The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (1923)

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (1923)

Unless you know the same people I do, you probably don’t know anyone in real life named “Jeeves.” My friends from long ago loved P.G. Wodehouse so much that they actually named their first child Jeeves. I’d never read Wodehouse before, so when they told me they’d named their son after a fictional butler, I was mildly aghast

Now that I’ve tasted Wodehouse, however, and met The Inimitable Jeeves face-to-face, well, I understand the choice a bit more. He is after all no mere butler but a manservant, a problem-solver, a networker of the highest caliber, and an all-wise confidante. It was nice to meet him this year in my Siblings’ Book Club.

Note: this post includes Amazon affiliate links.

A Brief Summary of The Inimitable Jeeves

While this book does resemble a collection of short stories, I found them to be so interconnected that I’ve decided to classify it as a novel—much like Cabbages and Kings by O.Henry (1904). Of course, the stories came out as magazine serials, so they certainly are each self-contained, but still, I’m not prepared to review this book chapter-by-chapter as I would a regular short-story collection.

The chapters track the main character, Bertie Wooster (whom Jeeves serves as valet), as he attempts to solve the many messes that his friends and acquaintances create. This only digs him deeper into a variety of problems, and so he depends upon Jeeves to swoop in at the final moment for rescue.

Many of the plots in this collection are intricate, and unthreading them certainly would take the skill of a master like Jeeves, but that also means they can be a mite confusing. Since this is my first and only P.G. Wodehouse read to date, and since I only read it once, I cannot claim to have understood everything. I am, after all, a lowly American (“Of course, I didn’t invent the country. That was Columbus.”)

A Favorite Plot

Perhaps my favorite chapter in the whole book is the first—partly because it’s tied to the running joke of Bingo’s many failed romances, and partly because it’s my introduction to Wodehouse’s style.

Bertie’s schooltime friend, Bingo, wants to marry a waitress below his station, but he’s afraid that old-fashioned Uncle Mortimer will cut off his hefty allowance if he does. Bingo opts to follow Jeeves’ advice and read to his Uncle Mortimer a series of romance novels by Rosie M. Banks, in which true love always wins over status and station. These girly books bring Uncle Mortimer to tears, and they’re just about have their desired effect.

But then Bingo overplays his hand, introducing his friend Bertie to Uncle Mortimer as the author of those books—the man behind the pseudonym, Rosie M. Banks. Bertie, who’s never read the sappy drivel in his life, must convince Uncle Mortimer his true belief in such trash, that love trumps class, and that Bingo must be allowed to marry the waitress with whom he’s madly in love—oh, and keep his allowance, of course.

Uncle Brewster, meanwhile, uses this sentimental awakening to marry a cook he’s been eyeing—which happens to be Jeeves’ own fiancé—an act that then allows Jeeves the opening to marry the woman he desires—which happens to be Bingo’s waitress.

It’s a masterpiece of convolution, and it made me an instant fan of the mind-machinations of P.G. Wodehouse.

Conclusion

This collection of finely-woven stories is filled with light humor and occasional, polite guffaws. It’s almost cartoonish in its absurdity, but so properly British that it’s not too far a stretch to call it Monty-Pythonesque.

Perhaps my favorite line in the whole book was this exclamation from Bertie in Chapter IX, which can only be read in a fully nasal British accent and which would definitely be my answer to anyone who asks how well I understood all the mysteries in this book:

“Oh, I don’t know, you know, don’t you know!”

Want more? Get Elliot’s Weekly Digest.