Jeeves in the Offing: (Jeeves & Wooster) (Jeeves & Wooster, 5)

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The expression "in the offing", used in the novel's title for the UK edition, describes something that is likely to happen or arrive soon. My own vote, as it had gone in the past, is awarded of course to the unpredictable and dangerous ‘dasher’ that makes life interesting and these books such a delight, for all their frivolity:

List of P. G. Wodehouse characters in the Jeeves stories, a categorized outline of Jeeves characters Before going to Brinkley Court, Bertie learns that Kipper, who works for a weekly paper and is vengeful towards Upjohn, wrote a scathing, anonymous review of Upjohn's recently published book. Jeeves tells Bertie that Willie Cream is a notorious troublemaking playboy known as "Broadway Willie". After Jeeves leaves, Bertie sees a jarring announcement in The Times stating that he, Bertie, is engaged to Bobbie. Aunt Dahlia tells Bertie that Wilbert Cream did not steal the cow-creamer. Uncle Tom sold it to him. Meanwhile, Upjohn intends to sue Kipper's paper for libel. While his review was mostly legitimate, a small libellous portion was secretly added by Bobbie. Apologetic, Bobbie reconciles with Kipper. Glossop suggests that Kipper save his job by rescuing Upjohn from drowning. After Bertie and Bobbie fail to push Upjohn in the nearby lake, Bertie and Phyllis's dog Poppet fall in instead. Kipper dives in to help Bertie, mistaking him for Upjohn, and Wilbert dives in to help Phyllis's dog Poppet. Moved, Phyllis gets engaged to Wilbert. This initially upsets Aunt Dahlia, though it turns out that Wilbert is not actually the infamous Broadway Willie: that is his younger brother, Wilfred.I mean to say, when a girl, offered a good man’s heart, laughs like a bursting paper bag and tells him not to be a silly ass, the good man is entitled, I think, to assume that the whole thing is off.

urn:lcp:jeevesinoffing0000wode:epub:f980522c-0cc2-4dd4-a018-30d55d4ecf72 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier jeevesinoffing0000wode Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0hv2qx6h Invoice 1652 Isbn 1842623001 The male sex is divided into rabbits and non-rabbits and the female sex into dashers and dormice, and the trouble is that the male rabbit has a way of getting attracted by the female dasher (who would be fine for the male non-rabbit) and realising too late that he ought to have been concentrating on some mild, gentle dormouse with whom he could settle down peacefully and nibble lettuce.’ What a lesson, I felt, this should teach all of us that a man may have a bald head and bushy eyebrows and still remain at heart a jovial sportsman and one of the boys.welkin ( They had scarcely swum into my ken when the welkin started ringing like billy-o). I find references to “making the welkin ring” meaning “to make a loud sound”, but none to this usage; Finally, many find it easy to dismiss Wodehouse as a peddler of cheap, unrealistic dreams of an impossible rosy life that exists only in fiction, but he manages to surprise me every time with some offhand remark that I almost gloss over and later is revealed to be some underhand literary gem:

But don't be fooled by the plot's simplicity. It is still replete with a domino-theory of tangles, rooted in misunderstandings, awkward sudden appearances and unanticipated counter-moves. It's sometimes said that Wodehouse tends to repeat himself - but the truth is closer to reinvention. P.G. is much more like Fred Astaire - who famously said that he was rigorous in his crusade to avoid dance routines he had already immortalized on-screen.

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Drawn again to Brinkley Court to partake in his aunt's French chef par excellence Anatole's cooking, Bertie soon finds himself embroiled in one ridiculous scheme after another, where the bog standard love triangle looks more like an octagon. The plot is a tad muddier than usual, as I don't feel Bertie has any great impetus pushing him on as is the case in other books.