After I'd finished cleaning the bookshelves here earlier in the week I took down one of several novels and short-story collections by P.G. Wodehouse residing thereon, Jeeves in the Offing. Much as I'm enjoying Zola's Germinal I felt the need for something lighter in mood, and Wodehouse, of course, is just the ticket in such circumstances. I could have raced through Bertie's adventures at Brinkley Court - the first time I read it was in a single sitting on a flight back to the UK in the 1990s. But I decided to take it slowly and relish the wonderful craft of Wodehouse's creation of Bertie's voice, and that unhurriedness proved wise, adding to the sense of happy holiday enjoyment.
So much that is seen as humorous these days is possessed of a kind of cruel delight in man's folly. (And woman's, I hasten to add.) But Wodehouse somehow pulls off a supremely charitable, good-natured kind of comedy, which strikes me as utterly sui generis. The reader is led to see the world as, not exactly a better place, but somewhere a lot funnier than it usually appears to be.
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