Do you remember back in the day when the internet was shiny
and new and “Ask Jeeves” was the search engine of choice? The image next to the search bar was a
nicely-dressed, well-groomed butler. Did
you ever wonder where Jeeves got off being such a know-it-all?
Wonder no more!
I was first introduced to Wodehouse’s work through my little
sister, albeit in an indirect manner. In
his younger days Hugh Laurie did a television show called “Jeeves and
Wooster.” And it is wonderful. The show is based around 1925 or so and
focuses on one of the ‘idle rich’ – Wooster – and his manservant Jeeves. Wooster is a bit of an ass (his words, not
mine), and Jeeves is a wealth of knowledge who often uses Wooster as a pawn to
accomplish certain things. If you are
good at deciphering strong and fast British accents, this is the show for
you. In fact, try it out right now! If you hover over the picture it can take you to Amazon's website, where you can watch it online!
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| The first few minutes are kinda meh, but stick it out; totally worth it! |
So the covers of the DVDs all say that the series is based
off a series of books by P.G. Wodehouse, and as a bibliophile I decided that I
needed to get my hands on some of those books.
The first book I read was called The Mating Season. Not only is the plot delightfully farcical,
but the characters are well-done, the vocabulary is stimulating, and the voice
of Wooster (the narrator) is ridiculously fun.
For example:
“I say ‘the ghost of Jeeves’ because in that first awful
moment that was what I had the apparition docketed as. The words ‘What ho! A spectre!’ trembled on my lips, and I reacted
rather like the heroine of Murder At
Greystone Grange on discovering that the Thing had come to doss in her
room. I don’t know if you have ever seen
a ghost, but the general effect is to give you quite a start.
“Then the scent of bacon floated to the nostrils, and
feeling that it was improbable that a wraith would be horsing about the place
with dishes of eggs and b., I calmed down a bit. That is to say, I stopped upsetting the tea
and was able to mutter. It is true that
all I said was ‘Jeeves!’ but that wasn’t such bad going for one whose tongue
had so recently been tangled up with the uvula, besides cleaving to the roof of
the mouth.”
In this particular story, Wooster is asked by his aunt to stay
with a family in the country. His
frenemy Gussie is supposed to go as well (ordered by Gussie’s fiancée), but is
jailed at the last minute. To save
Gussie’s good name Wooster goes to the house pretending to be Gussie. Then the real Gussie shows up and has to
pretend to be Wooster. In the middle you
have about four pairs of star-crossed lovers all mixed up in each other, a
hunting song, the “coshing” of a policeman, dog-snatching, movie stars, and
much else. And you can get it in
paperback form from Amazon super cheap!
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| Hover and click. Hover and click. |
In this case I really don’t know if the book is better than
the television series. On one hand, the
book can go more in depth and you get even more Wooster (my favorite part), but
Hugh Laurie does such an awesome job of capturing Wooster’s voice and Stephen
Fry is the best Jeeves ever. My
advice? Partake of both. You will not regret it.
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