This is the one where: Bertie goes undercover as Gussie Fink-Nottle (while Gussie goes undercover as Bertie and Catsmeat Pirbright goes undercover as Bertie’s valet) to reunite four sets of “sundered hearts” (with Jeeves’ help, of course) while suffering the disapproval of “a solid gaggle of aunts” (six in all).
The action takes place at: Deverill Hall, King’s Deverill, Hampshire
Bertie nearly gets engaged to: Madeline Bassett, yet again, “the sloppiest, mushiest, sentimentalist young Gawd-help-us who ever thought the stars were God’s daisy chain and that every time a fairy hiccoughs a wee baby is born”
But she’s really in love with: Gussie Fink-Nottle, “Goofy to the gills, face like a fish, horn-rimmed spectacles, drank orange juice, collected newts, engaged to England’s premier pill”
The task at hand: Impersonate Gussie at Deverill Hall so Madeline doesn’t find out that he’s been jailed for wading in the Trafalgar Square fountain, get Gussie (after he is unexpectedly released from jail) to impersonate Bertie so Aunt Agatha doesn’t find out that Bertie isn’t fulfilling her request that he participate in the King’s Deverill village concert, keep everyone from finding out about the identity switch, keep Madeline from finding out that Gussie has fallen in love with Corky Pirbright, keep Gussie from getting arrested by Officer Dobbs for attempting to liberate Corky’s dog after it has been locked up for biting people, reunite Gussie and Madeline, reunite Corky Pirbright and Esmond Haddock by helping Esmond stand up to his five aunts, reunite Catsmeat Pirbright (who accidentally gets engaged to Queenie the maid) and Gertrude Winkworth, reunite Officer Dobbs and Queenie. Whew!
Other characters include:
- Claude Cattermole “Catsmeat” Pirbright, an actor friend of Bertie’s (“he is the fellow managers pick first when they have a Society comedy to present and want someone for ‘Freddie,’ the lighthearted friend of the hero, carrying the second love interest. If at such a show you see a willowy figure come bounding on with a tennis racket, shouting ‘Hallo, girls’ shortly after the kick-off, don’t bother to look at the programme. That’ll be Catsmeat.”)
- Cora “Corky” Pirbright, Catsmeat’s sister, a Hollywood actress, “one of those lissome girls of medium height, constructed on the lines of Gertrude Lawrence, and her map had always been worth more than a passing glance. In repose, it has a sort of meditative expression, as if she were a pure white soul thinking beautiful thoughts, and when animated, so dashed animated that it boosts the morale just to look at her. Her eyes are a kind of browny-hazel and her hair rather along the same lines. The general effect is of an angel who eats lots of yeast. In fine, if you were called upon to pick something to be cast on a desert island with, Hedy Lamarr might be your first choice, but Corky Pirbright would inevitably come high up on the list of Hon. Mentions.”
- The Rev. Sidney Pirbright, Corky and Catsmeat’s uncle and organizer of the village concert, “a tall, drooping man, looking as if he had been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist”
- Esmond Haddock, owner of Deverill Hall, “a fine, upstanding—sitting at the moment, of course, but you know what I mean—broad-shouldered bozo of about thirty, with one of those faces which I believe, though I should have to check up with Jeeves, are known as Byronic. He looked like a combination of a poet and an all-in wrestler.”
- The Misses Charlotte, Emmeline, Harriet, and Myrtle Deverill, Esmond’s aunts (“As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention. I was to learn later that this was…the dotty one.”)
- Dame Daphne Winkworth, Esmond’s most formidable aunt, “a rugged light-heavyweight with a touch of Wallace Beery in her make-up”
- Gertrude Winkworth, Dame Daphne’s daughter, “slim and blonde and fragile, in sharp contradistinction to her mother…Her eyes were blue, her teeth pearly, and in other respects she had what it takes”
- Officer Ernest Dobbs, policeman and atheist, “one of those chunky, knobbly officers. It was as though Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp.’ Nor had she done so, except possibly in the matter of height. I believe that in order to become a member of the Force you have to stand five feet nine inches in your socks, and Ernest Dobbs can only just have got his nose under the wire. But this slight perpendicular shortage had the effect of rendering his bulk all the more impressive. He was plainly a man who, had he felt disposed, could have understudied the village blacksmith and no questions asked.”
- Queenie, the parlormaid (in a rare lapse on Wodehouse's part, described only as “pretty”)
- Charlie Silversmith, butler at Deverill Hall, Jeeves’s uncle and Queenie’s father (“He looked like one of those steel engravings of sixteenth-century statesmen”)
- Aunt Agatha, “the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth” (sadly, she never actually appears in the book but inhabits it only by reputation)
- Thomas, Agatha’s son (“This Thos is one of those tough, hardboiled striplings, a sort of juvenile James Cagney with a touch of Edward G. Robinson.”)
Jeeves disapproves of Bertie’s: Nothing! But we do get a reference to past disagreements after Jeeves hits Officer Dobbs over the head to rescue Gussie from arrest: “The revelation of this deeper, coshing side to Jeeves’s character had come as something of a shock to me…He and I had had our differences in the past, failing to see eye to eye on such matters as purple socks and white dinner jackets, and it was inevitable, both of us being men of high spirit, that similar differences would arise in the future. It was a disquieting thought that in the heat of an argument about, say, soft-bosomed shirts for evening wear he might forget the decencies of debate and elect to apply the closure by hauling off and socking me on the frontal bone with something solid.”
First paragraph: “While I would not go so far, perhaps, as to describe the heart as actually leaden, I must confess than on the eve of starting to do my bit of time at Deverill Hall I was definitely short on chirpiness. I shrank from the prospect of being decanted into a household on chummy terms with a thug like my aunt Agatha, weakened as I already was by having had her son Thomas, one of our most prominent fiends in human shape, on my hands for three days.”
Bertie fashion moment: Wanting to look good for Corky, Gussie asks Bertie “if you would lend me that tie of yours with the pink lozenges on the dove-grey background” (prompting from Bertie “the fleeting thought that he was a bit of an optimist if he expected a tie with pink lozenges on a dove-grey background to undo Nature’s handiwork to the extent of making him look anything but a fish-faced gargoyle”).
Slang I’d like to start using: “oompus-boompus,” which seems to mean “funny business” (“Even in the distant days when she wore rompers and had a tooth missing in front, hers was a fiery and impulsive nature, quick to resent anything in the shape of oompus-boompus. And it is inevitably as oompus-boompus that she will have classed the zealous officer’s recent arrest of her dog.”)
Bertie gets no respect: “He appears to be completely irresponsible. Agatha tells me that sometimes she despairs of him. She says she often wonders if the best thing would not be to put him in a home of some kind.”—Dame Daphne
Best Jeeves moment: “The only occupant of the more posh saloon bar was a godlike man in a bowler hat with grave, finely chiseled features and a head that stuck out at the back, indicating great brain power. To cut a long story short, Jeeves. He was having a meditative beer at the table by the wall.”
Best bit of description: “Jeeves, in speaking of this Fink-Nottle, if you remember, described him as disgruntled, and it was plain at a glance that the passage of time had done nothing to gruntle him. The eyes behind their horn-rimmed spectacles were burning with fury and resentment and all that sort of thing. He looked like a peevish halibut. In moments of emotion Gussie’s resemblance to some marine monster always becomes accentuated.”
Best bit of dialogue:
Jeeves: “I wonder if I might call your attention to an observation of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He said: ‘Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.’”
Bertie: “He said that, did he?”
Jeeves: “Yes, sir.”
Bertie: “Well, you can tell him from me he’s an ass.”
My review: Five stars! This was a downright tour de force, with one of the twistiest plots yet. Not only do we have the always reliably funny Gussie and Madeline, but we also get a record-setting three other sets of lovelorn couples to entangle and detangle, not to mention heaps of dreaded aunts (including the looming threat of Aunt Agatha and the astounding implication that Bertie finally stands up to her at the end, though the book closes before we get to see it). Catsmeat and Corky are both amusing characters, identity switches are always good for a laugh, and as a bonus, we get to meet Jeeves' uncle and cousin! The Code of the Woosters remains my sentimental favorite because of the cow creamer, but this one nearly ties it for best Jeeves & Wooster hijinks so far.
Had I read it before? No!
Next up: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (I'm skipping Ring for Jeeves/The Return of Jeeves because not only have I read it within the past couple of years, but it’s also the only Jeeves book not to feature Bertie at all, and therefore isn’t worthy of being part of this project)
