Review: Thank You, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

by Phil Sawyer

This 234 page “Jeeves and Wooster” novel was originally published in 1934. For this review I have used my beautiful 1996 Folio Society edition illustrated by Paul Cox with a delightful introduction by Hugh Laurie!

The adventure begins with Bertie in his flat practicing his newly acquired banjo. Bertie had recently been to a jazz/minstrel show and had become enamored with what Jeeves refers to as “that instrument.”  A nemesis arrives in one of Bertie’s dedicated enemies, Sir Roderick Glossop, the “Nerve Specialist” or as Bertie prefers to refer to Glossop, “the loony doctor.” Glossop informs Bertie that his banjo has been making life hell for his neighbors. The lady in the flat below Bertie’s is one of Glossop’s patients. He informs Bertie that he had to give Mrs. Tinkler-Moulke a sedative! The flat neighbors demand that Bertie cease and desist with the banjo playing!

Bertie decides to move from his flat to an isolated cabin in the country where he could keep practicing his banjo. At this point Jeeves informs Bertie that Jeeves must give notice, as Jeeves intensely dislikes “that instrument.” Bertie tells him, “Then leave, dash it!”

Bertie moves into a cottage he is renting from his old Eton/Oxford friend, Lord “Chuffy”  Chufnell. It turns out that Chuffy has now hired Jeeves!

Some Americans arrive via a yacht. The rich businessman J. Washburn Stoker arrives with his beautiful daughter Pauline. She had once been engaged to Bertie (for 48 hours!) but her father had been convinced by his friend Sir Roderick Glossop that Bertie was a “loony” and the engagement was broken off.  Now it turns out that Pauline and Chuffy are in love.  This is fine with Bertie as he has decided that he is, in the words of Jeeves, “one of nature’s bachelors.”

I don’t want to give too much away but the rest of the novel describes how Chuffy does not want to propose to Pauline until he has some money. Chufnell estates has very little cash on hand. He can only have the money when J. Washburn Stoker buys the mansion for his friend Sir Roderick Glossop so that Glossop can turn the mansion into a “nerve sanitarium.”

Through a literal comedy of errors J. Washburn Stoker becomes sure that Pauline is still pining away for Bertie. He invites Bertie on board his yacht and then locks him in one of the cabins. He plans to force Bertie to marry Pauline! Jeeves is at this time working on board the yacht. He helps Bertie escape!

At the end of the novel true love triumphs. J. Washburn Stoker buys Chufnell Hall for Sir Roderick Glossop, Chuffy gets to marry Pauline, and Bertie escapes with his bachelorhood intact! Jeeves returns to Bertie’s service after Bertie’s banjo perishes when Bertie’s cabin burns down.

This is the first Jeeves NOVEL. Prior to this book the adventures of Bertie and Jeeves were in short story form. I should point out that the novel uses offensive terms when describing white performers wearing black face. White performers in black face makeup were popular in England up until WW2. As offensive as we find it now, performers such as Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, and Shirley Temple all at times performed in black face. Jeeves is, as usual, formal and polite. He refers to the performers as “Negro Minstrels.” The black face is integral to this story as Bertie AND Sir Roderick Glossop both end up wearing black face!

This Folio Society edition has a hilarious introduction by Hugh Laurie. He describes himself as a “horrible child” who “somehow contrived to pull off the gruesome trick of being both fat and thin at the same time.” Hugh Laurie tells us that at age 13 he discovered Wodehouse and that his squalid universe began to change. Wodehouse saved him! He then relates how he and Stephen Fry became involved in their Jeeves and Wooster series. I hope this essay is reprinted some time! (In the Fry/Laurie Jeeves version of Thank you, Jeeves Bertie’s banjo becomes a trombone!)

In 1958, Sprague de Camp wrote P.G. Wodehouse a fan letter and P.G. Wodehouse replied! Sprague’s letter is dated September 6, 1958. This was written when Moi was going on 3 years old! In the second paragraph Sprague tells Wodehouse that “Having just finished COCKTAIL TIME, I ask to be allowed to say that your stories have given me more pure reading pleasure than any other works I have read — and I read fifty to a hundred books a year, in several languages. I won’t say that Toynbee isn’t more thought-provoking, or Perikles’ funeral portion as reported by Thucydides more inspiring, or the Encyclopedia Britannica more informative. But for pure FUN, I have yet to find the equal of PGW.”

Sprague then goes on to ask about which story has Bertie being kidnapped aboard a rich American’s yacht.

In P. G. Wodehouse’s reply dated September 18, 1958, he writes: “Very bucked to think that you have enjoyed my books so much. I am now trying to work out another Jeeves plot and have reached the stage where I know what is going to happen but have not got the characters right. It’s quite the wrong way to do a book, I believe, but I always find it answers. The one you enquire about – Bertie on the yacht – is THANK YOU, JEEVES.”

So, there you have it! Sprague’s favorite stories were not REH or HPL but PGW!

I remember when I was visiting the de Camps in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Sprague was about to go upstairs to start his morning writing. He handed me a book and told me it was time I should start reading Wodehouse! And away I went!  I am now the proud owner of many of the Folio Society editions of Wodehouse and also many paperbacks. I read all of him I can find!

It’s interesting that Sprague considered Wodehouse a “fantasy” writer. Sprague thought that the Jeeves and Wooster stories were fantasies based on real life type characters. He compared them to the comedy westerns of REH. Howard’s tall tales were also based on real life frontier types and that made the fantasies even more fun!

What is difficult to convey is how FUNNY Wodehouse was. He was a true master of English prose. He made it look so EASY! Sprague and I discussed his skill. Sprague agreed with me when I mentioned that great athletes like Bruce Lee and Wilt Chamberlain and Fred Astaire made it look EASY. Wodehouse was like that. There has never been another like him. Hugh Laurie writes “In the first place, accusing Wodehouse of “lightness” is not so very far away from accusing painters of relying heavily for the achievements of their effects on paint – his lightness is, to put it bluntly, The Whole Point….”

I will conclude that I was delighted when I discovered that Raymond Chandler, the author of the great Philip Marlowe detective novels, went to the same school in England as Wodehouse! So, Bertie Wooster and Philip Marlowe were classmates!

In conclusion, be sure to go out and find some Wodehouse! Many of these tales are now 100 years old but they are still hysterically funny. Check out L. Sprague de Camp’s favorite author! As Sprague told me, “It’s high time you started reading Wodehouse.”

Yours in Crom.

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