PSmith in the City - P.G. Wodehouse

This book is a tale of two school lads, Mike, and PSmith (with a silent initial P), who set out on the journey of life in the city. Straight out of the school, they are thrown into the ugliness of the cruel world.

Well. It’s not quite ugly. It’s a very gradual progression of P.G. Wodehouse from the school stories to the stories in the outside world. There is no angle of romance in the book and the story hangs around the two principle characters, PSmith and Mike.

The characters of PSmith and Mike appear in his earlier books too in their school days. So, commenting on the characters in this book would be pretty pointless. If you like ‘em, you like ‘em. If you don’t, you don’t. This book itself would only further strengthen your opinion on the two characters.

However for me, this was a first PSmith book. And I loved the character immensely. The chemistry between Mike and PSmith is quite terrific. I really would hate to have a friend like PSmith. If a friend goes around calling me his “private and confidential secretary” it wouldn’t be long before he would find himself bleeding from a busted nose. Had Psmith been a part of life, I would have found him irritating like a fly buzzing around my ears. But as a character I only have to read about, and not actually bear, he is a hilarious person. And the surprising thing is, that though I would not have quite enjoyed Psmith’s company, the fact that Mike does, is very believable. I would really love to read about the earlier exploits of PSmith and Mike in the school days.

The story in this book is actually quite loose. It reads a bit like a multi-season comedy TV series as it narrates the life of the two protagonists in the city. There is no complex plot per se. Things keep happening. And while individually they are fairly funny incidents, they are just a part of the story and nothing has a central bearing on anything. Wodehouse also takes a fairly convenient escape route in the end.

But then if you are reading PSmith for the first time, you are going to love his talkative and somewhat narcissistic attitude. He drops some serious pearls of wisdom in between. The two of the best ones in this book were about the philosophy of “work”

Work, the hobby of the philosopher and the poor man's friend.

And,

Work, the hobby of the hustler and the deadbeat's dread.

And I didn’t have any real complains against the book. I had quite a few laughs while reading. And that’s all that I look for from a Wodehouse book.