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Mike and Psmith P G Wodehouse 9781484867891 Books

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Mike and Psmith P G Wodehouse 9781484867891 Books

P.G. Wodehouse is of course the man behind lovable nitwit Bertie Wooster and his guardian-angel manservant Jeeves. his second-most renown creation, the Indiana Jones to his Star Wars if you will, is a charming, aristocratic schemer named Rupert Psmith. what you need to know about him can be neatly summed up by his need to add a distinguishing silent P to his last name. while not necessarily a conartist per se, he does have a knack for selling his ideas to others and for taking advantage of his opportunities. his motto is, never confuse the impossible with the unlikely.
that's where this book comes in. it serves as the world's introduction to this wily semi-rogue. but alas, it takes the long way about, bringing Psmith in at a little passed the halfway mark. as evidenced by the title, the main character here is one Mike Jackson. Mike would ultimately become Psmith's sidekick, but in the meantime he has his own lackluster story to tell.
Mike meets Psmith when he transfers to a new school. the first half of the book concerns his career as star cricket player for the first school's team. it's an obsession with him, so book centers on the technical aspects of the game to a point that becomes tedious and often confusing. i guess it's possible that i feel this way for being neither British nor a sports enthusiast, but that doesn't make it any more vital to the story.
it's also odd to think of this as the work of Wodehouse - a man sometimes called the British Mark Twain - because it's not all that funny.
with the aforementioned transfer and introduction to Rupert Psmith, however, the story switches into high gear. Mike and Psmith quickly establish their relationship as something somewhere between a Holmes and Watson and an Abbott & Costello, and we're finally treated to the sort of high-spirited farce for which Wodehouse is so justly celebrated. it's just a drag that it takes so long.
which brings us to the happy conclusion i wrote this review specifically to highlight. you can safely disregard MIKE (the book), because another title, MIKE & PSMITH, offers said latter half in it's own right. that one cuts away the needless, Psmith-less preamble and gets down to the nitty-gritty. it's a rare case of a lily being un-gilded for a change. so that's the one to go for.
i don't understand why Wodehouse even bothered to write the first half anyway. all it ever really had any potential to be was the story of a Dr. Watson's life before he finds his Sherlock. does that really sound very interesting to you?

Product details Paperback Publisher Createspace Language English ISBN-10 1484867890

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Mike and Psmith P G Wodehouse 9781484867891 Books Reviews

The main reason to read this is that it leads into the Psmith series, which culminates in Leave it to Psmith, which is also part of the Blandings saga, and is fabulous. This was written early in Wodehouse's career, and is not as witty as his later work. This is a story of boys at public school, with lots of boyish pranks and cricket. I enjoyed reading it, but it would have been a lot better if I understood all the cricket references. Adolescent boys are not terrible interesting to me, so the reader should take that into consideration.

This book has a complicated history. It was first published as two magazine serials which are combined in this book. In addition, the first serial was published as Mike at Wrykyn and the second as Mike and Psmith, or Lost Lambs.
My favorite Wodehouse character, Psmith, makes his debut in this novel, and Mike has the friend he needed to complement his more simple, straightforward outlook on life. The cricket backdrop to the story makes a difficult job of understanding the sporting nuances, but luckily I lived in England for a few years, so the game isn't completely foreign to me. Warehouse is a "laugh out loud" writer to me, so I try to read his books in private to avoid the puzzled stares at my chortles. Smith (and Mike) are too good to pass up on any reading list that needs a comic lift.
Mike and Psmith (the s is silent like in Pshrimp) is early Wodehouse. In this period he was fresh from his experience as a public School boy. Here he had been happy, a leading athlete with particular success at cricket and boxing. Given the theory that a writer should start with what he knows best, this book is one of many where he will focus on the life of English school boys. Be advised that if you are not a fan of Cricket and fluent in the rules, language and period slang of the game you are going to have to go with the flow and accept that you cannot follow pages of the narrative. Small usages such as ragging for pulling pranks should be clear in context. However the bottom line is that Wodehouse is writing for a period British audience not for contemporary American readers.

This is a very light, and light hearted story. Nothing more is at stake than school loyalty and the demands of friendship. The school masters are faintly distant comedic figures and reality is whatever has the interest of the students.

Mike and PSmith begin the book as strangers to each other and to their new school. Each has been taken from their old school as near academic failures and form a friendship based mostly on not knowing anyone else. Mike is somewhat of an average guy if an exceptional cricket player. Psmith comes across as pretentious and possibly effete, however he has the quicker wit and seems to have many hidden qualities. Between them they will use force and Psmith's fast talking to secure a safe place in the student pecking order and routinely play the adults for fools.

For those of us who relate to Wodehouse mainly via the Bertie and Jeeves books, Psmith comes across as Jeeves clever but clearly destined for a Bertie Wooster lifestyle. In Psmith Wodehouse has created a character rich in contradictions and therefore rich in comedic potential. In Mike and Psmith we are not aware that there will be at least four more Psmith books. It is clear that this character can sustain more stories.

For me the humor in Mike in Psmith was rarely above the quiet smile level. It was a nice enough story. There was not enough plot or plot twists to make this a long book and Wodehouse keep this pacing crisp and the wind up is not long in coming. This book may appeal to younger reader, although perhaps not one missing a background in cricket. I cannot recommend it as an introduction to Wodehouse, but for the reader with some sense of who Wodehouse will become and in particular if you have not yet read the Psmith books, I can recommend Mike and Psmith.
P.G. Wodehouse is of course the man behind lovable nitwit Bertie Wooster and his guardian-angel manservant Jeeves. his second-most renown creation, the Indiana Jones to his Star Wars if you will, is a charming, aristocratic schemer named Rupert Psmith. what you need to know about him can be neatly summed up by his need to add a distinguishing silent P to his last name. while not necessarily a conartist per se, he does have a knack for selling his ideas to others and for taking advantage of his opportunities. his motto is, never confuse the impossible with the unlikely.
that's where this book comes in. it serves as the world's introduction to this wily semi-rogue. but alas, it takes the long way about, bringing Psmith in at a little passed the halfway mark. as evidenced by the title, the main character here is one Mike Jackson. Mike would ultimately become Psmith's sidekick, but in the meantime he has his own lackluster story to tell.
Mike meets Psmith when he transfers to a new school. the first half of the book concerns his career as star cricket player for the first school's team. it's an obsession with him, so book centers on the technical aspects of the game to a point that becomes tedious and often confusing. i guess it's possible that i feel this way for being neither British nor a sports enthusiast, but that doesn't make it any more vital to the story.
it's also odd to think of this as the work of Wodehouse - a man sometimes called the British Mark Twain - because it's not all that funny.
with the aforementioned transfer and introduction to Rupert Psmith, however, the story switches into high gear. Mike and Psmith quickly establish their relationship as something somewhere between a Holmes and Watson and an Abbott & Costello, and we're finally treated to the sort of high-spirited farce for which Wodehouse is so justly celebrated. it's just a drag that it takes so long.
which brings us to the happy conclusion i wrote this review specifically to highlight. you can safely disregard MIKE (the book), because another title, MIKE & PSMITH, offers said latter half in it's own right. that one cuts away the needless, Psmith-less preamble and gets down to the nitty-gritty. it's a rare case of a lily being un-gilded for a change. so that's the one to go for.
i don't understand why Wodehouse even bothered to write the first half anyway. all it ever really had any potential to be was the story of a Dr. Watson's life before he finds his Sherlock. does that really sound very interesting to you?