Wuh Woh Wodehouse

This has been an author I've been meaning to get to since high school. I think Diana was reading him at one point, and I'm sure Mom has. Then I saw Leslie with one of the Jeeves books checked out from the library last night.

We've got our one study day today. (We should have two, except the administration has apparently decided that a weekend counts as a study day. Because, y'know, having the first two days of exams before that "study day" sure encourages good study habits... now more than ever I'm doing a study-as-you-go system, which I ordinarily spurn.) When I got reasonably done with my studying, paper editing, and presentation honing, I felt like getting a book to read. It was between Wodehouse and Pratchett. Poor Terry Pratchett, with only one book that I could find in the PR section. There may've been more in the children's lit section (where a lot of fanciful but otherwise adult literature ends up), but I was pretty set on Wodehouse. So I got Cat-Nappers.

I've encountered the Jeeves archetype in other places. Trading Places (the butler, played by Marcus Brody from Indiana Jones) comes foremost to mind, but he's often there, bright and efficient, overlooked at times and then granted pittances that probably mean nothing. The same for Jeeves. The smallest smile, the most minute eyebrow quirk, and Wooster is set off on fantasies about what his servant (and keeper) is about. And the literary allusions, which Jeeves has more spot on than I do (he pulled a Sir Walter Scott reference involving Lochinvale that was aptly applied) Wooster misses entirely. He's also fond of attributing the most random things to Shakespeare, which I get a kick out of. When talking to one woman who wants to reform him, she says,
" 'I don't suppose you have read Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son?' "
Well, of course I hadn't. Bertram Wooster does not read other people's letters. If I were employed in the post office, I wouldn't even read the postcards." (88)
And on and on.

I guess I'm preaching to the choir, so I'll just end by saying... I should've read him earlier. He wins.