Carry On, Jeeves (A Jeeves and Bertie Novel)

"Carry On, Jeeves” is the first in the classic series by P.G. Wodehouse. Though I’d already quaffed several of Wodehouse’s ninety books, this is where we are introduced to the inimitable Jeeves, the “gentleman’s personal gentleman” who “shimmers” and “oozes” in and out of rooms. Jeeves’ vastly superior intellect is regularly pressed into service to help his employer, young, rich, idle Bertie Wooster, to get “out of the boullion,” where he has a habit of landing.

Bertie Wooster has just enough bean power to recognize Jeeves’ value, and expresses it this way: “The man’s a genius. From the collar upward he stands alone.” Jeeves consistently disapproves of Bertie’s sartorial decisions, and its always funny to watch Bertie try to withstand the stress. When Bertie defiantly grows a moustache, “it cut Jeeves to the quick. He couldn’t stick the thing at any price, and I had been living ever since in an atmosphere of bally disapproval till I was getting jolly well fed up with it. What I mean is, while there’s no doubt that in certain matters of dress Jeeve’s judgment is absolutely sound and should be followed, it seemed to me it was getting a bit too thick if he was going to edit my face as well as my costume.”

The series of stories have a similar theme: one of Bertie's friends, like him part of idle and intellectually challenged rich, get into some spot of trouble, from which Jeeves helps rescue them. But the language is so inventive and so consistently funny, and the predicaments are also very amusing, that the other "sameness" doesn't detract one bit.

Bertie is the quintessential fop! And Jeeves, the long suffering genius behind the fop. As a pair, they are hysterically funny. We listened to an audiobook read by Martin Jarvis and it was as though multiple readers were at work - very fun!