Jeeves and the Leap of Faith by Ben Schott

Published by Little, Brown and Company on October 13, 2020

Jeeves and the Leap of Faith is Ben Schott’s second homage to P.G. Wodehouse. It is, I suspect, the first Jeeves novel to end with a cliffhanger. The hanging question involves romance, and for once the question isn’t how Bertie Wooster will escape an impending engagement. In fact, Bertie deftly avoids romantic entanglements throughout the novel, with the able help of Jeeves.

As fans of Bertie Wooster well understand, nothing good comes of having an English aunt. They are given to arranging unwanted marriages and scolding, reacting to poor displays of posture and manners with swift correction and responding to tardiness with “What time do you call this?” They live in a place of their own invention where standards are kept and stations are known. Bertie plainly does not occupy that realm. At Oxford, Bertie was more admired for night climbing than for scholarship (night climbing: a sport involving the scaling of old buildings that school administrators wish to discourage despite its venerable tradition). In the present, Bertie banters with his friends at the Drones Club, gambles on unlikely competitions, ponders crossword clues until Jeeves suggests an answer, experiments with hangover cures, haggles with Jeeves about clothing and wallpaper choices, and does his best to avoid being productive.

This book has more of a plot than the typical Wodehouse Jeeves novel, in that Schott focuses part of the story on Jeeves’ role as a clandestine agent of the British government. Fortunately, the plot does not distract the reader. The Wodehouse books were, like Bertie Wooster’s life, delightfully aimless, and Schott again captures Bertie’s essence. Still, as a service to the government, Bertie does impersonate a man of the cloth (making rather a bungle of the prayers) and tests his night climbing skills, culminating in a leap between buildings to which the title alludes.

The novel takes us to the racetrack in the hope that the Drones Club (with the help of Jeeves) can pay its back taxes with a well-placed bet. Other eventful moments largely involve romance (or the lack thereof). Bertie conspires to avoid the latest match contrived by his aunt while various friends and enemies pursue a confusion of women, including a maid who is apparently an old flame of Jeeves. The same aunt has been trying to convince Bertie to discharge Jeeves, so another scheme must be concocted (with Jeeves’ help) to avoid calamity. A diamond heist lurks in the background.

Schott has given intense study to Wodehouse and his characters, as is evidenced by the extensive notes he appends to the text. For the casual reader, it suffices to understand that there is little distance between Schott’s version of Bertie and Jeeves and the originals as crafted by Wodehouse. The writing style and dialog are much the same, as is the flavor of the stories. The plot, such as it is, is light and silly and full of the digressions that characterized Wodehouse’s work.

The Wodehouse novels are celebrated as some of the best comedic works of the first half of the twentieth last century. I suspect that most Wodehouse fans can’t get enough of Bertie and Jeeves. Thanks to Schott, the Jeeves well has not yet run dry.

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Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott

Published by Little, Brown and Company on November 6, 2018

In his notes to Jeeves and the King of Clubs, Ben Schott describes P.G. Wodehouse as “the greatest humorist in the English language.” It would be difficult to argue with that characterization. Schott does justice to Wodehouse, capturing Bertie Wooster’s amiable ease, Jeeves’s droll wit, and Wodehouse’s playful style. Schott even ends the novel with an explanation of various words he used as a tribute to Wodehouse’s ability to enrich language by originating words or to use them in new ways.

Beleaguered Bertie Wooster is chastised by his new banker, loans money to Montague Montgomery to invest in a horrible play, wears Monty’s sandwich board while Monty delivers the cash, has a cautious encounter with Florence Craye, to whom he was engaged four times, and is warned to keep an eye on the allegedly seditious Roderick Spode, seventh Earl of Sidcup — all in just the first two chapters of Jeeves and the King of Clubs.

During the course of the silliness, Bertie plays matchmaker (between Monty and Florence) and spy (although the espionage, requiring a certain amount of thought, is naturally orchestrated by Jeeves), impersonates an Italian chef, conspires with his aunt, makes fun of British nationalist politicians, deftly evades the attentions of Florence, blackballs unpleasant applicants to his club (the Drones), and has his history, English, horse-betting, and sartorial choices corrected, repeatedly, by Jeeves.

The plot involves matrimony (a state that Bertie firmly opposes), a play for which Bertie must orchestrate a good review, and the unmasking of a spy, but as is typical of a Jeeves novel, most of the story follows Bertie as he sails through his leisurely life. The good-natured Bertie is one of the most likeable characters in fiction, but his ability to turn a phrase (actually Wodehouse’s ability, as channeled by Schott) sets him apart from the crowd.

The world can never have too many Jeeves novels, and if we can’t resurrect Wodehouse to continue writing them, Schott is a worthy substitute.

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