Premature Review: Leave it to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse

I haven't quite finished this book yet, so any opinion stated herein is subject to change. A few spoilers for those who may be reading the series.

You know, up until now I confess I had been a bit resentful of Wodehouse for writing only four Psmith books. His reason, apparently--which didn't suffice for me--was that he thought Psmith didn't work as an adult, and that what was charming in a mere lad bluffing his way through the work force ceased to be funny as soon as he came of age. There's certainly something in that, but now I think the problem lay more in Wodehouse's changing clime. Psmith belonged, by nature, to an atmosphere of dull care--dull care that he could banish with his mere presence, but still, dull care. Stick him down in an Eden like Blandings Castle (complete with his very own Eve), and, even if snakes should enter in the form of impostors with vile intent, he simply won't work the way he should. Psmith's comedy comes from the fact that he's generally in school or the workplace, blackmailing the boss, talking his peers to death, and treating everything as a sort of picnic. At Blandings Castle, everything--even the plotting--actually is a sort of picnic, and it's hard for Psmith's "the cry goes round" to have the same audacious ring.

The only thing that was ever odd about Psmith's accustomed setting was the fact that scarcely anyone found Psmith odd--or, if they did, they declined to comment. His boss found him annoying and his headmaster found him unsettling, but no one ever went to the length of suggesting that he was out of the ordinary. Now here's irony, if you like it; now that he's hightailed it out of the mundane corner of the Wodehouse world and headed into the "musical comedy without music" section--where he would seem to fit like a hand in a glove--people are finally acknowledging how weird he is. (I guess it makes sense, really. If anyone was more insane than Bertie Wooster, it was Sir Roderick Glossop, the mental health specialist who wanted to book him his rightful room at the loony-bin.) A pity, since giggling behind your hand at Psmith--unless you're the reader and safely outside the story--breaks his power in a subtle way.

Of course, it's equally possible that the death of Psmith's father and the subsequent loss of all his doubloons put a bit of a damper on his usual spirits. (That's the only way someone can die in a Wodehouse book--to instigate a plot.) Scheme though Psmith might, his problems in the last two books were solved by his family having a fair amount of the ready, so right away his effectiveness is diminished. Having fallen out with his wealthy uncle, he has nothing left to his name but a smart set of dress clothes and a sense of adventure. The latter drives him to place an advertisement in the newspaper offering his services to anyone with a buck and a bad idea. It's the kind of thing you'd see on Craigslist nowadays, and most readers take it in that spirit--the exception being Freddie Threepwood of Blandings, who really needs someone to steal his aunt's necklace so a few important debts can be paid. (Presumably, the events of the first Blandings book made Freddie wary of his own powers as a thief. He's also paranoid that one of the servants might turn out to be a detective, hinting that the influence of Ashe Marson is still felt.)

Psmith relishes the assignment because it's much the most unlikely thing on the menu. We're told that his closeness with Mike Jackson, ordinary guy extraordinaire, is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to his friendships: "He liked his humanity eccentric." Funny, because if you had asked me I would have said that Psmith liked being the strangest thing in the room at all times, and used the plainclothes presence of Mike to further offset his own oddity. He called himself Psmith in the first place so that he wouldn't be a Smith, not because he wanted anyone else to be called Psmith. (Or did he? Come to think of it, he did say he was going to found his own dynasty...)

Maybe it's because this is a meeting of worlds, but the plot, despite being as complex and knotted together as you'd expect a Blandings plot to be, seems to eschew the usual tightness in favor of multilayeredness. On last count, Psmith coincidentally had three distinct and separate reasons for going to Blandings Castle. Or was that four reasons? Why does he even need one? He could have just showed up and no reader would ever have questioned his right to be there. He's Psmith.

This book also puts Psmith in the oddest of roles--that of the ardent lover. You wouldn't think he'd go in for that sort of thing, but just let one pretty blonde come along and he's trailing her like the Phantom of the Opera. This becomes easier to account for once one takes his previous settings into consideration. After attending an all-boy's school, working at a bank in male-dominated London, and hitting the mean streets of New York City without so much as confronting one lady gangster, it's natural that he'd appreciate feminine beauty. Sadly, Eve, his target, isn't the deepest of Wodehouse's ladies; she reads as Joan from Something New all over again, and she's even less vital to the plot. It's adorable to watch Psmith scramble after her, but I can't help wishing he'd picked a more enterprising mate, or at least someone who could dish the dirt on something like his own level.

Mike, peripheral but still somewhat significant, is now a married man himself. We're told he eloped with the girl in question, and I'm extremely sad that the best part of the story didn't make it into the plot. In my opinion, there's no way Psmith wasn't in on that one. I seem to see him slithering by with the getaway car while Mike hitches the rope up to her window. Good times.

Edit: I'm now a bit ashamed of this post, because I turned out to be utterly wrong about Eve. I doubt if Psmith could have found himself a better match...but maybe I'll explain why another time. In the meantime here's a sketch of Eve pulling on her gloves and looking all determined, which more or less sums up the second half.