Inimitable Jeeves

With a cast of characters that includes bearded revolutionaries, practical-joking twins, incognito authors, and a pair of confidence tricksters, *The Inimitable Jeeves* finds our upper-class hero Bertie Wooster in all kinds of hot water. Of particular concern in this collection of short stories--sensitively abridged by Penguin and read by Simon Callow--is Bertie's friend Bingo Little, who falls in love so often that it is impossible to keep track of his romantic entanglements, and who always falls for the most unsuitable women.

Unable to refuse to help a friend, Bertie is placed in one difficult situation after another, always under the watchful eye of his butler. Jeeves constantly works in the background, undermining Bertie's autonomy and moving the narrative in unexpected directions. He often fails to let his employer in on his plots, and a large proportion of his schemes turn out to expose Bertie to ridicule.

Yet Jeeves also ensures that Bertie's life runs smoothly, steering him through the pitfalls which face a rich young man with too much time on his hands. When in one story Bertie overhears Jeeves describing his employer as "not intelligent", he sets out to disprove the butler's assessment. If it is predictable that things do not go according to plan, then it is Wodehouse's brilliant grasp of comedy which makes the manner in which things go wrong so constantly surprising. And, of course, by the end of the tale Jeeves has proved himself both inimitable and indispensable. --*John Oates*