Jeeves & Wooster and Blandings Castle may be the most popular (and widely loved) series written by PG Wodehouse but little is known about his Psmith series. It contains four books and I reviewed the final one – Leave it to Psmith – separately. I realized only a long time later that it was part of a series and proceeded to finish the remaining ones. I regret very few decisions in my life and this is certainly one of those.
The series starts with Mike and Psmith, a story about two chums from school. An extensive detail into Mike’s initial life was first written in Mike but I didn’t read that due to two reasons – a) It is not part of Psmith series, b) it contains too much cricket.
So the first one – Mike and Psmith.
Mike – full name Michael Jackson – is one of the prominent cricketers for one of the prominent cricket teams in England – Wrykyn schoolboys – but due to his faltering grades, his father Mr. Jackson removes him from Wrykyn and sends him off to Sedleigh. Mike is initially angry with the decision as he was really growing as a cricketer at Wrykyn, where he was destined to be as good as his brother. What irritates him more is that Sedleigh is one of the minor village schools without a proper cricket team and doesn’t even have a sporting team worthy of mention. But he cannot go against his father’s decision and travels to Sedleigh cursing every minute of the journey. After he meets his guide at Sedleigh and goes to his assigned quarters, he meets another fellow already present, who happens to be Rupert Psmith (or Ronald Eustace Psmith) from Shropshire, a neighboring town of Mike’s. To distinguish from other Smiths, he calls himself as Psmith and only came to Sedleigh after getting kicked out of Eton. Even in school, Psmith wears a monocle while delivering what he considers as knowledgeable speech and is usually witty. Psmith has confidence in his abilities bordering on arrogance and never a follower of hard work, he makes others do most of his dirty work. Starting with “stealing” someone else’s study, the book details the adventures of Mike and Psmith at Sedleigh school. It is mostly a book about school with bits about cricket occasionally thrown in. Not a bad book per se but there’s no hallmark Wodehouse wit in this.
Second one – Psmith in the city.
Psmith’s father, Mr. Smith has a curious habit of developing and changing his interests in varied fields at the drop of a hat. After suggesting at least 3 different fields for Psmith to choose after his schooling at Sedleigh, he finally wishes that his son go to the London to work for one of the banks after meeting a banker at his house. Mike, who was at Psmith’s house for the summer as a visitor, meets this banker fellow Mr. Bickersdyke but never notices anything interesting. Due to unfortunate coincidence, Mike’s father Mr. Jackson loses a considerable sum of money and since he can’t afford Mike’s college, wishes that Mike go to the city and earn his living. Mike and Psmith happen to join the same bank in London where Mr. Bickersdyke works and both are put into the Postage department. Psmith learns that the head of the Postage department Mr. Rossiter is a Manc with allegiance to Manchester United, he gains the friendship of his department head by merely following the news about Manchester United in weekend papers. After getting Mr. Rossiter on his side, Psmith endeavors to befriend Mr. Bickersdyke as well but all his efforts prove fruitless. Psmith even joins the same club as Mr. Bickersdyke so he could continue his attempts at getting friendly outside office hours but Mr. Bickersdyke is not impressed.
Mike moves to Cash department and after learning that Psmith has some Socialist tendencies (Psmith refers to everyone as Comrade XYZ), the department head Mr. Bannister invites both of them to a speech he gives on Sundays. At Mr. Bannister’s place, Mike and Psmith learn an old secret about Mr. Bickersdyke. Try whatever he might, Mr. Bickersdyke is unable to dismiss both of them as he is answerable to the staff dismissals and if he removes them without a reason, then charges of libel can be brought against him. Mr. Bickersdyke gets his chance finally when a cheque encashed for 100 pounds by Mr. Bannister turns out to be forged and Mike steps in to confess he cashed the cheque to save Mr. Bannister. This is when Psmith uses the secret information to persuade Mr. Bickersdyke to cancel the dismissal orders of his friend Mike. When Mike’s brother calls him one morning and says that his cricket team is out of reserves and needs one person to fill in within half an hour’s notice, Mike jumps at the chance to play at Lord’s and leaves office. As Mike leaves office during work hours, Mr. Bickersdyke rubs his hands in glee and waits for him to convey his dismissal orders. Meanwhile, Psmith meets his father and takes him to Lord’s in the evening to watch the final few mins of Mike’s innings where Mike eventually gets out after hitting 148. After convincing Mr. Smith about Mike’s batting capabilities, Mr. Smith agrees to take Mike as one of his assistant accountants (I think) at Shropshire where Mike can continue his cricket during off hours. But to work as an accountant, Mike needs to complete his college and Mr. Smith agrees to send both Psmith and Mike to Cambridge for their college. Just when Mr. Bickersdyke readies himself to give out dismissal orders, Psmith tells him that they are resigning from their positions in the bank leaving no chance of smug vengeance to Mr. Bickersdyke.
Third one – Psmith, journalist.
When this was initially written, it had a lot of words with racist connotations. They republished it in US later with a lot of changes (Psmith gets replaced by similar character called Smith) but the Gutenberg edition I read (hyperlinked above) was presumably the older one. Mike travels to US on a cricketing tour and Psmith joins him in the journey. As Mike is busy going around the country with his cricket team, Psmith is forced to stay in New York trying to pass his time. He has a chance meeting with Billy Windsor, the acting editor of a household magazine called Cosy Moments.Psmith learns that the editor Mr. Wilberfloss is out somewhere in the country advised by doctors to rest for 10 weeks so that he can recuperate from stress related illness. Psmith realizes that this is his chance to find some entertainment and convinces Mr. Windsor to take him as a sub-editor without any salary. They meet Bat Jarvis, the head of the largest New York gang Groome Street at a chance meeting. In an attempt at complete makeover of the magazine, Windsor and Psmith remove all the previous contributing staff and take on new ones to make Cosy Moments deliver the red-hot stuff instead of the bland household articles. During their attempts to cover the most happening stuff, they run into the notorious New York gangs but with the aid of Bat Jarvis and a boxer called Kid Brady they take upon, they are able to eventually win through. Once Wilberfloss is back, Psmith quietly convinces him to retake the older staff and moves to England with Mike, who happens to return to New York from his cricket tour at the same time.
The first two books are passable and though the 2nd one deals with their lives in the city, it is still essentially a “school” story. But the 3rd one is possibly my least favorite book of all time. Despite the hectic work schedule, I took ages to finish it as I found my interest to be rock bottom. Leaving aside the racist words which did not affect my heart to great extent, the theme of the story and the narrative is cumbersome. If someone tells you that this was written by PG Wodehouse, you’d think the other fellow was either lying or is a raving lunatic. With every line I read I hoped the book to end and at one stage even thought of Dorothy Parker’s famous lines, but just coz of having a rule to never leave books in the middle of a story, I had to push myself to my absolute limits and finish the book. I might be hurting Wodehouse fans (which includes me) if I call this one horrible but I struggle to describe it in better words. Where the 4th one is funny, the first 3 are bland and sometimes venture beyond the point of boring. They are like the Boring River flowing at the bottom of Boring Hills on the borders of the Boringville town. They do not have any characteristic Wodehouse humor, no lines worth remembering and certainly no funny moments I’d be chuckling about two months from now. I’d do a character study of Psmith too but the Psmith in the first 3 books is different from the one in the 4th book. Whereas a twenty yr old school dropout with limited vocabulary and single digit IQ uses ten words to describe a situation, Psmith puts on his monocle, delves deep into his mind and recites two pages worthy of content. It’s good when it’s funny (like the 4th one) but when it’s boring, you’d want to strangle the life out of him.
So there goes the review. Whoever is patient enough to reach this point, credit yourself with four stars – the series certainly doesn’t deserve any.
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