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Title: Jeeves in the Offing
Series: Jeeves Omnibus #4.2
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 200
Words: 41.7K
Series: Jeeves Omnibus #4.2
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 200
Words: 41.7K
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Synopsis:
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From Wikipedia
An
old friend Bertie went to preparatory school with, Reginald "Kipper"
Herring, is staying with Bertie for a week. Bertie eagerly accepts an
invitation from his aunt, Aunt Dahlia, to her home, Brinkley Court,
since Jeeves is about to go to Herne Bay on holiday. Aunt Dahlia's
husband, Bertie's Uncle Tom, is trying to make a business deal with
an American named Homer Cream. While the two of them are in
Harrogate, Mr. Cream's wife Adela Cream, an author of mystery
stories, and their son Wilbert Cream are staying at Brinkley Court.
The mischievous Roberta "Bobbie" Wickham, and Aubrey
Upjohn, who was once Bertie and Kipper's oppressive headmaster, will
also be there, along with Phyllis Mills. She is Upjohn's stepdaughter
and Aunt Dahlia's goddaughter. Upjohn hopes to stand for a local
election after giving a speech at the Market Snodsbury grammar
school, and Phyllis is typing his speech.
Before
going to Brinkley Court, Bertie learns that Kipper, who works for a
weekly paper and is vengeful towards Upjohn, wrote a scathing,
anonymous review of Upjohn's recently published book. Jeeves tells
Bertie that Willie Cream is a notorious troublemaking playboy known
as "Broadway Willie". After Jeeves leaves, Bertie sees a
jarring announcement in The Times stating that he is engaged to
Bobbie.
At
Brinkley Court, Bertie finds Wilbert Cream reading poetry to Phyllis.
He then finds Bobbie, who assures him that the engagement
announcement was merely to scare her mother, who dislikes Bertie,
into approving the man Bobbie really wants to marry, Reginald
Herring.
While
her regular butler Seppings is away on holiday, the psychiatrist Sir
Roderick Glossop is working undercover for Aunt Dahlia as a butler
named Swordfish. Upjohn is urging his daughter Phyllis to marry
Wilbert. Aunt Dahlia does not approve of Willie's reputation, so at
her behest, Glossop is there to observe Wilbert's behaviour. Bertie
tries to keep Wilbert away from Phyllis. By letter, Jeeves informs
Bertie that Willie Cream is a kleptomaniac. Uncle Tom's silver
cow-creamer goes missing.
While
Bobbie is away, Kipper comes to Brinkley Court. He was engaged to
Bobbie, but thinks it is over after seeing the marriage announcement
for Bertie and Bobbie. He is relieved when Bertie tells him the
announcement was fake. Glossop searches Wilbert Cream's room for the
cow-creamer, and bonds with Bertie. Bobbie ends her engagement to
Kipper after reading an angry letter he wrote when he first saw the
marriage announcement, and proclaims she will marry Bertie. Bertie
does not want to marry her, but is prevented by his personal code
from turning down any woman, so he drives to Herne Bay to get help
from Jeeves. Jeeves agrees to return to Brinkley with Bertie. Bobbie
soon forgives Kipper's letter, but Kipper, to spite Bobbie, becomes
engaged to Phyllis.
Aunt
Dahlia tells Bertie that Wilbert Cream did not steal the cow-creamer.
Uncle Tom sold it to him. Meanwhile, Upjohn intends to sue Kipper's
paper for libel. While his review was mostly legitimate, a small
libellous portion was secretly added by Bobbie. Apologetic, Bobbie
reconciles with Kipper. Glossop suggests that Kipper save his job by
rescuing Upjohn from drowning. After Bertie and Bobbie fail to push
Upjohn in the nearby lake, Bertie and Phyllis's dog Poppet fall in
instead. Kipper dives in to help Bertie, mistaking him for Upjohn,
and Wilbert dives in to help Phyllis's dog Poppet. Moved, Phyllis
gets engaged to Wilbert. This initially upsets Aunt Dahlia, though it
turns out that Wilbert is not actually the infamous Broadway Willie:
that is his younger brother, Wilfred.
Upjohn
becomes aware that Kipper wrote the scathing review and refuses to
stay in the same house. Jeeves packs for Upjohn, neglecting to pack
Upjohn's typed speech. After receiving the typescript from Jeeves,
Bobbie makes Upjohn withdraw his libel suit before she returns it to
him.
Thinking
Wilbert stole it, Glossop confiscated the cow-creamer. Adela Cream
finds the cow-creamer in Glossop's room and thinks he stole it. To
prevent a misunderstanding, Glossop has revealed his true occupation.
Following Jeeves's advice, Glossop has claimed he had been brought to
observe Bertie and had recovered the cow-creamer from Bertie's room.
Bertie is upset that the Cream family thinks he is a kleptomaniac,
but Jeeves placates Bertie by saying that he has the satisfaction of
helping his uncle. Bertie, remembering receiving gifts from Uncle Tom
while at prep school, replies, "How right you are, Jeeves!"
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My
Thoughts:
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By this time I have begun to realize that most stories about Jeeves
and Wooster follow a loose pattern. Bertie gets ensnared into some
imbroglio or other. He makes the situation worse by trying to solve
it himself. He asks Jeeves for help. Jeeves apparently makes things
worse but in the end reveals that that was just a part of his
machinations and everything turns out according to plan.
Sure enough, this had most of those elements. Jeeves plays a VERY
small part in this novel while Bertie tries to solve things on his
own multiple times (usually he learns after one disastrous attempt)
and of course, his attempts are huge failures.
In most of these stories by Wodehouse I tend to find at least one
character very annoying. Sometimes it is Bertie Wooster, sometimes it
is one of his friends, sometimes it is one of the love interests of
his friends and sometimes it is the “villain” of the story. This
time around it was the love interest Roberta “Bobby” Wickham. I
wanted to take her over my knee and just paddle her for the absolute
nonsense she spouted and completely idiotic actions she took. I
considered knocking this down to a 3star just because of her, she
really annoyed me that much.
Other than her, I enjoyed this quite a bit. I'd read this back in '07
but honestly, I don't remember reading it or any of the details so it
was like I read it for the first time all over again. Apparently I
also enjoyed it a lot more this time around, as last time I only gave
it 2 stars. I'm guessing I had even less empathy for Bobby Wickham
back then :-D
★★★☆½
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