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bibliotechnocrat
Mar 29, 2014bibliotechnocrat rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Wodehouse has widely been quoted as describing his novels as "musical comedies without the music." Faulks manages to capture this tone and sustain it throughout this novel. If you liked the originals, you'll sail through Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. Bertie Wooster's voice is spot on, though Jeeves sometimes sounds a bit more like Stephen Fry's version than the Wodehouse original. In one marked departure from Wodehouse's usual reality-avoidance, we discover that Jeeves had a distant relative - a cricket pro - who died at the Battle of the Somme. PLOT SPOILER: In one way, the book is a sad read, because the ending is definitely not in the Wodehouse playbook. The plot advances like so many of the Bertie and Jeeves stories, with the popsy (and the threat of marriage and growing up) being dodged at the last possible moment.... That this story follows another trajectory underscores the fact that the Wodehousian garden has definitely closed. At least for me, the ending of this book is the ending of the idyl. That none of it was ever real is kind of beside the point.