The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When I’m down or stressed, I often turn to P.G. Wodehouse‘s absurd tales of the idle rich for an escape from real life. The Inimitable Jeeves is the first “novel” with Jeeves. I put novel in quotes because this is really more of a series of short stories strung together than a proper novel. The contents were originally published separately as eleven short stories, some of which were split to form the book. The plot is clearly less sophisticated than some of his later comic novels. Still, it’s plenty of fun to breeze along and read about Bertie’s wasted life, as his Aunt Agatha properly calls it. He and his friends from the leisure class get themselves into trouble and are rescued time and again by the clever schemes of Bertie’s valet Jeeves. Most of the stories involve Bertie’s hopeless friend Bingo Little and his ever-changing infatuations with various women. If you want to check your worries at the door and read about utterly ridiculous people doing silly things, this is a great diversion.

My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars


My Man Jeeves is the first P.G. Wodehouse book with Bertie Wooster or his valet Jeeves in the title. Only half of these eight stories, however, feature Jeeves and Wooster. The other half are about Reggie Pepper, an early prototype for Bertie. Two of the Pepper stories were actually later rewritten as Jeeves stories.

It’s fascinating to read these stories together. The Pepper stories are very similar to the Jeeves ones, except without Jeeves there to come up with solutions. The addition of Jeeves makes the stories much more entertaining–he’s an iconic character.

These are all fun to read, though, even if too many are simply about idle young men panicking over losing the streams of money from their rich relatives. Overall, they read like somewhat earlier, undeveloped versions of Wodehouse’s later work. They’re a nice, quick diversion with some funny zingers, but not yet showing the comic brilliance of Wodehouse’s later work.