{"id":21015,"date":"2025-08-14T19:47:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21015"},"modified":"2025-08-14T19:47:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:47:26","slug":"very-good-jeeves-by-p-g-wodehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21015","title":{"rendered":"‘Very Good, Jeeves,’ by P. G. Wodehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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He was fat then, and day by day in every way has been getting fatter ever since, till now tailors measure him just for the sake of the exercise.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s kind of a waste of time<\/strong> to review a P. G. Wodehouse book. The intelligent consumer knows the quality of the product. But it\u2019s possible some reader (for some incomprehensible reason) has resisted the delights of \u201cPlum\u2019s\u201d work to date, so here goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very Good, Jeeves!<\/a><\/em>, a story collection, is obviously a Jeeves and Wooster book, so there\u2019s no mystery about what we\u2019re getting. Idle London clubman Bertie Wooster \u2013 or one of his equally dimwitted friends \u2013 gets into some kind of ridiculous trouble. In the end, they turn to Bertie\u2019s valet (not butler), Jeeves, of whom Bertie testifies: \u201cThere are no limits to Jeeves\u2019s brain-power. He virtually lives on fish.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic scenario is consistent (we\u2019d be disappointed if it weren’t) but there are minor variations from story to story \u2013 sometimes Bertie turns to Jeeves at the very beginning, but unforeseen complications stretch the problem out. Sometimes Bertie delays resorting to Jeeves because some coldness has arisen between the two of them, over a disagreement about socks or golf attire or something. Once Jeeves is absent on holiday, and on another occasion Bertie\u2019s imperious Aunt Agatha refuses to ask help from a mere servant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the end Jeeves comes through, and the sun shines once again on the Edenic world of Wodehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of familiar characters in this collection \u2013 Bingo Little, Tuppy Glossop, and \u2013 most dramatically \u2013 Bobbie Wickham, the beautiful, red-haired, walking attractive nuisance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, I noted, with interest, that at one point Bertie describes a portrait of himself as featuring a monocle. Bertie used to be portrayed with monocles in illustrations all the time, but I don\u2019t recall actually finding one in a story before (there are probably others I\u2019ve overlooked, though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think several of the stories in Very Good, Jeeves<\/em> were actually new to me, which was delightful. The ones I\u2019d read before were also delightful, though, so I had a thoroughly good time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He was fat then, and day by day in every way has been getting fatter ever since, till now tailors measure him just for the sake of the exercise. It\u2019s kind of a waste of time to review a P. G. Wodehouse book. The intelligent consumer knows the quality of the product. But it\u2019s possible … Continue reading ‘Very Good, Jeeves,’ by P. G. Wodehouse<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4468,3504,4184],"class_list":["post-21015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-carry-on-jeeves","tag-jeeves-and-wooster","tag-p-g-wodehouse-2"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21018,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21015\/revisions\/21018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}