Very Good, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Very Good, Jeeves is the third of the three books of short stories Wodehouse devoted to the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, before Wodehouse turned to putting the same characters in a series of novels. The characters had first appeared in 1915 in a story titled “Extricating Young Gussie,” in a collection titled The Man With Two Left Feet along with twelve other, non-Jeeves and Wooster stories. Four more Jeeves and Wooster stories came in 1919 in a collection titled My Man Jeeves. The Inimitable Jeeves from 1923 is a Jeeves and Wooster book of 18 chapters derived from eleven short stories that were originally published in magazines. In 1925, Wodehouse republished the four Jeeves and Wooster stories from My Man Jeeves along with six new stories in a new collection called Carry On, Jeeves. Very Good, Jeeves was published in 1930 with eleven new stories.

Wodehouse includes a preface to Very Good, Jeeves, recommending that a reader begin with The Inimitable Jeeves and Carry On, Jeeves, which is what I did. Wodehouse writes, “Only so can the best results be obtained. Only so will allusions in the present volume to incidents occurring in the previous volumes become intelligible, instead of mystifying and befogging.” If a character gets married in one story, for instance, they will still be married in a later story. If a character is the victim of a practical joke in one story that incident may be the motivation for the character to seek revenge in a later story. Wodehouse always includes a short reminder to the reader in such cases so the reference is clear, but if you plan to read several of these, you might as well follow Wodehouse’s own advice and start at the beginning.

All the stories, except for “Bertie Changes His Mind”, the final story of Carry On, Jeeves are narrated by Bertie Wooster. Wooster’s singular, slangy voice is one of the delights of the stories. All the stories take place in a permanent, vague, late 1920s early 1930s time period. Usually we’re in London at Bertie’s flat, or at a country house belonging to a friend or relation. Occasionally a story will be set in New York. (Wodehouse was English but spent time in New York writing for Broadway shows and eventually became an American citizen.)

All the stories follow the same pattern: Bertie or one of his friends gets into a mess, Jeeves devises a plan to get them out of it. Usually Bertie is smart enough to call on Jeeves right away. Sometimes in a pique of pride he’ll imagine he can come up with his own scheme to solve the situation. Invariably Bertie’s plan makes things worse and all seems lost until the end of the story reveals that Jeeves had gone ahead with implementing his own successful solution even taking Bertie’s muddling into account.

Jeeves is efficient, polite, crafty, conservative. Bertie is an idler, a gambler, happily living off family money and decidedly not ambitious. He sleeps late. He likes he’s food and his glass of scotch in the evening. His genial, generous, and helpful to his friends. In several stories he tries to introduce a sartorial innovation to his wardrobe: colored spats, or socks, or a cummerbund, or the wrong sort of dress shirts. Jeeves frowns, puts up with the master’s wishes, but at the end of the story the recompense for Jeeves having saved the day is that Bertie relents and tosses out the taste-offending item. In one story it’s a hideous vase that Bertie buys and Jeeves manages to destroy as part of his solution to the story’s dilemma.

The best story in this collection is “Jeeves and the Old School Chum”. Bertie is visiting at the home of his old friend Bingo Little, who we’ve met several times before. Bingo is happily married to his wife, the romance novelist Rosie M. Banks. Mrs. Little announces that an old friend of hers from school, Laura Pyke, is coming for a visit. Bertie leaves for a few weeks and then comes back to find the house in turmoil.

“‘Laura Pyke,’ said young Bingo with intense bitterness, ‘is a food crank, curse her. She says we all eat too much and eat it too quickly and, anyway, ought not to be eating it at all but living on parsnips and similar muck. And Rosie, instead of telling the woman not to be a fathead, gazes at her in wide-eyed admiration, taking it in through the pores.'”

When Bertie learns that even cocktails have been banished from the house, he writes. “I was appalled. I had had no idea that the evil had spread as far as this.”

“No cocktails!”

“No. And you’ll be dashed lucky if it isn’t a vegetarian dinner.”

Jeeves, of course, saves the day, in a plot more ingenious than most.

Other stories involve an angry swan, a portrait artist, an opera singer, a beloved dog, a violent rugby match. It’s all good fun.