Customer Reviews

Bertie Wooster Sees It Through (A Jeeves and Bertie Novel)

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Previous: The Mating Season

Bertie Wooster Sees It Through surprised me a great deal. I had read almost all of the Jeeves books by the time I got to this one, and I had no idea that I could still be so utterly and completely charmed by Wodehouse's words. Of all the Jeeves books, this one is probably the funniest, with the most laugh-out-louds-the knee slapping, snorting, tears-streaming-down-your-face, scaring-the-cat-out-of-the-room kind. I can't praise it highly enough. First, the setting is a breath of fresh air. After visiting such horrific places as Steeple Bumpleigh and Deverill Hall, going back to Brinkley feels like going home, complete with Aunt Dahlia and all her warm endearments ("Bertie, you revolting object."). One delightful twist after another brings Bertie to the brink of disaster and back again, as he is faced with the prospect of having his spine broken in three, four, or five places by the oaf Stilton Cheesewright and, worse yet, marriage to Florence Craye. Couple that with Bertie's new mustache, Aunt Dahlia's pearl necklace, a somber chap by the name of Percy Gorringe, and the Drones darts tournament, and you have the funniest thing ever written in the English language.

And that, by the way, is what makes Wodehouse so wonderful-it is not the characters, nor the stories, nor the settings, but the language he uses, and the way he forms sentences, and the vocabulary which is an eclectic mix of colloquialisms, literary references, foreign phrases, and Woosterisms. Until I read Wodehouse, I had never dreamed that the English language could be rendered so beautifully, and so, so, so brilliantly funny. It is like nothing else I have ever read.

Next: How Right You Are, Jeeves (Jeeves in the Offing)

...and heavens don't we all these days?

This is utterly charming, one of the two or three best in the Jeeves and Bertie series (surpassed only by "Joy in the Morning" AKA "Jeeves in the Morning"). The plot is very cleverly constructed with a few nice surprises, so I shan't give it away; suffice it to say that this is the one where Bertie sports a moustace.

Now simply click on the "Add to My Cart", you silly old thing.

To be sure, this is one of Wodehouse's best, one that can't be beat on CD. But the Kindle version has apparently been optically scanned and posted uncorrected, so sometimes "don't" appears as "dont", "fiver" as "liver", and "for me" as "forme".

It's tolerable, but Kindle reading should be unfettered joy, not joy with hiccups. Me? I'm looking for another version of this joyful read.

As Evelyn Waugh points out, Wodehouse's world is idyllic. It is not our world. It has a different set of rules, for instance, the fate of its characters are determined by silver cow creamers and French cooks. Call it absurd or trivial, and you would be right. If you are tired of "serious" literature and the "real" world, this is a wonderful place to escape to!

Typical of the Jeeves and Wooster tales, Bertie Wooster Sees It Through begins (and ends) with a trivial yet heated battle between the sage valet and his woolly-headed charge: Bertie's newly acquired mustache. Jeeves can't stand the thing, and Bertie is to be damned if he is going to have his face edited by a hidebound gentleman's gentleman. Of course, the plot thickens, involving unwanted engagements, jealous lovers, police raids, and fake pearl necklaces. This is an extremely funny and charming book. The ending breakfast scene is one of my favorites.

Towards the end of his career, P.G. Wodehouse found himself charmed by the idea of reprising the characters who and plot lines that provided the greatest triumphs in his earlier books. Bertie Wooster Sees It Through is a worthy sequel of that sort.

In the earlier book, you may remember that Stilton Cheesewright and Bertie Wooster had been schoolmates in preparatory school, at Eton and at Oxford. Stilton chose to become a policeman and his career led him to become very serious and strict in his outlook, so that Bertie thinks of him as "that blighter Stilton." Love transformed his life when he fell for the writer, Florence Craye. But Florence is also apt to respond well to Bertie, and Stilton takes that personally. When we last saw them, Florence and Stilton were engaged.

In this story, Bertie's Aunt Dahlia enlists him to come to her country home, Brinkley Court, to help her entertain a family by the name of Trotter. The assignment seems to be off to a rocky start, however, when the Trotters' stepson, Percy Gorringe, calls Bertie to hit him up for 1,000 pounds. That seems like too much entertaining and Bertie declines.

In the meantime, Bertie has started growing a mustache and Jeeves doesn't approve. In fact, no one else does either . . . except Florence Craye. That enrages an already touchy Stilton, who fears that Bertie is trying to steal Florence. Soon, Stilton is also sporting the hairy stuff on his upper lip. To make matters worse, Stilton has a large stake on Bertie in the Drones Club dart championship and decides that Bertie should starting keeping regular hours and keep off the sauce. And that's just why Bertie doesn't want to have anything to do with Florence, she's not only brainy . . . she also likes to improve her men. And Bertie likes himself just the way he is.

Stilton is also the jealous type and quickly turns suspicious when Bertie is picked up after a raid on a late-night bistro where Bertie had taken Florence at her request to do some research on local color.

But Aunt Dahlia has an even more serious problem. She has pawned her new necklace to buy the serial rights to a new story, and her husband, Uncle Tom, is about to have it appraised. She has been hiding the fact by wearing cultured pearls instead, but is about to be caught. Naturally, she decides to have Bertie steal the cultured pearls. And equally naturally, that proves to be more difficult than anyone can imagine and with unexpected consequences. And so the country farce begins!

Bertie Wooster Sees It Through has that nice combination of serious pending threats, irrational fears and hopes, and muddle-headedness that makes for such good social comedy. Like all of the best P.G. Wodehouse books, the language sparkles with original similes, metaphors and allusions.

Jolly good show!

If you understand the title of this review, you have already been introduced to the unequaled comic talents of P. G. Wodehouse. If you don't understand it at all, you need to read this book (especially the dedication). Or, for that matter, any book written by this master of stories written to allow the reader to laugh out loud and revel in that experience. There is just nothing to beat completely submerging yourself in the world of the ridiculous. Bertram Wooster and his gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves, have their work cut out for them with this tangle of situations. Florence Craye is engaged to G. D'Arcy Cheesewright (Stilton to the members of the Drones Club). Then the engagement is off. Then she's engaged to Bertie. Then she and Stilton get back together. Then it all comes apart again and so Bertie must do the right thing and become engaged to her again. While all of this is playing out Bertie's Aunt Dahlia is trying to convince businessman L. G. Trotter to buy her weekly ladies magazine but Trotter is so bothered by tummy troubles that he can't concentrate on anything. A pearl necklace goes missing, Bertie has it in his pocket, how to get out of this mess? And why did Bertie need the cosh anyway? In the middle of all this upheaval Bertie can't finish reading "The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish" so he doesn't know whether the butler did it or not. Then, just like the gallant knight of old, here comes Jeeves to the rescue with a charming tidbit learned at the Junior Ganymede Club.

This book is one of my favorites among the stories featuring Jeeves and Bertie. You can't possibly read one of these stories and expect it to make logical sense. No, what you want to do is read one of these stories and willingly leave logical sense well in the background. These stories are simply fun, and funny, and escapist reading at it's very best. I sincerely hope you have experienced the zany world of P. G. Wodehouse. I'll bet he was a wonderful man to sit down and talk to.

Bertie Wooster has been summoned to Brinkley Court, home of his Aunt Dahlia and more importantly, her marvelous cook Anatole. Little did Bertie realize that this seemingly innocent little trip would soon become a quagmire of purloined pearls, coshes, star crossed lovers, deep dark secrets of the butlerine nature and absolute hilarity.

Wodehouse has created a marvelous fantasy land of an England that never really was but should have been. It is populated with stately homes, comfortable flats, raucous nightclubs and populated with the most marvelous eccentric characters who manage to get themselves in the most absurd messes that can only be resolved by the incomparable Jeeves. Even by Wodehouse's standards this is a hysterical story, one that will take the reader out of whatever problems their mundane world may hold and take them to the sunlit country house where butlers glide into rooms to solve all problems.

When there's one too many Adam Sandler flicks out, and you are just tired of flatulence humor then this is the best book to pick up. Wodehouse's dry British wit shines through as bumbling Bertram Wooster fights through life (and a new mustache) with his trusty butler Jeeves there to save him. The lead character, Wooster, has a serious problem as an intellectual woman chases after him as does her ex-fiancee. Only Jeeves can save his arse.

This book will bring a smile to the reader regardless of his state of mind. I think that it should be placed in psychiatric offices around the world.

And if after reading through this book, please please read Wodehouse's dedication if for anything else than his poem. This a great book but be warned, only those who are lovers of the dry wit will enjoy it.

Sorry but you can't just shut down your brain in order to enjoy this book.

A laugh-out-loud adventure starring a bachelor gentleman and a clever and resourceful valet, the novel epitomized the ironic situation. Though I will probably not remember the story in future years, I still want to check into the other Wodehouse novels.

Wonderful stuff

I'm not gonna say this is the best J&W book (maybe thats Code of the Wooster, dunno) but it is wonderfully entertaining

Spode turns up again, as does (former) Constable Cheesewright

Absolutely delightful stuff. Not a bad place to start with Wodehouse by any means