Laughing Gas [Hardcover]

P. G. Wodehouse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1986

When Joey Cooley, the child star, and the third Earl of Havershot swap souls in the fang-wrenchers' surgeries... it's a gas - in the fourth dimension.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A brilliantly funny writer--perhaps the most consistently funny the English language has yet produced. -- The Times (London)

The works of Wodehouse continue on their unique way, unmarked by the passage of time. -- Kingsley Amis

Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale....He has made a world for us to live in and delight in. -- Evelyn Waugh --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

Fans of P.G. Wodehouse's comic genius are legion, and their devotion to his masterful command of the hilarity borders on obsession. The Overlook Press is pleased to feed their obsession by returning his funniest books to print: Heavy Weather, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Mating Season, Laughing Gas, and more. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Amereon Ltd (June 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891902996
• ISBN-13: 978-0891902997
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,610,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FUNNIER THAN HOLY HELL!!, September 8, 2000

By 

Shadow Woman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laughing Gas (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of P.G. Wodehouses's best books. Although he's never turned a tale anything but excellently, this is somehow more endearing than most. It starts out normal enough, with a man who just became an earl (Reginald, third Earl of Havershot) going off to Hollywood to save his alcoholic cousin from the deadly drink. He meets an actress by the name of April June, the very embodiment of virtue, on the way there-- or so he thinks. He also runs into his ex- finacee, whose engagement to him he bungled by way of a little accident with a cigar. After some very cold ice cream, he needs to have a tooth pulled. In the dentist's waiting room he meets little Joey Cooley, the child actor, Idol of American Motherhood, who will be undergoing the same torture as him. Well, both souls get administered some laughing gas, and this gives them the ability to be masters of the art of astral projection. But the thing is, little mischevious Joey puts his soul into Reggie's body, rather then his own. Reggie then has no choice but to inhabit the body of the child star with the golden curls. Now we've got a dilemma. See, Joey wants to poke everyone in the snout, and in Reggie's body, now has the strength to do so with optimum results. Uh-oh. And now Reggie is left with the mind of a grown man, but the mean Miss Brinkmeyer (the "tall, rangy, light-heavyweight, severe of aspect' woman with whom he shares a mutal hatred...animus is in the air) and all other of Cooley's keepers, who treat him like the eleven-year-old child they think he is. Double uh-oh.

This book is one of the funniest things I've ever read, not only because Wodehouse is a master of the English language and shows such a conatagious affection for it, but because it's a very zany tale that never fails to make you laugh and keep a smile on your face all day. There are so many more hilarious moments in this book, and not a page goes by without a good, hearty chuckle. I would highly recommend this book and all of Wodehouse's books, for that matter.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a gas (plot summary), January 2, 1998

By 

Andre Guirard - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laughing Gas (Mass Market Paperback)

Wodehouse's usual skill with the turn of phrase and the unlikely situation makes this book a delight. It's atypical of his work in that it contains a fantastic element: a grown man and a bratty child, visiting a dentist at the same time, accidentally have their souls switched while under the ether.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this before your next dentist visit, September 4, 2003

By 

Craig Clarke "Living After Midnight: Hard and... (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Laughing Gas (Hardcover)

Laughing Gas was the first Wodehouse I ever read. I knew his work through some Jeeves tales (and their TV adaptations), but I had never ventured outside of those characters. Seeing that the storyline was somewhat like the Freaky Friday genre of films, I wanted to see what Wodehouse would do with this already familiar plot. I was not disappointed and I have gone back to him whenever I wanted something to make me laugh--as long as it's not an audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil!

Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot (gotta love those Wodehouse puns) finds himself in the dentist's chair after an embarrassing incident seated next to child star Joey Cooley ("Idol of American Motherhood"), going through the same procedure. After the administration of some of the titular anesthetic, the two have an out-of-body experience. The mischievous Cooley, however, instead of returning to his own corporeal form, slips into Reggie's, leaving our hero left with the tot's as his only choice. Hilarity ensues, as they say, as little Joey likes to go around punching people in the nose and continues to do so under the guise of Reggie. Meanwhile Reggie is party to the stories going around about "his" behavior and is powerless to stop them while in his current pint-sized form.

Wodehouse takes this in all of the expected directions and invents a few new ones, to boot, making Laughing Gas one of his best novels. Well, one of the best I've read, anyway.