Jeeves in the Morning: Library Edition

Rating:
Summary: Very Good But Not Great
Review: All of the usual madcap elements for a great Jeeves novel are in place. It is simply amazing the way P.G. Wodehouse could always from the same well for his plot devises. In a sense, all of the Wooster and Jeeves stories are a variation on the same theme. When Wodehouse is at his best, these comic novels reach the level of the sublime. Jeeves and the Mating Season as an example.

This novel is very good but it lacks the way over the top element one can encounter in Wodehouse's best stories. My understanding is that Wodehouse wrote over 90 books. Like all things, some of them are better than others. Sorting out the classics will be providing me with much amusements for many years to come.

I would highly recommend any recordings by Jonathan Cecil. I have been listening to recorded books for over twenty years and he is simply the best reader that I have ever listened to. He has amazing comic timing and I think the ultimate Bertie voice. What Wodehouse is to the comic novel, Jonathan Cecil is the reading of comic novels.

Rating:
Summary: a top-rate jeeves and bertie novel
Review: Although the form of the Jeeves and Bertie novels is narrow and utterly without socially redeeming value, Wodehouse was an absolute genius at what he did. This novel, originally titled "Joy in the Morning", finds his astonishing technique in mid 1940's perfection. If you are interested in briefly escaping this brutal and nasty sphere for a short period you couldn't ask for a better vehicle.

Rating:
Summary: a top-rate jeeves and bertie novel
Review: Although the form of the Jeeves and Bertie novels is narrow and utterly without socially redeeming value, Wodehouse was an absolute genius at what he did. This novel, originally titled "Joy in the Morning", finds his astonishing technique in mid 1940's perfection. If you are interested in briefly escaping this brutal and nasty sphere for a short period you couldn't ask for a better vehicle.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book, But Better when Read by Jonathan Cecil
Review: Frederick Davidson does a good job reading the Jeeves books, but the reading done by Jonathan Cecil with Audio Partners is a class better! See ISBN: 1572704357.

For example: in THIS version, at times the listener can hear pages being turned; at other times, it is clear the reader reached the end of a typed line before the end of the written sentance, amking for an awkward, even jarring pause.

Rating:
Summary: P.G. Wodehouse funnier then ever.
Review: I have read this book so many times and each time I enjoy it even more. No one can play around with words as he does and the way he explains a scene in so much detail according to his witty point of view is just simply marvelous. The way Bertie Wooster describes the fairer sex is simply a work of art.

Rating:
Summary: What ho! Bertie in trouble again.
Review: Jeeves and Bertie Wooster are back in this ripping novel by P.G. Wodehouse, one of the best of the Wooster-Jeeves series. The novel takes place at Steeple Bumpleigh, a place which Bertie takes care to avoid, for the Hampshire estate invaribly brings unmitigated disaster to his life. The country house visit is peopled with such Wodehousian favorites as Lord Worpleston, Nobby Hopwood, Stilton Cheesewright, Edwin the Boy Scout, and Boko Fittleworth. The plot is, of course, pure Wodehouse, a combination of convulution and well-ordered chaos which contains no aspects of reality; it is Wodehouse's "musical comedy" world, a gentle upper-class romp over the British countryside, with fancy dress balls, English estates with its varied eccentric guests, and a mish-mash of dramatic irony. Wodehouse is pure satirical farce of the first order, told from the perspecitve of one of the most loveable, yet incompetent twits in English literature, Bertie Wooster, whose mix of understatement and hyperbole, linguistic abbreviations, weird similes and metaphors, and misplaced and misquoted literary allusions endear him to Anglophiles throughout the world. As one critic puts it, Wodehouse presents "a ray of pale English sunshine into a gray world," a quotation with which no lover of Wodehouse would ever argue. "Jeeves in the Morning" is a delight and required reading for any lover of well-written British prose.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and gentle
Review: No, this is not a social pamphlet -- nor do we want it to be. But it certainly does have "socially redeeming value", given that Bertie Wooster is a magnanimous, kind, caring man with wonderful manners, who would never let a pal down. And Jeeves is much the same, but with an intellect. Theirs is a civilized world, even if things do go wrong... Wodehouse is delightful to read.

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Farce
Review: P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" books are noted for their similarity of plot but suavity of execution. Of the latter, a "Times Literary Supplement (London)" critic writes: "...there comes a stage where the [inveterate] reader . . . finds a new pleasure in seeing how exquisitely it is done." The words "facile" and "frothy" describe Wodehouse's delectable concoctions, in which aristocratic Bertram "Bertie" Wooster finds himself inevitably drawn to the rescue of young lovers, a task to which he is eminently ill-suited. (Bertie, in wave after wave of well-intentioned malapropisms, undeserved self-esteem, unintentional ironies, misquoted allusions, and suspicion-raising bungling, would be the epitome of the foolish nouveaux riches, if only his own riche were nouveau.) Instead, Bertie, appeals to the old "feudal spirit" of his cunning and erudite butler Jeeves, Bertie's superior in everything but station. It is Jeeves who really comes to the rescue, bailing Wooster 'out of the soup.'

The stars of this show (as others have noted, Wodehouse wrote these adventures in a theatrical, musical-comedy style) are two pairs of "affianced" lovers; the fetching Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood and writer Boko Fittleworth, and the intimidating couple of Florence Craye and G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright; as well as Lord Percy Worplesdon: Florence's father, Nobby's ward, Bertie's uncle, and young Edwin's father--more on him later--and, finally, American shipping magnate, J. Chichester Clam.

There are some annoying flaws in the book: Some fortuitous happenings that strain even the permeable bounds of farce: the unexplained acceptance of Stilton by Lord Worplesdon, an outright lie by the proper (but usually more cunning) Jeeves, and the capitol punishment meted by foot to the backside of young Edwin. The latter does not trouble his sister Florence, although we learn early on that "Florence is one of those girls who look on modern enlightenments a sort of personal buddy." This coup d'Edwin may trouble some modern day readers. Still, this is light farce and one may excuse this ugly punishment through a metaphorical reading. After all, can one really trust the narration of Bertie Wooster when he utters such gems as " . . . and already much of the gilt, I feared, must now have rubbed off the gingerbread of their romance."

Although not as well crafted as "The Code of the Woosters," this book certainly rivals the former in its rich cast and nimble dialogue, and its subtle thrashing of the manner and speech of the British aristocracy. Recommended with a hearty "Right ho!"

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Farce
Review: P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" books are noted for their similarity of plot but suavity of execution. Of the latter, a "Times Literary Supplement (London)" critic writes: "...there comes a stage where the [inveterate] reader . . . finds a new pleasure in seeing how exquisitely it is done." The words "facile" and "frothy" describe Wodehouse's delectable concoctions, in which aristocratic Bertram "Bertie" Wooster finds himself inevitably drawn to the rescue of young lovers, a task to which he is eminently ill-suited. (Bertie, in wave after wave of well-intentioned malapropisms, undeserved self-esteem, unintentional ironies, misquoted allusions, and suspicion-raising bungling, would be the epitome of the foolish nouveaux riches, if only his own riche were nouveau.) Instead, Bertie, appeals to the old "feudal spirit" of his cunning and erudite butler Jeeves, Bertie's superior in everything but station. It is Jeeves who really comes to the rescue, bailing Wooster `out of the soup.'

The stars of this show (as others have noted, Wodehouse wrote these adventures in a theatrical, musical-comedy style) are two pairs of "affianced" lovers; the fetching Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood and writer Boko Fittleworth, and the intimidating couple of Florence Craye and G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright; as well as Lord Percy Worplesdon: Florence's father, Nobby's ward, Bertie's uncle, and young Edwin's father--more on him later--and, finally, American shipping magnate, J. Chichester Clam.

There are some annoying flaws in the book: Some fortuitous happenings that strain even the permeable bounds of farce: the unexplained acceptance of Stilton by Lord Worplesdon, an outright lie by the proper (but usually more cunning) Jeeves, and the capitol punishment meted by foot to the backside of young Edwin. The latter does not trouble his sister Florence, although we learn early on that "Florence is one of those girls who look on modern enlightenments a sort of personal buddy." This coup d'Edwin may trouble some modern day readers. Still, this is light farce and one may excuse this ugly punishment through a metaphorical reading. After all, can one really trust the narration of Bertie Wooster when he utters such gems as " . . . and already much of the gilt, I feared, must now have rubbed off the gingerbread of their romance."

Although not as well crafted as "The Code of the Woosters," this book certainly rivals the former in its rich cast and nimble dialogue, and its subtle thrashing of the manner and speech of the British aristocracy. Recommended with a hearty "Right ho!"

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Farce
Review: P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" books are noted for their similarity of plot but suavity of execution. Of the latter, a "Times Literary Supplement (London)" critic writes: "...there comes a stage where the [inveterate] reader . . . finds a new pleasure in seeing how exquisitely it is done." The words "facile" and "frothy" describe Wodehouse's delectable concoctions, in which aristocratic Bertram "Bertie" Wooster finds himself inevitably drawn to the rescue of young lovers, a task to which he is eminently ill-suited. (Bertie, in wave after wave of well-intentioned malapropisms, undeserved self-esteem, unintentional ironies, misquoted allusions, and suspicion-raising bungling, would be the epitome of the foolish nouveaux riches, if only his own riche were nouveau.) Instead, Bertie, appeals to the old "feudal spirit" of his cunning and erudite butler Jeeves, Bertie's superior in everything but station. It is Jeeves who really comes to the rescue, bailing Wooster 'out of the soup.'

The stars of this show (as others have noted, Wodehouse wrote these adventures in a theatrical, musical-comedy style) are two pairs of "affianced" lovers; the fetching Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood and writer Boko Fittleworth, and the intimidating couple of Florence Craye and G. D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright; as well as Lord Percy Worplesdon: Florence's father, Nobby's ward, Bertie's uncle, and young Edwin's father--more on him later--and, finally, American shipping magnate, J. Chichester Clam.

There are some annoying flaws in the book: Some fortuitous happenings that strain even the permeable bounds of farce: the unexplained acceptance of Stilton by Lord Worplesdon, an outright lie by the proper (but usually more cunning) Jeeves, and the capitol punishment meted by foot to the backside of young Edwin. The latter does not trouble his sister Florence, although we learn early on that "Florence is one of those girls who look on modern enlightenments a sort of personal buddy." This coup d'Edwin may trouble some modern day readers. Still, this is light farce and one may excuse this ugly punishment through a metaphorical reading. After all, can one really trust the narration of Bertie Wooster when he utters such gems as " . . . and already much of the gilt, I feared, must now have rubbed off the gingerbread of their romance."

Although not as well crafted as "The Code of the Woosters," this book certainly rivals the former in its rich cast and nimble dialogue, and its subtle thrashing of the manner and speech of the British aristocracy. Recommended with a hearty "Right ho!"