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Mar. 12th, 2014 08:04 pmI know I read at least some Wodehouse when I was a kid, but the problem with the Jeeves and Wooster stories is that there are SO MANY of them and I can never remember which I've read and which I haven't. So last time I wanted some pleasant Wodehouse fluff I started reading the Mike and Psmith books instead, because I knew for a fact I had not read those, which made it overall less confusing for my head and for my completionist urges. Except since I'd only ever heard of them as the Mike and Psmith books, I accidentally skipped the first one, Mike at Wrykyn, thus thwarting my completionist urges ANYWAY.
But I'm going to talk mostly about Psmith regardless, so that's fine. Psmith is interesting because he's basically everyone's favorite archetype -- the aristocratic British Troll Hero, see also Peter Wimsey, Francis Crawford of Lymond, Percy Blakeney, Julie Beaufort-Stuart (sob), etc. etc. -- taken to the ONE HUNDRED PERCENT comic extreme. Usually the Troll Hero gets loaded down with some sort of major tragic angst so everyone remembers to take him seriously deep down. But this is Wodehouse, so nobody ever has to be taken seriously! And in Mike and Psmith Mike and Psmith frolic around and have a school story, and in Psmith in the City Mike and Psmith basically have an extended school story except that it takes place in a bank office, and that's all fine.
But then you hit the third book in the series, Psmith, Journalist, which is when Psmith notices that TENEMENT HOUSING IS AWFUL, which is a subject that sort of forces a little bit of seriousness to creep in, because ... well, tenement housing is awful. And there are GANGSTERS and ANGRY MOBS and SERIOUS THREATS TO PSMITH'S LIFE AND LIMB and everything kind of balances on this weird tightrope with Wodehouse on one end and Newsies on the other and a sort of looming pit of accidentally talking about social justice in the middle ... and all this weirdness means that it would probably be my favorite, except of course then all the racism. >.<
And then Leave it to Psmith bounces back to pure screwball, with the addition of a heist, and that's fine! One can cheerfully imagine Eve played by a young Katharine Hepburn.
But I'm going to talk mostly about Psmith regardless, so that's fine. Psmith is interesting because he's basically everyone's favorite archetype -- the aristocratic British Troll Hero, see also Peter Wimsey, Francis Crawford of Lymond, Percy Blakeney, Julie Beaufort-Stuart (sob), etc. etc. -- taken to the ONE HUNDRED PERCENT comic extreme. Usually the Troll Hero gets loaded down with some sort of major tragic angst so everyone remembers to take him seriously deep down. But this is Wodehouse, so nobody ever has to be taken seriously! And in Mike and Psmith Mike and Psmith frolic around and have a school story, and in Psmith in the City Mike and Psmith basically have an extended school story except that it takes place in a bank office, and that's all fine.
But then you hit the third book in the series, Psmith, Journalist, which is when Psmith notices that TENEMENT HOUSING IS AWFUL, which is a subject that sort of forces a little bit of seriousness to creep in, because ... well, tenement housing is awful. And there are GANGSTERS and ANGRY MOBS and SERIOUS THREATS TO PSMITH'S LIFE AND LIMB and everything kind of balances on this weird tightrope with Wodehouse on one end and Newsies on the other and a sort of looming pit of accidentally talking about social justice in the middle ... and all this weirdness means that it would probably be my favorite, except of course then all the racism. >.<
And then Leave it to Psmith bounces back to pure screwball, with the addition of a heist, and that's fine! One can cheerfully imagine Eve played by a young Katharine Hepburn.
