Customer Reviews

Joy in the Morning

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P.G. Wodehouse could write a phonebook and make it brilliant. But this story is so incredibly good that words fail me. He weaves farce upon satire upon mystery upon suspense upon hilarious premise and delightful payoff until the reader is dizzy with laughter and awe. The usual suspects are here: Bertie Wooster and his butler, Jeeves, plus frightening debutants, pompous authority figures, shrill relatives, troublesome children, and yet another pleasant English country village...pleasant, that is, until Bertie & Co. come along. Wodehouse was the absolute master of the English language, of humor, and plot construction. This book is as good an example of his mastery as there is. My only regret is that the reading experience passes by too quickly.

I would not willingly try to judge which is Wodehouse's best book, for it is a hard task, as each of the Master's works shine in thier own special way. But if i had to, and there was no other way, then it would have to be Joy in the Morning.
This is a classic story of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, his valet, or as Jeeves puts it "his gentleman's gentleman". There are several books featuring Bertie and Jeeves and like all the others this one is a cracker.
Bertie has to go to Steeple Bumpleigh, the lair of his horrendouns Aunt Agatha, to assist his uncle pull of a tricky business deal. Confusion ensues when he gets engaged to the wrong girl - the overbearing, always-moulding Florence Craye. The situation is especially hard for him, as also in the cast of characted is Stilton Cheesewright, who thinks Bertie as a snake and butterfly, and wants to clobber him.
Add to this a business magnate from Long Island, an eccentric author, and a boy scout bent (pun intended, read the book and you shall find out) on helping all around him, and its a recipie for the worst kind of disaster for Bertie. Thank god he has Jeeves on hand to extricate him from all the doodah.
A superb read. Dont give this one a miss. Remember, a man who is tired of Wodehouse, is a man who is tired of Life.

Joy in the Morning is one of those marvelous country comedies satirizing the English gentry that P.G. Wodehouse excelled at. The satire takes the familiar path of the nobility having more money and breeding than brains, while the ordinary folk are plagued by their nonsense.

Wodehouse once noted that you could either do fiction starting from real life or start from the perspective of musical comedy. He chose the latter approach. Woolly-headed Bertram (Bertie) Wooster finds himself inevitably drawn into the lair he most fears, the country home of his demanding Aunt Agatha in Steeple Bumpleigh. He is ambivalent about Aunt Agatha, both fearing her, and relying on her for substantial funds.

Unfortunately for him, his gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves, is the cause of the entrapment in Steeple Bumpleigh this time. So there is no escape, because Bertie would never be able to outmaneuver Jeeves. The cause of the geographic diversion on this occasion is that Jeeves would like to do a spot of fishing there, and you know how it is when Jeeves wants something. On the surface it looks like Uncle Percy merely needs a favor, but Jeeves is obviously working both sides of the street for his own benefit.

Bertie has never had any good fortune in Steeple Bumpleigh. His Aunt Agatha has always been stern and strongly disapproving of him, while being very overbearing in her demands. Recently, she has remarried to Perceival, Lord Worplesdon, who once chased Bertie for a mile successfully brandishing a riding crop on Bertie's backside as a result of a youthful misunderstanding. Percy's son, Edwin, is worse than any juvenile delinquent you can imagine, because he operates under the cover of a do-gooding Boy Scout in creating his mayhem. Uncle Percy's daughter, Florence Craye, had once been engaged to Bertie, and he had barely avoided her unwanted grasp. No wonder Bertie avoids Steeple Bumpleigh like the River Styx.

The potential horrors of Steeple Bumpleigh for Bertie are fortunately reduced in this story by the absence of Aunt Agatha and her son, Thos., who is suffering from the mumps. But Aunt Agatha imposes on Bertie in her absence to bring down a gift for her step-daughter, Florence Craye, and thus the complications begin. Before long, Bertie is at loggerheads with the usual suspects and at risk of wedding bells. In the meantime he does his best to secure wedding bells for the right couples, avoid them himself, and help out Aunt Agatha and Uncle Percy. And that's a big order, indeed, this time in Steeple Bumpleigh because matters become quite messy.

Bertie usually makes his own trouble, but Jeeves, Edwin, and his old pal, Boko Fiddleworth, provide it in spades in this engaging story. Bertie soon feels like he has the proverbial tyre tracks on his body from being run over by misfortune at their hands.

But after having satisfied his fishing yen, Jeeves saves the day with a brilliant and audacious improvisation, as he often does in these hilarious stories.

I found the plot line to be even more charming and fun than the usual Bertie and Jeeves tale in this story. Bertie's character works better as an innocent dupe (his role in Joy in the Morning) than as an arrogant bumbler, as he is sometimes portrayed in others of these stories.

Because of the musical comedy air of the novel, it is vastly improved by being heard in a good recording. This one is performed by Jonathan Cecil who is well known for his readings of Wodehouse stories for television, radio, and as audio books. Although I like his readings just a little less than those of Alexander Spencer, they are very witty and well done in capturing the mannerisms of the speakers.

After you have finished this story, I suggest that you think about where reticence about sticking up for your rights can land you in the hash, as it were. When someone presumes to make a demand upon you, when is it right to remonstrate and refuse . . . and when not? Certainly, miscommunication is Wodehouse's stock in trade, but it need not be yours.

What? What? What? What? What? What? Oh, what ...

Published in the U.S. as "Jeeves in the Morning," Overlook Press has restored the original British title for this nicely produced cloth edition. Regardless of the title, Wodehouse's 1947 novel is a superb comedy of language and manners (or lack thereof), in which both screwball and slapstick enhance the absurd situations Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves create for themselves.

The supporting characters are marvelously drawn. There's Florence Craye, "one of those intellectual girls, steeped to the gills in serious purpose, who are unable to see a male soul without wanting to get behind it and shove," and her jealous fiance Stilton Cheesewright, "one of those touchy lovers who go about the place in a suspicious and red-eyed spirit, eager to hammer the stuffing out of such of the citizenry as they suppose to be or to have been in any sense matey with the adored object." The disheveled writer Boko Fittleworth looks like "a cross between a comedy juggler and a parrot that has been dragged through a hedge backwards." Florence's brother Edwin is a Boy Scout with a "kink in his psychology which made him such a menace to society"; her father is "one of those men you meet sometimes who only listen to about two words of any observation addressed to them."

Even the characters who never once make an appearance add to the delirium. A victim of various intrigues executed by main characters, the American industrialist J. Chichester Clam remains entirely off-stage, "probably convinced that all this must be that Collapse of Civilization of which he had no doubt so often spoke at the Union League Club." And the fear of the wrath of the matriarch Aunt Agatha, away visiting her sick son, keeps all the characters in check.

This mix of oddballs insures that engagements are broken, property is destroyed, business deals are ruined, and animosities are renewed--and, as always, it falls to Jeeves to set everything right with a mix of luck, connivance, outright deceitfulness, and wisdom culled from Shakespeare (who, according to Bertie, "sounds well, but doesn't mean anything"). For such a light, easy read, "Joy in the Morning" is an unexpectedly satisfying novel.

Joy in the Morning, also published under the name of Jeeves in the Morning, is perhaps the best of the Bertie and Jeeves novels. I can think of no higher praise than that for any book.

All the elements for a successful Bertie and Jeeves novel are here: love affairs go off the rails, imperiling Bertie's status as a bachelor; Bertie's actions to right things fail; and Jeeves comes to the rescue. In addition, there are some special features: Bertie's Uncle Percival, Lord Worplesdon, the second husband of Bertie's Aunt Agatha (the one who, as I recall, "chews ground glass and conducts human sacrifices at the full moon") makes his only appearance in the Wodehouse oeuvre, as I believe is also the case for Boko Fittleworth, whose actions go awry just as often as Bertie's.

It's all held together, of course, by Bertie's extraordinary narration.

I have read this book perhaps a dozen times, and I still laugh aloud at least once on nearly every page.

I have read quite a few of Wodehouse's books, and regard this as the best of them. What I enjoy most about his work is his use of language, and this book seems to me the most polished in this respect of those I have read. As ever, I enjoy the comedy, set in an imaginary environment of sunny days and English upper-class comfort.

Joy in the Morning, also published under the name of Jeeves in the Morning, is perhaps the best of the Bertie and Jeeves novels. I can think of no higher praise for any book.

All the elements for a successful Bertie and Jeeves novel are here: love affairs go off the rails, imperiling Bertie's status as a bachelor; Bertie's actions to right things fail; and Jeeves comes to the rescue. In addition, there are some special features: Bertie's Uncle Percival, Lord Worplesdon, the second husband of Bertie's Aunt Agatha (the one who, as I recall, "chews ground glass and conducts human sacrifices at the full moon") makes his only appearance in the Wodehouse oeuvre, as I believe is also the case for Boko Fittleworth, whose actions go awry just as often as Bertie's.

It's all held together, of course, by Bertie's extraordinary narration.

I have read this book perhaps a dozen times, and I still laugh aloud at least once on nearly every page.

There are another ten reviews here saying how great 'Joy' is - the wonderful characters, the masterful weaving of an improbable plot, the razor sharp dialogue. I wish to make two simple points that are as yet unmade:

1. The novel feels fresh and new despite being written 60-odd years ago, reflecting on a time in the early 1930's when FDR's 'New Deal' was forcing American shipping magnates into potting sheds (let the reader understand).
2. Wodehouse's idle rich could neither be more idle nor more rich and the reader does not hate them for it? I don't know how Wodehouse does it, but he does so wonderfully.

A key volume in the Wooster canon.

We can forget the recession when we read Wodehouse - our problems seem so far away when we smile and laugh - and laugh you will do when you read this book. I really can recommend it with a warm smile.

Another collection that any Wodehouse fan will really love is the rather rare 'Man of Means', really witty and all about money!

A Man Of Means: 6 British Humor Classics

Enjoy!

Picture a story involving a snarl of relatives and lovers tangled in a web of misunderstandings. If tragedy ensues, you have your standard soap opera. If, on the other end, the results are more comic, you have a P.G. Wodehouse novel. I can't really judge soaps, but it's probably safe to say that they range from good to bad. With Wodehouse, however, the quality is almost always dead-on-great, and never more so than with his Jeeves and Wooster stories, as Joy in the Morning once again demonstrates.

As the novel opens, Bertie Wooster has just emerged from being in the soup once again. What this soup was and how he escaped it is the story that follows. In this case, Bertie is coerced into going to one of his least favorite places, Steeple Bumpleigh, home to his dread Aunt Agatha. (Is there a more terrifying figure in comic fiction than Agatha?) Her husband, Bertie's Uncle Percival, needs Bertie to participate in a ruse that will help cinch a business deal. It is not a job that Bertie relishes, and the only the assurance of Aunt Agatha's absence allows him to screw up the courage to make the trip.

Of course, there are complications. For one thing, Percival's ward Nobby has fallen for Boko Fittleworth, and while the love is mutual, Percival - whose consent is needed for their marriage - has nothing but loathing for Boko. A scheme is needed to win over Percival, and Bertie will be recruited to play a part. Also at Steeple Bumpleigh is Florence Craye, an ex-fiancee of Bertie's who is now engaged to the easily jealous policeman, Stilton Cartwright. An argument and a misunderstanding will find her re-betrothed to Bertie and him a target of Stilton's wrath.

Bertie is a well-meaning but not-so-bright fellow who tends to get into trouble through accident and the manipulation of others. Left alone, life would be easy, but there are too many who force Bertie's involvement. Fortunately, there is his valet, Jeeves, who is able to solve nearly any problem.

The joy of reading a Jeeves and Wooster novel is Bertie's delightful narration with its unique enhancements to the English language. This is a book that is pure fun with no great insights or deep characters. It may be fluff, but it is five-star fluff and a great diversion.