“Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
Another side-splitting masterpiece from the undisputed and timeless king of Comedy – PG Wodehouse. The most difficult and the treasured attribute that an author or a movie director can possess according to me, is the ability to make others not just smile, but laugh their hearts out.
And while some sprinkle their works with bits of humour here and there, PG Wodehouse just stuffs your mouth with a gas mask, releases the laughing gas and then forgets to switch it off. Each and every page, paragraph and line of this novel will make you laugh more than 3-4 hours(roughly the time required to finish this novel) of watching a comedy show/movie.
The plot is so so ludicrous and features characters whose personalities incite pity, sympathy, loathe, awe and most importantly non stop laughter all the time. You have a girl named Billie who gets engaged (and subsequently broken) to so many people within a matter of days that her father starts keeping count and shouts “FIVE”, when he gets it right for once. She also has a pekinese dog, who in her words “has only bitten 3 people today, not including the waiters of course”. And then there’s another dog, a most lovable Bulldog named Smith who makes a late entry but gets a role with such depth that most bollywood actors would be proud of.
Then, there are two cousins, named Eustace and Sam who are besotted with the same red haired girl (Billie) and they all are aboard the same ship. And then there’s a parrot faced guy called Bream Mortimer who’s accompanying who else, but Billie. Jane Hubbard, a big game hunter, who claims to have fought off an alligator by blinding him in the eye using her nail cutter is also thrown in the picture. Oh and then there’s the older lot, the fathers of Billie and Sam and Eustace’s mother. And they all eventually end up in England at Mrs Hignett’s country house and a riot ensues.
Definitely a 5/5.
Reviewed by:
Aditya Singh
Added 27th June 2017
