Right Ho, Jeeves

1934, 1985 Penguin edition
P. G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
A-

This came out the same year as  Thank You, Jeeves, but it can't be set the same year because it takes place in late July, early August, shortly after the return of Bertie, his Aunt Dahlia, and his cousin Angela from two months in Cannes.  It's set after both "Clustering Round Young Bingo" and "Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit," but since several summers are spoken for, I'll put it in 1932.  Actually, I think the novel is also set after "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy," since I believe that's the one where Tuppy's Pekinese-hat insult first crops up, and I put that short story in 1931.  So, yeah, the summer of 1932.

Whenever it's set, it's a great story, the first Wodehouse I read and in many ways still my favorite.  There is a joke about Uncle Tom (Dahlia's husband) turning black and playing the banjo, but the novel is much less racist than its predecessor.  And it's much funnier, particularly Bertie's turns of phrase.  If I have to narrow it down, I love the plate of well-kicked sandwiches, anything about tigers, and Gussie's drunken prize-giving speech.  The Fry & Laurie television version does justice to these and so much of the book.

Bertie, resenting people's preference of Jeeves's advice to his, takes it upon himself to mend two romances, that between Tuppy & Angela, and that between two new characters.  He of course bungles it, but once again Jeeves saves the day.  The newbies are not the typical couple who pass through and then disappear (e.g. Sippy and Elizabeth), but they actually return to complicate Bertie's life in future novels.  They are two geeks, Gussie Fink-Nottle the newt-fancier and Madeline Bassett the amateur poet.  Madeline thinks Bertie is in love with her, while he thinks she's incredibly soppy.

"'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.' Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?'"
I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn't seem to me to check up with her statement that the stars were God's daisy chain. I mean, you can't have it both ways.

Add in Anatole the French chef who speaks American and British slang, Uncle Tom griping about paying his taxes, and of course the fuss about Bertie's white mess jacket, and so much else, and, well, it's one of my favorite books by anyone, not just Wodehouse.