PSmith, Journalist - P.G. Wodehouse

The adventures of the very loquacious PSmith continue in his American jaunt which lands him in an unlikely profession of journalism, a whim exercised solely to keep himself busy while his childhood friend Mike played cricket across the American lands. Now you wouldn’t imagine Wodehouse to get himself messed up with Godfather-ish stories of the underworld, talk about the workings of the mafia and much less so, let his hero wander in the dirty lanes of crime. But that’s exactly what happens in this story.

Of course, the goons are not nearly as adept at disposing their victims as they would be in a, say, a Ludlum book. And neither are they equipped with weapons of mass destruction of any kinds. So the skirmishes of PSmith with them retain the characteristic Wodehouse humour. Whew! What a relief for the Wodehouse reader!

The plot is actually quite a few layers thick with several characters flitting in and out. And all this balanced quite finely in the storyline, which is in fact ridiculous to the point of being funny, but not so far as to be slapstick; a skill, honed and mastered by Wodehouse.

PSmith, ends up being the sub-editor of Cosy Moments when he accompanies his friend Mike, who is visiting US of A to play cricket. And while Cosy Moments of inherent nature was, as the name suggested, cosy, PSmith wanted to make it a smoldering cauldron of gory realities that surround us in the cruel world. So much to the agony of the staff of Cosy Moments, and to the reader base’s plight, Cosy Moments, among other things, started prodding in the sneaky happenings of a tenement scam. As it turned out the stakes were far to high, and PSmith discovered that he was risking his limbs, bones and hats in the quest for journalistic superiority. It would actually be quite a fast paced crime or a thriller novel if it were not written by Wodehouse. But hey, if you wanted funny, be glad it was written by him.

The book is quite a delightful package of narration, dialogue and characterization. This was the first book I have read where the Wodehouse’s sarcastically funny tone bites the American society. And if you can’t digest the easiness exhibited in the book to overthrow a power-soaked Don, you can just laugh it off. It’s a great book. Read it.