Redeeming Laughter by Berger Peter L.;

Redeeming Laughter by Berger Peter L.;

Author:Berger, Peter L.; [Berger, Peter L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter, Inc.
Published: 2014-09-17T16:00:00+00:00


Never mind what a “burnished dove” may be, let alone a whangee. It is hard to imagine a more idiotic exchange. It is typical of the interaction between the two characters, Bertie charging ahead with mindless energy, Jeeves standing by with ironic detachment yet ever ready to get his master out of the scrapes he invariably ends up in. The interaction follows a more or less fixed formula. The amazing thing is that Wodehouse’s comic genius makes it seem fresh every time around.

Here is how Bertie experiences spring: “Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean.” But just in case anyone imagines an eruption of vernal eroticism, he adds: “I’m not much of a ladies’ man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something.” This is again very typical of Bertie’s relations with the other sex. When it is not a matter of trying to escape from the demands of terrifying aunts and marriage-minded viragos, Bertie’s notions of romance are romantic in a basically prepubescent style. Jeeves indeed appears to have liaisons of one kind or another, usually with female members of the domestic staffs of Bertie’s circle of friends and relatives, but no prurient details are ever revealed or even hinted at. A not unimportant point: Wodehouse’s world is singularly devoid of any sort of sexuality, is thus innocent in the most literal sense.6

What happens in the park is a bit of an anticlimax. Bertie runs into young Bingo Little, a young gentleman of an intellect about equal to his. Bingo drags him off to a somewhat seedy restaurant and introduces him to Mabel, a waitress there and “the most wonderful girl you ever saw.” Bingo is in love with Mabel and wants to marry her. The problem is his uncle, old Mortimer Little, on whom he is financially dependent and who might cut off his allowance if he enters into this kind of mésalliance. This financial circumstance is once again typical of Bertie’s circle and indeed of Bertie himself (who is dependent on his ferocious Aunt Agatha). These people have neither work nor money, but they manage to support a lavish life-style on the basis of obscure and precarious sub-sidizations. One is reminded here of the way someone once described the characters in Dostoyevsky’s novels, as unemployed and unemployable. But none of Wodehouse’s characters are greatly affected by this economic situation beyond a peevish annoyance, and they are certainly not driven by any remotely Dosto-yevskyan passions.

The story unfolds in a sequence of events that could not ever be plausible except in a Wodehouse novel. Bingo implores Bertie to ask Jeeves’s advice (who is “by way of being the brains of the family”). Jeeves, it turns out, is well-placed to be of help, since he is “on terms of some intimacy,” practically amounting to an engagement, with old Mortimer’s cook, a Miss Watson.



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