I have a strong image of Bertie Wooster in my mind but, confusingly, he is an amalgam from several sources, alloyed from different media. First, and fundamental, came the original Wooster whom I discovered in the pages of PG Wodehouse books. He was a charming, if rather slow witted but kindly, aristo who was easily lead by other people, his gentleman’s gentleman, Reginald Jeeves, and his own wide warm heart.
Next, rather surprisingly, was an old 1970s television series of PG Wodehouse stories, called “Wodehouse Playhouse”. It had nothing at all to do with Wooster or Jeeves, but had a lot to do with the world view of one Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. These charming stories of shy and decorous love added a Wodehousian lustre to the mental images I was unconsciously forming. And finally there came “Jeeves and Wooster” with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie who exposed an uncomplaining Jeeves and a blinking Wooster to the modern light of the 1990s.
All this prepared me for “Jeeves and the King of Clubs” a recently released book by Ben Schott, of Schott’s Miscellany fame! The book would not offend Pelham Grenville much at all, I suspect. The story is complex with many turns and twists. There is an underlying mystery of MI5, or is it MI6, proportions that seems ever so slightly out of kilter with PGW’s penchant for more humble heroes and more mundane storylines. Still as Jeeves might have observed, “While tartan footwear may indeed be all the rage at present, My Lord, one has put out the brogues”.
So is it with the general feel of the story. Woosterish without being Wooster and Jeevish, without being Jeeves. But perhaps I’m straining at gnats, again, and ignoring the dromedaries. I did turn each page avidly, flicked through to the generous end notes when I encountered an obscure word or foreign phrase and looked forward to each new dilemma poor Bertie had to face.
Ben seems to have imbued our sartorially impeccable hero with more intelligence than I remember of old, but then change is the very nature of life, as Jeeves might probably have observed.
I can’t complain. I was so engrossed in the story that I failed to see the end coming and while the writing stopped like a wise horse before a too high barrier, I sailed effortlessly over the wall from the yarn and on into the dedication without a moment’s consideration. It was only when my brain could not merge the dedication and the story that I realised the race was won and it was time for bubbly and a rub down.
I imagined being stretchered away from such an abrupt ending and hearing Jeeves’ understanding voice: “One needs be aware of the end, Sir. In my experience of literary endeavours, there is nearly always an end, and one must read carefully, as if every page could lead one anywhere.”
At the End of the Day 