Review: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by PG Wodehouse

There is nothing like a PG Wodehouse novel to brighten one's spirits on an otherwise dull day and Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is no exception. Originally published in 1954 and number 11 in the Jeeves series, most of the characters including the minor ones are, by now, well and truly established. Consequently, the reader knows that that they are to be entertained by a story of Britain's bumbling upper classes and it is just a question of who features in this volume to create a bit of trouble for Bertie Wooster, what this will lead to and how Jeeves is going to get him out of it.

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit opens with Bertie opting to grow a moustache that doesn't suit him, much to the annoyance of Jeeves who strongly advises against it. Unfortunately, the moustache soon catches the eye of Lady Florence Cray, a writer who is currently penning a serial for a magazine owned by Aunt Dahlia that she is hoping to sell for a hefty sum. Worst still for Bertie, Florence is presently engaged to Cheesewright, a brutish man who would beat Bertie to a pulp, were it not for the fact that he is relying on Bertie to win the darts competition for the Drones club. Meanwhile, there is a little spot of bother with some missing pearls that could be the undoing of all of Aunt Dahlia's plans to sell the magazine. Of course, it is up to clever butler Jeeves to save the day.

This one was entertaining enough, though quite honestly, I felt that it was a fairly tired instalment in the series. There were a couple of loose threads that were not tied up at the end of the novel. That said, it was still easy enough for me to enjoy this one with its the over-the-top situations, the clever use of the English language for maximum comic effect. And, obviously, the point of these novels is to entertain and not to inspire great philosophical discussions or pages and pages of analysis from readers.

Overall, a fun read.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more