Told by way of
short stories set seven years apart, we see Bertram grow from a likeable
youngster who ‘wasn’t one of life’s great
thinkers but he gave it his best’, to a young man with the best valet ever,
on to becoming a married man and so on with the ensuing adventures and
hobnobbing with the rich and famous on the side.
The various
stories include Gussie Fink-Nottle and Aunt Agatha (who suggests that Bertie
concentrated on learning manners rather than his lessons) along with many other
Jeeves & Wooster favourites as Bertie ducks in and out of ‘the soup’ in his
light hearted way with and without the help of Jeeves across the years, and
around the world.
The tone of the
novel is slightly more serious than I expected as it tries to encapsulate the
events of the times, and inserting Bertie into some key moments in
history. In one story he finds himself
as an expendable decoy for the British while playing piano at a party given by
Mussolini, and in another helping out a pal who has been blacklisted in
Hollywood.
There is plenty
of namedropping along the way which actually triggered some fond memories for
me (mainly entertainers such as Arthur Askey, Willie Rushton and Hatti Jacques
for example), with Bertie being involved in the Royal Variety Performance Shows,
radio, TV and Pantomine.
The author has
certainly put a lot of thought into these stories. Each one is nicely written with clever
imaginative scenarios, and although lacking some of the goofy charm of the
original works in the first couple of stories, I did find the whole quite a
nice ‘nod’ to Wodehouse’s much loved literary creation.
Maxine
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