Jeeves and the Wedding
Bells is the result of the commissioning of Sebastian Faulks by P.G.
Wodehouse’s literary estate to write a new official Jeeves and Wooster
novel. To be fair to Mr Faulks, a fine
author when using his own voice, it’s a pretty tall order to try and follow one
of the greatest stylists of English literature.
Does he carry it off? Well, in
this Wodehouse fan’s opinion, not quite.
Does this make it a bad book? Not
at all. It’s just that it’s not
Wodehouse.
It opens with Bertie carrying out (or rather trying to carry
out) a most unusual task – making a cup of tea, a turn of events that becomes
even stranger when it transpires that he is taking said cuppa to Jeeves, who is
in bed of all places. We gradually find
out that Bertie and Jeeves are at Melbury Hall, the country pile belonging to
Sir Henry Hackwood, an impoverished baronet hoping to save himself by marrying
his ward, Georgiana, off to a wealthy (but dull) man.
But things aren’t as they should be. For Jeeves is pretending to be Lord Etringham
and Bertie is masquerading as Wilberforce Berkeley, his Lordship’s valet in an
attempt to save another set of impending nuptials – those of Amelia Hackwood,
Sir Henry’s daughter, and Beeching P., a childhood friend of Bertie’s.
As can be guessed even from the brief lead-in I’ve given, plenty
of Wodehousean hi-jinks ensue. We get
impersonations, break-ins, a village cricket match and fete, romantic mix-ups
and the ghastly presence of two of Aunt Agatha’s old school-friends.
There is plenty to enjoy in Jeeves and the Wedding Bells both in terms of plotting, set pieces
and language. Mr Faulks adopts many of
Wodehouse’s stylistic tricks with some success and, all in all, it’s a pleasant
and easy read.
On the other hand, the pacing isn’t quite right. The first part of the book was sluggish in
comparison to Wodehouse but warms up in the second part, which has a much lighter
and sparkly feel to it and it is more a reflection on the genius of Wodehouse than
anything else to say that Mr Faulk’s imitation of Wodehouse’s style seems
slightly laboured by comparison.
One of the interesting features of Jeeves and the Wedding Bells is that the main characters are imbued
with more psychological depth than in the original novels. We see far more of both Jeeves and Wooster’s
inner lives than we ever did in Wodehouse’s stories and, indeed, there is
almost a slightly sombre feel to parts of the book, with both Bertie and
Georgiana referring to the deaths of their parents on occasion and Jeeves
telling the story of his (real life) namesake, a cricketer who dies in the First
World War. This is not the only
reference to the war, as Georgiana’s parents turn out to have died on the
Lusitania, sunk by a U-boat. It’s a
different approach to Wodehouse’s world – not necessarily a criticism but certainly
a real point of difference.
The most jarring moment for me, and I accept that, in
matters Wodehouse, I am a near-fundamentalist, comes at the end of the
book. As usual, I am trying to avoid
spoilers and so can’t expand on this cryptic comment save to say that Mr Faulks
goes where Wodehouse would never have trodden with Bertie and Jeeves.
Mr Faulks is a self-confessed Wodehouse aficionado and bills
Jeeves and the Wedding Bells as an
homage to Wodehouse. He makes the good
point that he wanted to avoid parodying the master or just writing a pale
imitation and he has achieved that. His
differentiation may not always work for me but I can appreciate what he is
doing. I also want to reiterate – this is
a good book; I enjoyed it greatly but probably had invested too much hope in it
for it ever to satisfy me fully.
Interestingly, Mr Faulks says that the Wodehouse estate want
the book to attract a new generation of Wodehouse fans. Hopefully, the publicity surrounding the new
book will achieve this. I can’t help
feeling though that new readers would do far better to grab a copy of, say, The Mating Season or The Code of the Woosters. I actually believe it is the old lags who
will find Jeeves and the Wedding Bells most
interesting.
Consequently, having thanked Random House for allowing me to
read this via Netgalley, I’d like to end by recommending it as an interesting
read to those familiar with the original, whilst strongly encouraging the
curious neophyte to go straight to the fons
et origo of Jeeves and Wooster before returning to Jeeves and the Wedding Bells.
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