Reviewing a PG Wodehouse book is like scrutinising a clear night sky and trying to pick out which of the bright, shining, wondrous stars you like the least. Or the best. So basically, it's impossible. And pointless.
Because you see, Wodehouse operates in a different universe to us all. Try and find a way in which his tales of upper-class toffs pratting about in country mansions might relate to the disaffected youth of 21st century Britain, and you're going to draw a blank. It doesn't. It doesn't relate to anyone or anything, because the world these glorious characters inhabit probably never existed.
The adventures of Bertie Wooster, Freddie Widgeon, Psmith and the Blandings crew should really be stocked in the fantasy section of your local bookshop, because this is truly a fairytale world. A world where everyone is stinking rich, they all dress for dinner and 'problems' extend as far as someone's embarassing memoirs being published, or accidentally getting engaged to someone who's ditched a former fiance but will be back in their arms before the day is out.
Some people pick Terry Pratchett's Discworld or JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth as their 'escape all this shit' destination. I choose Totleigh Towers, Brinkley and Market Snodsbury, for Wodehouse's pre-war England is as mystical and alluring a place as any of these fantastical creations.
I unashamedly confess that Bertie Wooster and the fabulous Jeeves are my favourite characters and a few hours spent in their company is never wasted. In this particular novel - which I know I read before as a kid, but am now enjoying afresh in my new deluxe Everyman edition (dust jacket removed before reading, obviously) - Wooster is under threat of unwanted marriage once again, when the formidable Lady Florence Craye suffers a break-up from the fatheaded Stilton Cheesewright. With his liberty at risk, Bertie must try to reunited the star-crossed lovers while helping Aunt Dahlia to get out of a fix concerning her husband Tom, a pearl necklace and her ever-present weekly women's magazine, Milady's Boudoir.
As fast as Bertie screws everything up, Jeeves shimmies in to set things straight again, to happy endings all round. Ahh, bliss.
(For me, there is always at least one 'laugh out loud' moment in every Wodehouse novel and this one concerned the rather tiresome life of oysters. I won't repeat it here - you need to be there, really - but look out for it.)
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