P. G. Wodehouse

 

I've now read a number of novels by the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, and the most recent -- Much Obliged, Jeeves -- has reaffirmed my sense for Wodehouse: namely that he was a comic master. 

What's interesting about Wodehouse, though, is that his major works have a serial quality: they're scripted and, in a sense, predictable: the sagacious butler solving the aristocrat's problems. The laughs come when they're expected, and the tangle is slowly unraveled. Much Obliged unfolds as many of the other Jeeves novels do. 

But that doesn't make them cheap. Wodehouse was a master stylist, and he worked for his laughs: he sets up his jokes or scenarios with wit and care. His prose were all his own: levity, combined with a piercing vision of the British upper class. There's a sagacious quality to the Jeeves novels: a sense that we are uncovering a bit of truth under that gentle cloak of laughter. 

Much Obliged, Jeeves is a novel to be enjoyed; it's a reminder that reading is meant to be fun, and that fun can also be literary. There was a sense of refreshment after finishing Much Obliged. And I am, of course: obliged to Wodehouse.