The Inimitable Jeeves – P.G.Wodehouse – Book Review

I have been hearing the name of P.G.Wodehouse for quite long time for now. But his writing genre being comedy, it was never my cup of tea and I have never given it a try either. Then I chanced upon a talk show on television between few of my most favorite people in Tamil cine industry – Cho, Crazy Mohan and Kamal Hasan. There have been referring to the comical situations of Wodehouse books and how they were big fans of the writer. I; being a big fan of their humor; decided to give Wodehouse a try as I always loved their style of humor. And Wodehouse has been an inspiration to them as well.

            This is not a novel but a set of short stories which follows the lives of a few people in London mainly Bertie Wooster, his servant Jeeves and his friend Bingo Little and occasionally Aunt Agatha. Jeeves was more than a servant. He is the troubleshooter and the go to guy for Bertie and Bingo Little. His friend always has the habit of falling for every other woman he sees and Bertie lives handsomely of a monthly allowance gambling his time away. Most of the book comprises of how Bingo Little calls out for the help of Jeeves and Bertie for every girl he falls for and how the wooing outcome turns out to be. And in some stories, it is how Bertie escapes from the plans of Aunt Agatha to talk some sense into him of his life and of his cousins.

            As I mentioned earlier, it is of comedy genre and yes it’s genuinely comic rather than some forced comedies in other books. You see a lot of situational comedies that you normally see in the most of comic scenes written by Crazy Mohan for his plays/movies. The story setup throws good light upon the era at which it was set up. Even though the stories hover around a few characters, it never creates a sense of hollowness. That being said, the comedy even though not forced seems to wear us out at some instances as we might have come across the situations in other movies. Meaning it may seem outdated for some. The book is pretty much a light read for people to take a break from their usual genres. Wodehouse’s hold of the English language is impressive and the use of words is well handled.

            I don’t think there are much authors those handle full fledged comedy story. I have not read any books related to comedy but this book was also another decent enough read for me.

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