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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Jeeves



Irreverent, sarcastic, full of dry humor, what? Slang, metaphors and similes of the most imaginative sort, Jeeves delivers the entertainment. Life With Jeeves is a volume containing three Jeeves books: The Inimitable Jeeves, Very Good Jeeves, Right Ho Jeeves. I only made it through The Inimitable Jeeves before having to loan the book to my mother so that she could read it before our book club meeting. She promptly made it through all three. I suppose I'll have to keep up.

A friend who falls in love with a new girl every two weeks and ends up 'in the soup' and in need of rescuing, a butler of the highest caliber who becomes cool and distant when Bertie insists upon wearing outlandish clothing, a haughty Aunt who meddles in everyone's business... what more could you want?


pg. 132

A bit thick I mean to say! We Woosters are all for the good old mediaeval hosp. and all that, but when it comes to finding chappies collaring your bed, the thing becomes a trifle too mouldy. I hove a shoe, and Bingo sat up, gurgling.

pg. 137

The thing at the outset was merely one of those weird dramas which you dig out of books published around Christmas time and entitled Twelve Little Plays for the Tots, or something like that. The kids drooled on in the usual manner, the booming voice of Bingo ringing out from time to time behind the scenes when the fatheads forgot their lines; the audience was settling down into the sort of torpor usual on these occasions, when the first of Bingo's interpolated bits occurred. It was that number which What's-her-name sings in that revue at the Palace--you would recognize the tune if I hummed it, but I can never get hold of the dashed thing. It always got three encores at the Palace, and it went well now, even with a squeaky-voiced child jumping on and off the key like a chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. Even the Tough Eggs liked it. At the end of the second refrain the entire house was shouting for an encore, and the kid with the voice like a slate-pencil took a deep breath and started to let it go once more.

pg. 158

Once a year the committee of the Drones decides that the old club could do with a wash and a brush-up, so they shoo us out and dump us down for a few weeks at some other institution. This time we were roosting at the Senior Liberal, and personally I had found the strain pretty fearful. I mean, when you've got used to a club where everything's nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a chappie's attention, you heave a bit of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven and it isn't considered good form to talk to anyone unless you and he were through the Peninsular War together. It was a relief to come across Bingo. We started to talk in hushed voices.

'This club,' I said, 'is the limit.'

'It's the eel's eyebrows,' agreed young Bingo. 'I believe that old boy over by the window has been dead three days, but I don't like to mention it to anyone.'

If you are in the mood to watch British comedy, Jeeves and Wooster might be just the thing. It will have you in stitches. It took me a little while to adjust to House (Hugh Laurie) as a young, cheerful, and clueless English chap, but it added to the humor.


7 comments:

Elise said...

Oh, I love Hugh Laurie!! It is so funny how he can go from Stuart Little's dad to House. Talented, indeed.
Hey Heidi, do you mind sharing your bedroom paint color? I love it!!
Thank you,
Elise

Heidi said...

Elise~ Oh my goodness! I forgot he was in Stuart Little. I watched that before I ever watched House, so I didn't make the connection. Toooo funny.

My bedroom paint color is Celery by Ralph Lauren. I love it, too! :)

Skeller said...

I LOVE Jeeves (the show and the books!) And can I just say (?), I was flumoxed, floored, a little bit disturbed and thrown off balance (ok, I'm being a bit dramatic...) when I first realized that the British accent WAS the REAL Hugh Laurie and NOT the dry, cynical American accent of House.

Btw, we brought The Giver and The Willoughbys on vacation with us. I love them both. I've been so blessed by you and your blog - books, recipes, everyday beauty ... yay!!!

Anonymous said...

heidi--don't you read jeeves with a british accent? it takes longer to read that way, and so i am *sure* it's the reason your mother got through it quicker :)

we love accented reading around here

jodi

Elise said...

Hello again, Heidi. I was wondering if you would mind visiting my blog. I am taking an opinion poll and since your home is not uber-huge(I guess) I would love to hear your opinion. Thank you!!
Elise

Heidi said...

skeller~ I'm so happy you are enjoying both of those books! They are so completely different, but both terrific in their own right.

Jodi~ *That* must be it! LOL! Yes, much funnier if you 'hear' it with the accent. :)

Elise~ Done! :) (And, yep, our house is small!)

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