Read Jeeves and the King of Clubs A Novel in Homage to PG Wodehouse Ben Schott Books
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The misadventures of P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster and his incomparable valet, Jeeves, have delighted audiences for nearly a century. Now, bestselling author Ben Schott brings this odd couple back to life in a madcap new adventure that is full of the hijinks, entanglements, imbroglios, and Wodehousian wordplay that readers love. And, by Jove, there's a hook!
Read Jeeves and the King of Clubs A Novel in Homage to PG Wodehouse Ben Schott Books
"King of Clubs is great fun for Plum addicts, but Ben Schott has replaced the feather-brained Bertie Wooster with a rather sharp and even principled young man -- and a keen social critic at that. The New Bertie has no use for the British fascist leader Oswald Mosely (transformed here into Roderick Spode, Lord Sidcup) and is very happy (and not terribly surprised) to be recruited by British Intelligence. Thereon follows farce, but the undercurrents of coming war are quite out of character for Plum himself. Remember that Wodehouse, interned by the Nazis in 1941, was naive enough to do English-language broadcasts from Berlin, aimed at a still-neutral American audience. Jeeves, of course, turns out to be a counter-intelligence agent of the first water."
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Jeeves and the King of Clubs A Novel in Homage to PG Wodehouse Ben Schott Books Reviews :
Jeeves and the King of Clubs A Novel in Homage to PG Wodehouse Ben Schott Books Reviews
- I bought this book after hearing the author interviewed and paid full price, which I do only rarely. It was worth it! A number of books have been written imitating popular authors, such as the many imitations of Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I have seldom found them satisfying. This was a BIG exception.
From the first page I knew that Jeeves and the King of Clubs had captured the voice of Bertie. My long-suffering spouse had his own reading interrupted regularly as I laughed out loud. How could I resist when Bertie described the seventh Earl of Sidcup as a “sore for sighted eyes†or mentioned an MP whose colleagues called him “Whiner the Poo†or declared his Aunt Dahlia “chews broken glass to sharpen her tongue�
When author Ben Schott calls his book an homage to P. G. Wodehouse, he is not kidding. Not only is it a delightful read, but it is meticulously researched. Notes at the end document references to Wodehouse’s work and also to historical information like real gentlemen’s clubs that are mentioned in the book or were used as a basis for fictional associations.
Jeeves and the King of Clubs is lots of laughs, a fun story, and informative, too! “Plum†would be delighted! - Delightful! The author has not tried to be Wodehouse, but has written, as the title declares, a joyful homage, entering gleefully into the Wodehousian world, and sweeping the reader along in his wake. If you already love Jeeves and Bertie, read it. You will be charmed all over again. If not, have a go. You may find yourself wanting to read the original Wodehouse stories as well!
- This book is unreadable. The language is so pretentious and contrived that I could not get past 50 pages. Here is an example of the language from Bertie “At that moment I had the kind of flash that would have made Archimedes fling his loofah.†When Bertie opens the door, he says that the door “yielded to its master’s key.†Bertie doesn’t walk but rather “ankles†from place to place. When he consults his diary, he “expockets†it. Nobody talks like this, not even Bertie Wooster. I wonder if the people who gave this book good reviews ever actually read Wodehouse.
- Bertie Wooster and his omnicompetent valet Jeeves are the main characters of a large number of short stories and novels written in the years between 1915 and 1974, by P. G. Wodehouse, hereafter referred to as The Master. The incredible narrative trick pulled off successfully by The Master is that the adventures are narrated by Wooster himself, and while the adventures frame Wooster as a hopeless dunce, the narrative itself is a masterpiece of English literature. Not since Shakespeare has there been anything displaying such an absolute command of simile, or such a free coinage of new words.
So to write a new adventure of Wooster and Jeeves is to bite off something much too large for any mere human to chew. The time warps alone would defeat any prospective author who is not in command of the last two or three centuries of British cultural history. Take Bertie's age. The Master keeps him between about 25 and 29 throughout the saga, and existing within a timeless era which is usually pre-World-War 1, but sometimes appears to jump inexplicably to the interval between the two World Wars, and even eventually shows awareness of things happening in the 1960s.
So how does Ben Schott do? I think, all things considered, he does amazingly well. This new adventure seems to take place near the eve of World War 2, and Bertie is both older and wiser than in the works of The Master. Indeed, Bertie is so mature and perspicacious that for once he attracts the attention of a beautiful, intelligent, multi-talented young girl, who clearly finds him an interesting companion! As in the usual tale by The Master, Bertie's troubles mainly result from the fact that he is so good-natured that he can't say no to any request for a favor from a friend or relative, no matter how insane and life-complicating the favor's consequences must and will turn out to be.
I enjoyed it throughout. At first, when a main new character turned out to be a Scottish Laird named MacAslan, I thought Schott might be paying a tribute to novelist D. E. Stevenson, but a glance at the back jacket flap revealed that Schott has a photographer friend named MacAslan. At the end of this latest saga are also quite a few pages of helpful notes indicating what's real and what's imaginary in the various institutions, individuals, situations and games of chance that Bertie encounters.
By the way, one of the novel's main villains, the infamous and odious Roderick Spode, familiar from many works of The Master, is here seen newly energized, and giving political speeches to crowds of ruffians and hooligans, speeches that map fairly closely onto the incoherent babble of Donald Trump. Good fun.
If you are a fan of The Master, as I am, I believe you will find this effort worthy of your attention. - King of Clubs is great fun for Plum addicts, but Ben Schott has replaced the feather-brained Bertie Wooster with a rather sharp and even principled young man -- and a keen social critic at that. The New Bertie has no use for the British fascist leader Oswald Mosely (transformed here into Roderick Spode, Lord Sidcup) and is very happy (and not terribly surprised) to be recruited by British Intelligence. Thereon follows farce, but the undercurrents of coming war are quite out of character for Plum himself. Remember that Wodehouse, interned by the Nazis in 1941, was naive enough to do English-language broadcasts from Berlin, aimed at a still-neutral American audience. Jeeves, of course, turns out to be a counter-intelligence agent of the first water.
- I own or have read all of P.G. Wodehouse's fiction, and am always on the lookout for a new voice plowing old ground. Ben Schott is the perfect heir to the legacy. His tone and pacing brings to mind the best of vintage Wodehouse, and I hope
he will continue and write many, many more books. Highest recomendation. - This is a wonderful homage to the original stories. Bertie in these stories actually seems a bit more human and three dimensional than the original, but that rather adds to the experience. I could not put this down, I wanted to prolong the pleasure. After finishing this book, I tried the other addition to the Jeeves and Wooster saga, by Faulks, but that by comparison is plodding, plus he had the chutzpah to marry-off both of our heroes. This volume was a worthy successor, please give us more!
- Stop reading this review and start reading this new Wooster and Jeeves novel. It's fantastic!
