Jeeves in the Offing

In Jeeves in the Offing (also titled How Right You Are, Jeeves), P.G. Wodehouse brings readers another amusing tale about the daffy but lovable Bertram Wilberforce Wooster and his wise and helpful valet Reginald Jeeves, who so epitomizes the gentleman's gentleman that a search engine was named after him. (Ask has since given Jeeves the boot. Jeeves has even become a generic term for a butler, although he is technically a valet.)

Jeeves is leaving for his annual vacation when Bertie gets a call from his old ancestor Aunt Dahlia, who invites him to visit Brinkley Court and enjoy her French chef Anatole's delectable dishes on one condition: She has a job for him. When Bertie learns what that task involves and who else will be staying at Brinkley, he senses his impending doom--and rightly so. An old schoolmaster's menacing upper lip, conspiratorial glances, engagements made and broken, and a cast of quirky characters like Bobbie Wickham--a carrot-topped Jezebel, as she is sometimes called--add to the entertainment of the reader, who Bertie affectionately refers to as his public. Bertie's uncle Tom's most prized possession, the eighteenth-century creamer in the shape of a cow with a juvenile-delinquent expression on its face and that ranks high on the list of things Bertie would be reluctant to be found dead in a ditch with, also makes a return appearance. And disappearance.

It's not often that a book makes me laugh out loud, but Bertie is such a funny narrator and Wodehouse such a comic genius that I can't help myself. My only complaint is that Jeeves is absent for much of the book.

I've watched most of the episodes of the Jeeves & Wooster series starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry and recently began listening to the Wodehouse novels that have been recorded on LibriVox, beginning with Right Ho, Jeeves. I think I need one of these.

I read Jeeves in the Offing for Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books Reading Challenge, and Sherry reviewed the book here.