much recognisable types of people we have all known.
As I said, I have had to find whatever copy I can get my hands on of many of these books and this is a Four Square Edition reprinted in 1963 after having been first printed in 1954. The cover says, “Jeeves and Wooster rally against the common enemy – A WOMAN.” Now, when Maddy, my youngest, read this cover she was suitably annoyed and picked the book up in mild disgust and flicked it open at random, I assume to see if she couldn’t become even more outraged. Then she told me the most wonderful thing – she said she started reading it and found she had finished three pages before she realised she had really been reading any of it at all. And it is true – the writing is so natural, so free flowing, that you just get completely sucked in.
Wodehouse says he writes romantic comedies – but they are a bit different from your standard romantic comedy. In your normal romantic comedy the boy always gets the girl – in these Wooster is generally seeking to avoid ending up with the girl. Finding out how he is going to make his escape is part of the fun of the story. If these books were written today I guess people would talk about ‘repressed homosexuality’ – but in the world Wodehouse has created there is a kind of innocence that makes such thoughts seem – what? – too clever by half, perhaps? This is a very special world, a world not terribly different from childhood. Yes, think of children in the bodies of adults and you are somewhere close to the world Wodehouse has created – although, even that view is too simple.
I would love to study his comedy more closely. In part it is made up of very clever mixed metaphors – I think this gives a subtle back taste to virtually every page of the book. There is also his wonderful misunderstanding of the key stories of our culture – in this story the ‘retelling’ of the Lot’s Wife really is very amusing.
But best of all is Wodehouse's utter command of his story at all times. They are so light and joyful that the craft behind them is hardly noticed, in fact can be almost 'missed' entirely – well, until you think about the wonderful twists and turns he has bent you through. A master story teller – and this was pure magic, as always.
Bertie is a remarkable creation – I know I’ve said this before, but he really has captivated my imagination. Not least because he breaks all of the ‘rules’ as I would have them. He is not the smartest person in the book – and I would normally recommend stories be told by the smartest person in the book. Secondly, people are constantly telling him he is not the smartest person in the book – often in ways that are breathtakingly rude.
I really like the way he becomes tongue tied around Jeeves, world recognised genius and recurrent saviour of Bertie and his family and friends.
The thing is that although the characters are exaggerated, they are still very much recognisable types of people we have all known.
As I said, I have had to find whatever copy I can get my hands on of many of these books and this is a Four Square Edition reprinted in 1963 after having been first printed in 1954. The cover says, “Jeeves and Wooster rally against the common enemy – A WOMAN.” Now, when Maddy, my youngest, read this cover she was suitably annoyed and picked the book up in mild disgust and flicked it open at random, I assume to see if she couldn’t become even more outraged. Then she told me the most wonderful thing – she said she started reading it and found she had finished three pages before she realised she had really been reading any of it at all. And it is true – the writing is so natural, so free flowing, that you just get completely sucked in.
Wodehouse says he writes romantic comedies – but they are a bit different from your standard romantic comedy. In your normal romantic comedy the boy always gets the girl – in these Wooster is generally seeking to avoid ending up with the girl. Finding out how he is going to make his escape is part of the fun of the story. If these books were written today I guess people would talk about ‘repressed homosexuality’ – but in the world Wodehouse has created there is a kind of innocence that makes such thoughts seem – what? – too clever by half, perhaps? This is a very special world, a world not terribly different from childhood. Yes, think of children in the bodies of adults and you are somewhere close to the world Wodehouse has created – although, even that view is too simple.
I would love to study his comedy more closely. In part it is made up of very clever mixed metaphors – I think this gives a subtle back taste to virtually every page of the book. There is also his wonderful misunderstanding of the key stories of our culture – in this story the ‘retelling’ of the Lot’s Wife really is very amusing.
But best of all is Wodehouse's utter command of his story at all times. They are so light and joyful that the craft behind them is hardly noticed, in fact can be almost 'missed' entirely – well, until you think about the wonderful twists and turns he has bent you through. A master story teller – and this was pure magic, as always.
January 10, 2020
After a week of 2020 it was high time for my first P.G. Wodehouse of the year.
I was delighted to discover that I hadn't already read Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954), not that there was anything especially new or unexpected. Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is the usual Jeeves and Wooster comedy masterclass in which, in this episode, Bertie has another unwelcome entanglement with Florence Craye, to the chagrin of the magnificent, and very green eyed, Stilton Cheesewright. Meanwhile Aunt Dahlia, the nice aunt, is trying to sell her magazine My Lady's Boudoir to a Mr. Trotter and enlists the help of her nephew and his resourceful butler. Lord Sidcup (formerly known as Roderick Spode) also appears. And there's also the small matter of Bertie's moustache, which is a bone of contention between him and Jeeves
Needless to say my flagon frothed over, and joy remained unconfined.
4/5
I was delighted to discover that I hadn't already read Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954), not that there was anything especially new or unexpected. Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is the usual Jeeves and Wooster comedy masterclass in which, in this episode, Bertie has another unwelcome entanglement with Florence Craye, to the chagrin of the magnificent, and very green eyed, Stilton Cheesewright. Meanwhile Aunt Dahlia, the nice aunt, is trying to sell her magazine My Lady's Boudoir to a Mr. Trotter and enlists the help of her nephew and his resourceful butler. Lord Sidcup (formerly known as Roderick Spode) also appears. And there's also the small matter of Bertie's moustache, which is a bone of contention between him and Jeeves
Needless to say my flagon frothed over, and joy remained unconfined.
4/5
October 14, 2016
Bertie is growing a moustache, and Jeeves doesn't like it.
Bertie is pissed. Jeeves does not object to David Niven's moustache, then why the fuss about his. Jeeves says:"Mr. Niven's moustache is very becoming to him."
This time Bertie is determined to hold on - but the problem is that Florence Craye, who has turned to novel-writing of late, also thinks the moustache is fascinating: thus inviting the wrath of Stilton Cheesewright, her fiance, who considers it a cheap trick by Bertie to steal his girl.
Nighttime escapades in nightclubs with Florence (who is collecting material for her new novel), the presence of a Roderick Spode who no longer fears the mention of "Eulalie" (see The Code of the Woosters) and Aunt Dahlia up to her usual mad capers ensures Bertie has his plate full. He even comes within inches of wedlock until he is saved from the scaffold at the last minute by - who else? - Jeeves, who forgets differences and acts in true feudal spirit.
Bertie is pissed. Jeeves does not object to David Niven's moustache, then why the fuss about his. Jeeves says:"Mr. Niven's moustache is very becoming to him."
This time Bertie is determined to hold on - but the problem is that Florence Craye, who has turned to novel-writing of late, also thinks the moustache is fascinating: thus inviting the wrath of Stilton Cheesewright, her fiance, who considers it a cheap trick by Bertie to steal his girl.
Nighttime escapades in nightclubs with Florence (who is collecting material for her new novel), the presence of a Roderick Spode who no longer fears the mention of "Eulalie" (see The Code of the Woosters) and Aunt Dahlia up to her usual mad capers ensures Bertie has his plate full. He even comes within inches of wedlock until he is saved from the scaffold at the last minute by - who else? - Jeeves, who forgets differences and acts in true feudal spirit.
November 15, 2023
So Stilton Cheesewright wants to kick Wooster's arse, Florence Craye thinks Bertie wants to marry her, Aunt Dahlia pawned her pearl necklace and the Trotters are infesting Brinkley Court. Too bad Bertie won't shave off that mustache Jeeves hates...
I last read this in that quasi-mythical time before Goodreads and didn't remember much about it. I planned on rereading all the Jeeves books in 2012 but I've been busy, I guess.
Anyway, this was quite corking. It's been a while since I read a Jeeves and Wooster book and this one was great. PG Wodehouse's stories are pretty much all the same but he retells that story very well. The sense of timing on this one is easily on par with Code of the Woosters with the reversals of fortune happening at the perfect time.
It takes awhile to get all the pieces on the board since this one features a largish cast for a Jeeves book - Aunt Dahlia, Uncle Tom Travers, Florence Craye, Lord Sidcup, the Trotters and stepson Percy, Daphne Dolores Morehead. Am I forgetting anyone?
This is an easy four star read and amusing as hell. Maybe I'll knock out another Jeeves book before the end of the year.
I last read this in that quasi-mythical time before Goodreads and didn't remember much about it. I planned on rereading all the Jeeves books in 2012 but I've been busy, I guess.
Anyway, this was quite corking. It's been a while since I read a Jeeves and Wooster book and this one was great. PG Wodehouse's stories are pretty much all the same but he retells that story very well. The sense of timing on this one is easily on par with Code of the Woosters with the reversals of fortune happening at the perfect time.
It takes awhile to get all the pieces on the board since this one features a largish cast for a Jeeves book - Aunt Dahlia, Uncle Tom Travers, Florence Craye, Lord Sidcup, the Trotters and stepson Percy, Daphne Dolores Morehead. Am I forgetting anyone?
This is an easy four star read and amusing as hell. Maybe I'll knock out another Jeeves book before the end of the year.
December 8, 2021
Gosh, and also (to borrow a phrase from Darcy "Stilton" Cheesewright) HO!
Wodehouse has such a way with words! I just die over the descriptions, the way Jeeves "shimmers" in and out of the room. Bertie's constant searching for the right words: "Like Thingummy at the Whatsit, the Wooster head is bloodied but not unbowed!" And my all time favorite: "Her curves would not have gone unappreciated on a scenic mountain drive."
The audiobooks are especially great, because having someone read it to you in an Oxford English accent, with very plummy tones for Jeeves, is just a bally delight, what?
Wodehouse has such a way with words! I just die over the descriptions, the way Jeeves "shimmers" in and out of the room. Bertie's constant searching for the right words: "Like Thingummy at the Whatsit, the Wooster head is bloodied but not unbowed!" And my all time favorite: "Her curves would not have gone unappreciated on a scenic mountain drive."
The audiobooks are especially great, because having someone read it to you in an Oxford English accent, with very plummy tones for Jeeves, is just a bally delight, what?
December 4, 2013
Bertie Wooster has grown a mustache.
Does Jeeves approve?
Jeeves does not approve. But Florence Craye does!
Who's Florence Craye?
Florence Craye, author of Serious Novel Spindrift, is Wooster's ex-fiance.
So is Wooster in for it this time?
Not if Stilton Cheesewright, pumpkin-headed man about town, manages to leg it down the aisle with her first.
Who's Cheesewright?
Florence's current fiance, who comes down as firmly anti-mustache.
So will Cheesewright pound Wooster into a fine paste?
Not until after Wooster's won the annual Darts sweep-- Cheesewright has fifty pounds riding on the outcome.
Whew!
Or until Cheesewright can offload his stake on Wooster to another interested party ... say, Mr. Gorringe?
Gorringe who?
Gorringe you glad I didn't say banana?
Also covered: The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish, the theft of two pearl necklaces, the fate of Milady's Boudoir, and the coshing of Spode.
Does Jeeves approve?
Jeeves does not approve. But Florence Craye does!
Who's Florence Craye?
Florence Craye, author of Serious Novel Spindrift, is Wooster's ex-fiance.
So is Wooster in for it this time?
Not if Stilton Cheesewright, pumpkin-headed man about town, manages to leg it down the aisle with her first.
Who's Cheesewright?
Florence's current fiance, who comes down as firmly anti-mustache.
So will Cheesewright pound Wooster into a fine paste?
Not until after Wooster's won the annual Darts sweep-- Cheesewright has fifty pounds riding on the outcome.
Whew!
Or until Cheesewright can offload his stake on Wooster to another interested party ... say, Mr. Gorringe?
Gorringe who?
Gorringe you glad I didn't say banana?
Also covered: The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish, the theft of two pearl necklaces, the fate of Milady's Boudoir, and the coshing of Spode.
December 9, 2014
“It is pretty generally recognized in the circles in which he moves that Bertram Wooster is not a man who lightly throws in the towel and admits defeat. Beneath the thingummies of what-d’you-call-it his head, wind and weather permitted, is as a rule bloody but unbowed, and if the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune want to crush his proud spirit, they have to pull their socks up and make a special effort.”
Let’s just take ‘Ring For Jeeves’ as a blip. An ill starred, dark alleyway that Wodehouse and Jeeves stumbled inadvertently down before thinking better of the whole enterprise. There was so much which didn’t work in that novel: the lack of Bertram Wooster, the third person narration in lieu of Wooster, B; the ostentatious 1950s setting, the unhelpful glimpses inside the hitherto imperial Jeeves mind. It’s a book which didn’t so much make a misstep as walk unmindful into a snare, then an elephant trap, then off a sheer cliff. But it’s done now. Let’s erase it from our minds, pretend it never happened and never speak of it again.
‘Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit’ is much more the stuff. First and foremost Bertie Wooster is back and handling narration duties with his customary skill and aplomb (tasty morsels are provided for your delectation at the top and tail of this review). From there we have Brinkley Court, Aunt Dahlia, soppy female romantic novelists of the most dangerous kind, lovelorn weedy bachelors, purloined necklaces, Stilton Cheesewright in a fury, socially ambitious Liverpudlians, Sir Roderick Spode and controversial moustaches. What’s more the question of when we are never becomes an issue. There’s perhaps a sense that we’re not quite in the 1920s anymore, but there’s nothing so glaringly and incongruously modern as to upset a sensitive reader.
Okay, this isn’t quite a prime-cut of Wodehouse from the top table. This isn’t the best Jeeves and Wooster novel one could possibly find (Wodehouse set himself extraordinarily high standards elsewhere), but definitely this is a novel which will not only leave you chuckling, but make you feel decidedly gay and with a cheery song in your heart.
“’Who was the man who sat with a sword dangling over him, suspended by a hair, wondering how long it was going to be before it dropped and gave him a very nasty flesh wound?’
She had me there. Nobody I had met. Certainly not one of the fellows at the Drones.”
Let’s just take ‘Ring For Jeeves’ as a blip. An ill starred, dark alleyway that Wodehouse and Jeeves stumbled inadvertently down before thinking better of the whole enterprise. There was so much which didn’t work in that novel: the lack of Bertram Wooster, the third person narration in lieu of Wooster, B; the ostentatious 1950s setting, the unhelpful glimpses inside the hitherto imperial Jeeves mind. It’s a book which didn’t so much make a misstep as walk unmindful into a snare, then an elephant trap, then off a sheer cliff. But it’s done now. Let’s erase it from our minds, pretend it never happened and never speak of it again.
‘Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit’ is much more the stuff. First and foremost Bertie Wooster is back and handling narration duties with his customary skill and aplomb (tasty morsels are provided for your delectation at the top and tail of this review). From there we have Brinkley Court, Aunt Dahlia, soppy female romantic novelists of the most dangerous kind, lovelorn weedy bachelors, purloined necklaces, Stilton Cheesewright in a fury, socially ambitious Liverpudlians, Sir Roderick Spode and controversial moustaches. What’s more the question of when we are never becomes an issue. There’s perhaps a sense that we’re not quite in the 1920s anymore, but there’s nothing so glaringly and incongruously modern as to upset a sensitive reader.
Okay, this isn’t quite a prime-cut of Wodehouse from the top table. This isn’t the best Jeeves and Wooster novel one could possibly find (Wodehouse set himself extraordinarily high standards elsewhere), but definitely this is a novel which will not only leave you chuckling, but make you feel decidedly gay and with a cheery song in your heart.
“’Who was the man who sat with a sword dangling over him, suspended by a hair, wondering how long it was going to be before it dropped and gave him a very nasty flesh wound?’
She had me there. Nobody I had met. Certainly not one of the fellows at the Drones.”
March 11, 2021
Prefect comfort reading for a stormy day.
March 24, 2021
This book is halarious. It is a really easy read filled with British humour. It concerns a rich man with a man servant named Jeeves who gets him out of a whole bunch of jams.
I recommend it to all.
I recommend it to all.
August 17, 2019
With lots of stress in my life right now, I find the need for escaping, and Jeeves and Wooster are the perfect fluff to lift one’s spirit. All-out situational comedy and hilarious writing with zero substance.
This time we have a trouble-causing mustache, a necklace that needs stolen and unstolen, and the usual engagement to escape. There are night-time intrusions into the wrong rooms, misunderstandings, and the plot thickens to even embroil Jeeves himself. But of course, Jeeves cannot be embroiled - he saves the day, as usual.
I highly recommend the audio narration by Jonathan Cecil. His voices are superb.
This time we have a trouble-causing mustache, a necklace that needs stolen and unstolen, and the usual engagement to escape. There are night-time intrusions into the wrong rooms, misunderstandings, and the plot thickens to even embroil Jeeves himself. But of course, Jeeves cannot be embroiled - he saves the day, as usual.
I highly recommend the audio narration by Jonathan Cecil. His voices are superb.
November 22, 2018
Brouhaha at Brinkley...
When Jeeves returns to the old homestead after a short holiday, imagine his horror on discovering that in his absence Bertie has taken the opportunity to grow a moustache! Not everyone shares his distaste for the facial hair, though. Florence Craye, for one, thinks it’s simply marvellous. In fact, so enthusiastic is she that her fiancé, the beefy Stilton Cheesewright, develops a strong desire to break Bertie’s spine in four, or perhaps, five places. Only the thought that he has drawn Bertie in the Drones Club darts tournament and stands to win a hefty sum should Bertie triumph stays Stilton’s wrath. Bertie thinks it might be expedient however to retreat to Brinkley Court, Aunt Dahlia’s place, till the heat dies down, little knowing that he will soon find the place teeming with Florences, Stiltons, lovelorn playwrights, Liverpudlian newspaper magnates and Lord Sidcup, once known to all and sundry as the would-be dictator Roderick Spode. Will Jeeves overcome the coolness that has arisen over the matter of the moustache and rally round the young master in his hour of need? Or will Bertie find himself at last facing the long walk down the aisle into the dreaded state of matrimony...?
Wodehouse is on top form in this one, and I enjoyed meeting up with Florence Craye again – always one of my favourite Wooster girlfriends. She���s less drippy than Madeleine Bassett, less haughty than Honoria Glossop and less troublesome than Stiffy Byng. Were it not for the fact that she writes highbrow literary novels, I feel she would be a good match for our Bertie, but the poor man really prefers to curl up with The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish or suchlike.
Stilton’s jealousy gets a proper workout since, not only does he fear that Florence still has feelings for her ex-fiancé Bertie, but Percy Gorringe, a playwright who is converting Florence’s novel for the stage, seems to be mooning around after her rather a lot too.
Meantime, Aunt Dahlia is trying to offload her magazine Milady’s Boudoir to a Liverpudlian newspaper magnate, Mr Trotter, so he and his social-climbing wife are in residence too as she hopes the wonders of Anatole’s cooking will soften him up and get her a good price. But when Uncle Tom invites Spode to Brinkley specifically to check out the pearl necklace he recently purchased for her, Aunt Dahlia is aghast. She has pawned the necklace to keep the magazine afloat till she sells it, and the pearls she is wearing are a paste imitation. Only Jeeves can save the day!
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jonathan Cecil who does his usual marvellous job of creating distinct and appropriate voices for each character – in this one he had extra fun with the Liverpudlian accents. His Bertie is perfect, and I love his Aunt Dahlia – one hears the baying hounds and distant view-halloo of the Quorn and Pytchley Hunts ringing in her tones each time she speaks.
Great fun – there’s nothing quite like spending a few hours in the company of these old friends to bring the sunshine into the gloomiest autumn day.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When Jeeves returns to the old homestead after a short holiday, imagine his horror on discovering that in his absence Bertie has taken the opportunity to grow a moustache! Not everyone shares his distaste for the facial hair, though. Florence Craye, for one, thinks it’s simply marvellous. In fact, so enthusiastic is she that her fiancé, the beefy Stilton Cheesewright, develops a strong desire to break Bertie’s spine in four, or perhaps, five places. Only the thought that he has drawn Bertie in the Drones Club darts tournament and stands to win a hefty sum should Bertie triumph stays Stilton’s wrath. Bertie thinks it might be expedient however to retreat to Brinkley Court, Aunt Dahlia’s place, till the heat dies down, little knowing that he will soon find the place teeming with Florences, Stiltons, lovelorn playwrights, Liverpudlian newspaper magnates and Lord Sidcup, once known to all and sundry as the would-be dictator Roderick Spode. Will Jeeves overcome the coolness that has arisen over the matter of the moustache and rally round the young master in his hour of need? Or will Bertie find himself at last facing the long walk down the aisle into the dreaded state of matrimony...?
Wodehouse is on top form in this one, and I enjoyed meeting up with Florence Craye again – always one of my favourite Wooster girlfriends. She���s less drippy than Madeleine Bassett, less haughty than Honoria Glossop and less troublesome than Stiffy Byng. Were it not for the fact that she writes highbrow literary novels, I feel she would be a good match for our Bertie, but the poor man really prefers to curl up with The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish or suchlike.
I like B. Wooster the way he is. Lay off him, I say. Don’t try to change him, or you may lose the flavour. Even when we were merely affianced, I recalled, this woman had dashed the mystery thriller from my hand, instructing me to read instead a perfectly frightful thing by a bird called Tolstoy. At the thought of what horrors might ensue after the clergyman had done his stuff and she had a legal right to bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, the imagination boggled.
Stilton’s jealousy gets a proper workout since, not only does he fear that Florence still has feelings for her ex-fiancé Bertie, but Percy Gorringe, a playwright who is converting Florence’s novel for the stage, seems to be mooning around after her rather a lot too.
Meantime, Aunt Dahlia is trying to offload her magazine Milady’s Boudoir to a Liverpudlian newspaper magnate, Mr Trotter, so he and his social-climbing wife are in residence too as she hopes the wonders of Anatole’s cooking will soften him up and get her a good price. But when Uncle Tom invites Spode to Brinkley specifically to check out the pearl necklace he recently purchased for her, Aunt Dahlia is aghast. She has pawned the necklace to keep the magazine afloat till she sells it, and the pearls she is wearing are a paste imitation. Only Jeeves can save the day!
“...the core of the cultured imitation can be discerned, as a rule merely by holding the cultured pearl up before a strong light. This is what I did in the matter of Mrs Travers’ necklace. I had no need of the endoscope.”
“The what?”
“Endoscope, sir. An instrument which enables one to peer into the cultured pearl’s interior and discern the core.”
I was conscious of a passing pang for the oyster world, feeling – and I think correctly – that life for these unfortunate bivalves must be one damn thing after another...
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jonathan Cecil who does his usual marvellous job of creating distinct and appropriate voices for each character – in this one he had extra fun with the Liverpudlian accents. His Bertie is perfect, and I love his Aunt Dahlia – one hears the baying hounds and distant view-halloo of the Quorn and Pytchley Hunts ringing in her tones each time she speaks.
Great fun – there’s nothing quite like spending a few hours in the company of these old friends to bring the sunshine into the gloomiest autumn day.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
July 28, 2020
Reviewed for Books and livres
I had to wash my kitchen. Not fun. I thought, why not make this fun by forgetting about the washing while listening to a Jeeves audiobook ? I did and it worked !
It's been years since I last read a book by P.G. Wodehouse and since I was given two of his audiobooks, I thought it was time to remedy that. Those stories are usually so funny ! Jeeves and the feudal spirit totally is, and there's no need to read the series in order to understand anything, the plots are more or less the same : Bertie Wooster is an airhead, a nice airhead but an airhead anyway, he gets himself into all sorts of situations, can't find a solution, makes things worse, calls Jeeves (who knows everything about everything and is in possession of a brain) who finally helps him out. There is no doubt about who's the more intelligent man of the two. The series started in 1919 (a time when people needed a good laugh) and ended up in 1974. It was adapted on television with a 30s flavour with no other actors than Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (look it up on Youtube, see below).
I had such a good time that I'm planning on washing another room of my appartment while listening to the other audiobook, that's how much I enjoyed it ! (A line that really made me laugh was when Bertie called Tolstoy "a bird" !).
(You can find the 1st episode of the Laurie/Fry series on youtube, link on my blog or just google it !)
I had to wash my kitchen. Not fun. I thought, why not make this fun by forgetting about the washing while listening to a Jeeves audiobook ? I did and it worked !
It's been years since I last read a book by P.G. Wodehouse and since I was given two of his audiobooks, I thought it was time to remedy that. Those stories are usually so funny ! Jeeves and the feudal spirit totally is, and there's no need to read the series in order to understand anything, the plots are more or less the same : Bertie Wooster is an airhead, a nice airhead but an airhead anyway, he gets himself into all sorts of situations, can't find a solution, makes things worse, calls Jeeves (who knows everything about everything and is in possession of a brain) who finally helps him out. There is no doubt about who's the more intelligent man of the two. The series started in 1919 (a time when people needed a good laugh) and ended up in 1974. It was adapted on television with a 30s flavour with no other actors than Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (look it up on Youtube, see below).
I had such a good time that I'm planning on washing another room of my appartment while listening to the other audiobook, that's how much I enjoyed it ! (A line that really made me laugh was when Bertie called Tolstoy "a bird" !).
(You can find the 1st episode of the Laurie/Fry series on youtube, link on my blog or just google it !)
March 4, 2022
What, ho! This is without a doubt one of the very best Jeeves / Wooster novels!
I like to think that - as he sat down to create #11 in this series - Wodehouse said to himself, 'It's time to take comedy very seriously! Neither dillying nor dallying this time out! No lulls, just LOLs, and lots of them! Now, get to it, old boy!' And then he did.
At first, it's hard to imagine that this particular entry would hold the bounty that it holds. It starts out with Bertie Wooster in a rather peeved mood, maybe even a bit sour. Someone asks to borrow a rather large amount of money for a risky venture, so one can understand why all is not pacific in Wooster's world.
Still, soon enough the novel's farcical elements begin to be introduced and - being the good soldiers that they are - they rally round in a collective, working their magic by turns. Here, Wodehouse (frequently outdoing himself) has concocted a particularly potent blend of plot, character and witticisms (the larger portion of the latter being irresistible):
I was a little on the sad side when it came time to bid this one adieu. But I've already made a mental note to say it's one I'll revisit.
I like to think that - as he sat down to create #11 in this series - Wodehouse said to himself, 'It's time to take comedy very seriously! Neither dillying nor dallying this time out! No lulls, just LOLs, and lots of them! Now, get to it, old boy!' And then he did.
At first, it's hard to imagine that this particular entry would hold the bounty that it holds. It starts out with Bertie Wooster in a rather peeved mood, maybe even a bit sour. Someone asks to borrow a rather large amount of money for a risky venture, so one can understand why all is not pacific in Wooster's world.
Still, soon enough the novel's farcical elements begin to be introduced and - being the good soldiers that they are - they rally round in a collective, working their magic by turns. Here, Wodehouse (frequently outdoing himself) has concocted a particularly potent blend of plot, character and witticisms (the larger portion of the latter being irresistible):
'Quick!' she hissed, and it's all rot to say you can't hiss a word that hasn't an 's' in it. She did it on her head.Economy in all of this is key - and it's no exaggeration to say that each page entertains, and that many pages entertain repeatedly.
I was a little on the sad side when it came time to bid this one adieu. But I've already made a mental note to say it's one I'll revisit.
September 7, 2017
"'Did you ever read Spindthrift?' I asked, retrieving the soap.In a stressful thesis-writing period, Wodehouse is your (my) man. I read Ring for Jeeves shortly before Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit; while the first has Plum on a very rare off day, the latter sees him squarely on top of the wave of his singular craftsmanship.
'I skimmed through it, sir.'
'What did you think of it? Go on, Jeeves, don't be coy. The word begins with an l.'
'Well, sir, I would not go so far as to apply the adjective which I fancy you have in mind, but it seemed to me a somewhat immature production lacking in significant form. My personal tastes lie more in the direction of Dostoevsky and the great Russians.'" (11)
January 8, 2016
A jolly good book this! Jeeves and the Feudal spirit is a balm to the soul much like a well made English tea on a cold morning.
Bertie Wooster wears a mustache that Jeeves does not approve. He is in mortal danger of being affianced to Florence Craye who wishes to shape him. Oh and also the slight danger of being pummeled to pulp by a pumpkin headed cop to who Florence was engaged. Aunt Agatha is in trouble and needs all the help she can get. All while Jeeves has to be away.
Bertie must fend for himself. Many disastrous and hilarious complications ensue, until Jeeves returns. Many laugh out loud moments and a nice light read.
Bertie Wooster wears a mustache that Jeeves does not approve. He is in mortal danger of being affianced to Florence Craye who wishes to shape him. Oh and also the slight danger of being pummeled to pulp by a pumpkin headed cop to who Florence was engaged. Aunt Agatha is in trouble and needs all the help she can get. All while Jeeves has to be away.
Bertie must fend for himself. Many disastrous and hilarious complications ensue, until Jeeves returns. Many laugh out loud moments and a nice light read.
July 21, 2015
3.5 Stars
Very enjoyable, but lacking a certain something found in the best Jeeves & Wooster novels. Not quite as laugh out loud funny. More of an occasional chortle. Good to see Jeeves back with Bertie where he belongs though. Bertie, not Jeeves, should always be the main attraction, but the more time the two spend together playing off each other, the better.
Very enjoyable, but lacking a certain something found in the best Jeeves & Wooster novels. Not quite as laugh out loud funny. More of an occasional chortle. Good to see Jeeves back with Bertie where he belongs though. Bertie, not Jeeves, should always be the main attraction, but the more time the two spend together playing off each other, the better.
May 23, 2023
This Jeeves and Bertie Wooster story contains some of my favorite Wodehouse lines, and that is saying something. I find most of what he wrote extremely funny.
Everything you need for a good Wodehouse romp is here, butlers, country houses, pretty girls, clueless young men, aunts, you name it.
Everything you need for a good Wodehouse romp is here, butlers, country houses, pretty girls, clueless young men, aunts, you name it.
January 12, 2013
Another one that draws the guffaws from a disgruntled girl. :) The greatest complaint I can make about these books relates to their titles: the notion of Jeeves' "feudal spirit" is referenced in other works, so it doesn't really help to distinguish this novel from the others. It might better have been called "Bertie grows a moustache" or "A lot of preamble about a darts tournament we never even get to witness", or "How Aunt Dahlia tried to sell off her magazine because she was tired of always begging for cash". A very funny book.
December 18, 2017
Jonathan Cecil again excels in this audiobook narration of Bertie Wooster's entanglement with Florence Craye, Stilton Cheesewright and his Aunt Dahlia's attempt to sell her magazine The Lady's Boudoir to Mr. Trotter. To add to the fun, Lord Sidcup (formerly known as Spode) appears at Uncle Tom's invitation to look at Dahlia's pearl necklace, causing consternation and confusion.
Cecil's voice for the regular cast of characters was as always wonderful but his voice for Mr. Trotter, a Yorkshire newspaper magnate, wavered a little -- sometimes more northern than others.
Cecil's voice for the regular cast of characters was as always wonderful but his voice for Mr. Trotter, a Yorkshire newspaper magnate, wavered a little -- sometimes more northern than others.
April 18, 2019
ENGLISH: Tenth book about Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster, which forms a trilogy with "Right Ho Jeeves" and "The code of the Woosters," which we could call the trilogy of Aunt Dahlia and Anatole. As always, Bertie is about to marry a girl he doesn't love, in this case his cousin Florence, daughter of her aunt Agatha.
ESPAÑOL: Décimo libro de Jeeves y su amo Bertie Wooster, que forma una trilogía con "Right Ho Jeeves" y "The code of the Woosters", que podríamos llamar la trilogía de Tía Dahlia y Anatole. Como siempre, Bertie está a punto de casarse con una chica a la que no quiere, en este caso su prima Florence, hija de su tía Agatha.
ESPAÑOL: Décimo libro de Jeeves y su amo Bertie Wooster, que forma una trilogía con "Right Ho Jeeves" y "The code of the Woosters", que podríamos llamar la trilogía de Tía Dahlia y Anatole. Como siempre, Bertie está a punto de casarse con una chica a la que no quiere, en este caso su prima Florence, hija de su tía Agatha.
August 26, 2019
Funny things, mustaches. While Jeeves presents a decidedly cold shoulder to Bertie's newly grown facial furniture, novelist and ex-flame Florence Craye is rather taken by it.
Her current fiance, the hulking, pumpkin-headed G.D'arcy 'Stilton' Cheesewright, doesn't like the Wooster wire brush either, and he's a combustible chap 'who could give Othello a couple of bisques and be dormy one at the eighteenth'.
At the same time Bertie is touched up for the loan of a £1,000 pounds by one Percy Gorringe. Percy, as well as sporting an offensive set of side whiskers, has adapted a book by the imperious Florence, with whom he is also hopelessly in love. But the production is threatened when a financier pulls out, hence the shameless nobbling of the Wooster purse.
No wonder the two gentlemen have such strong feelings towards Miss. Craye. A tall, willowy platinum blond with looks akin to 'the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class Sultans', she was also 'like ham and eggs with the boys with the bulging foreheads out Bloomsbury way'.
Be that as it may, Bertie would rather inherit the wings of a dove than come between her and another man, let alone two other men. Yet when he aids a call for assistance from Aunt Dahlia to rush down to her country pile at Brinkley Court, Brinkley-cum-Snodsfield-in-the-Marsh, he will find himself in close proximity not just to the girl of his nightmares but to Mssrs. Cheesewright and Gorringe too.
It's got Jeeves, it's got Wooster, it's written by Wodehouse. What further recommendation do you need?
Her current fiance, the hulking, pumpkin-headed G.D'arcy 'Stilton' Cheesewright, doesn't like the Wooster wire brush either, and he's a combustible chap 'who could give Othello a couple of bisques and be dormy one at the eighteenth'.
At the same time Bertie is touched up for the loan of a £1,000 pounds by one Percy Gorringe. Percy, as well as sporting an offensive set of side whiskers, has adapted a book by the imperious Florence, with whom he is also hopelessly in love. But the production is threatened when a financier pulls out, hence the shameless nobbling of the Wooster purse.
No wonder the two gentlemen have such strong feelings towards Miss. Craye. A tall, willowy platinum blond with looks akin to 'the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class Sultans', she was also 'like ham and eggs with the boys with the bulging foreheads out Bloomsbury way'.
Be that as it may, Bertie would rather inherit the wings of a dove than come between her and another man, let alone two other men. Yet when he aids a call for assistance from Aunt Dahlia to rush down to her country pile at Brinkley Court, Brinkley-cum-Snodsfield-in-the-Marsh, he will find himself in close proximity not just to the girl of his nightmares but to Mssrs. Cheesewright and Gorringe too.
It's got Jeeves, it's got Wooster, it's written by Wodehouse. What further recommendation do you need?
April 6, 2019
One of Wodehouse's best, I think. It has the same basic plot as all the Jeeves novels, but it's perfectly paced, and the details are all just right. Here's one such detail - Bertie Wooster's account of the menu of a dinner cooked by Anatole, his Aunt Dahlia's amazing French chef:
I love the way that keeping up the French just became too much effort for Bertie.
One thing that struck me on this reading is that this book is racier than usual for Wodehouse - and that means that it's hardly racy at all, because Wodehouse's lovers are usually pretty chaste. But Bertie ends up in Florence Craye's bedroom in the middle of the night, and (on her orders) kisses her hard enough to leave her nightcap in disarray. And there is even a passing reference to Florence's knickers. All this is pretty daring for Wodehouse.
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is more or less the sequel to The Code of the Woosters, and it's just about as good as its predecessor. You can read them in order, or just enjoy Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit on its own.
Le Caviar Frais
Le Consommé aux Pommes d'Amour
Les Sylphides à la crème d'Ècrevisses
Les Fried Smelts
Le Bird of some kind with chipped potatoes
Le Ice Cream
I love the way that keeping up the French just became too much effort for Bertie.
One thing that struck me on this reading is that this book is racier than usual for Wodehouse - and that means that it's hardly racy at all, because Wodehouse's lovers are usually pretty chaste. But Bertie ends up in Florence Craye's bedroom in the middle of the night, and (on her orders) kisses her hard enough to leave her nightcap in disarray. And there is even a passing reference to Florence's knickers. All this is pretty daring for Wodehouse.
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is more or less the sequel to The Code of the Woosters, and it's just about as good as its predecessor. You can read them in order, or just enjoy Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit on its own.
December 16, 2017
While Jeeves has been on his annual holiday, Bertie has grown a mustache. As he suspected, Jeeves is not enamoured with said mustache. Aunt Dahlia is in need of assistance again, this time to help chivvy a certain L.G. Trotter into purchasing her magazine called Milady's Boudoir. She had come upon the idea of hiring a top-tier female author to write an article for the paper, a way of "salting the mine" as she puts it; but to pay this author, she hocked her pearl necklace, replacing it with a fake. She needs the sale proceeds to redeem the real necklace.
Convoluted, yes? We're just getting warmed up! Engagements on, engagements off, coshes, knighthoods, Anatole (will he never be safe from the machinations of covetous would-be employers?) - and of course, only Jeeves can make everything come out right, causing Bertie to shave the mustache in gratitude.
Convoluted, yes? We're just getting warmed up! Engagements on, engagements off, coshes, knighthoods, Anatole (will he never be safe from the machinations of covetous would-be employers?) - and of course, only Jeeves can make everything come out right, causing Bertie to shave the mustache in gratitude.
November 4, 2018
How lucky was I to find P. G. at an early age? Revisiting Bertie and Jeeves and the crowd is even better read aloud. I've discovered that I must have walked around with both English and French dictionaries back then. Some of this obviously went over my young head that I find hilarious now.
No wonder I developed a strange sense of humor that has made people wonder about me for 50 years.
No wonder I developed a strange sense of humor that has made people wonder about me for 50 years.
October 16, 2022
I can’t believe I hadn’t read this Jeeves and Wooster! It’s a classic. We get lots of Aunt Dahlia, a cameo from Spode (now Lord Sidcup), and enough of Stilton Cheesewright and Florence Craye to be funny and not annoying. There was some great physical comedy in this too, which reminded me of a hilarious scene in Something Fresh. This time Bertie is sporting a mustache that Jeeves does not like…
November 1, 2017
Nothing like a quick few pages of Jeeves and Wooster to get rid of those Monday (or Tuesday) blues. In this one we find Wooster growing a moustache, getting betrothed (again) and getting his spine broken (again), and Jeeves rescuing him from all three. Absolutely delightful read.
April 21, 2024
A reread! Actually I think this was the first Wodehouse I read back in junior high
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