Bertie in wild anticipation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PG Wodehouse (1930)

Bertie in wild anticipation (Original title: Thank You, Jeeves ) is a comical novel by the British writer PG Wodehouse , which was first published in book form in 1934. The novel had been published in the months before as a serial in The Strand Magazine and in the US Cosmopolitan . In Germany the novel was also published under the title Thank you, Jeeves! and thanks a million, Jeeves! .

As in many of Wodehouse's novels and short stories, the main protagonists of the plot are Bertie Wooster and his trusted personal valet, Reginald Jeeves . Jeeves gives up his job at Bertie Wooster worn down by his employer's banjo game, but in this novel it is only thanks to Jeeves' intervention that Bertie escapes the threatening marriage yoke and two lovers find each other.

The novel is now considered a classic in British humor. The British newspaper The Guardian put Bertie in its "List of 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read" in anticipation of a number of other Wodehouse novels in 2009 .

action

Chapter 1 through Chapter 6

To avoid Aunt Agatha , Bertie Wooster has spent the last few months in New York. There he added Pauline Stoker to his ex-fiancée and discovered his love for the banjo game. However, his enthusiasm for this instrument is not shared by his butler Jeeves or his London neighbors. Faced with the decision to either give up the banjo game or move out, he decides to settle in Somersetshire in a cottage belonging to his old friend Lord "Chuffy" Chuffnell. Jeeves, who fears that he will no longer be able to evade his employer's musical attempts in the cramped living space of such a cottage, regretfully gives up his job with Bertie Wooster and finds a new job with Lord Chuffnell. Bertie is forced to hire Brinkley as the new valet. He soon turns out to be someone who is prone to regular excessive drinking and singing of hymns.

Financially limited Lord Chuffnell is hoping to sell his run-down family home to US millionaire J. Washburn Stoker. He plans to rent the house and its park to the well-known neurologist Sir Roderick Glossop. Glossop was George Stoker's neurologist, who bequeathed his vast fortune to J. Washburn Stoker, although there were close blood relatives, and can testify that the deceased was eccentric but perfectly sensible when he made his will. Glossop also intends to marry Lord Chuffnell's aunt Myrtle. Chuffnell himself has fallen in love with Stocker's daughter Pauline for the first time. Even if Pauline seems to reciprocate this affection, Chuffnell holds back with a marriage proposal. He does not feel able to offer her the standard of living that she is used to. Only the sale of the family seat will enable him to do so.

When Bertie becomes aware of his old friend's uncharacteristically hesitant attitude, he decides to get Chuffnell to act earlier and more decisively; He will make him jealous by kissing his ex-fiancée Pauline in the presence of his old friend. With the help of Jeeves, who sends Pauline to him in the park, he also implements his plan. Witness of the kiss, however, is not Chuffnell as planned, but her father J. Washburn Stoker, who has come to believe that Pauline and Bertie are still in love and that his efforts in New York to end the relationship were in vain. Bertie, who has long since renounced all intentions on Pauline and hopes for a happy relationship between Chuffnell and Pauline, sees these hopes destroyed even further by a quarrel between Stoker's young son Dwight and Chuffnell's cousin Seabury. The dispute leads to a falling out between the two families and Stoker returns to his yacht with his son and daughter. Concerned that Pauline will run away with Bertie, Pauline should not leave the yacht at her father's request.

Chapter 7 to Chapter 13

Chuffnell writes a love letter to Pauline, which Jeeves smuggles aboard by pretending to be considering Stoker as an employer. Pauline is so touched by the letter that she secretly swims ashore at night with the help of Jeeves. She plans to visit Chuffnell Hall in the morning and speak to Chuffnell. She wants to spend the night in Bertie's cottage by morning. Bertie is surprised by the nightly visit, but then lets her have his bedroom. Inevitably, he tries to find an alternative place to sleep in the cramped space of his holiday home and tries out the gardener's lounger and the car in the garage as a nighttime resting place. His efforts to get a few more hours of sleep are interrupted several times by policeman Voules. His nephew, also a policeman, saw a person enter the cottage. The ambush on the supposed burglar leads to encounters with Bertie again and again, in the course of which Voules increasingly begins to doubt his mental state. Voules also informs Lord Chuffnell of his concerns, who attributes Bertie's strange behavior to alcohol consumption. In the cottage, Chuffnell, who hurried up that night, also finds Pauline, which leads him to suspect that she and Bertie have rekindled their relationship. There is an argument between the two lovers, which leads to both of them leaving the cottage indignantly. A little later Bertie's sleep is disturbed again. This time, it's Mr. Stoker who missed his daughter on board the yacht and decided that she wanted to run away with Bertie. He searches the cottage without finding his daughter, apologizes and leaves the cottage.

The next day Bertie receives an invitation to Mr. Stoker's son's birthday party through Jeeves. Although surprised by this change, Bertie accepts this invitation. However, he is locked in one of the ship's cabins during his visit to Stoker's yacht. Stoker not only informs him that he knows about Pauline's nightly visit to Bertie's cottage. He also expects Bertie and Pauline to get married now. A few incidents in New York had raised doubts about Bertie's mental state and had led Pauline to end her engagement to Bertie. Through Jeeves, however, he learned the background to these events, which puts them in a slightly different light. Therefore, in spite of these events, Mr. Stoker believes that marriage is now appropriate. It is Jeeves who finally rescues Bertie from his predicament. A group of colored American musicians are on board for the birthday party of Stoker's son and Bertie, who uses shoe polish to color his face and hands black, manages to leave the yacht with them. Bertie returns to his cottage in disguise. However, his new valet Brinkley, who is heavily drunk, thinks he is the devil. Brinkley attacks his employer with a carving knife and then sets the cottage on fire. During the fire, not only does the cottage burn to the ground, but Bertie Banjo also falls victim to the flames.

Chapter 14 through Chapter 16

Bertie goes to Chuffnell Hall hoping to get some butter that will help him remove the shoe polish on his face. As soon as he succeeds in doing this, he wants to take the next train to London. However, his old friend Lord Chuffnell is unhelpful. Chuffnell has come to the conclusion that Pauline is still in love with Bertie. Out of love for her, Chuffnell wants to renounce her and get Bertie to marry Pauline. For this reason, he also refuses to help Bertie, as this only leads to the fact that Bertie evades his obligations to Pauline.

A little later Bertie meets Jeeves, who is now working for Lord Chuffnell again. Another job for Mr. Stoker has become impossible for Jeeves after he so actively supported Bertie in the escape from the yacht. Jeeves informs Bertie that there has been a falling out between Sir Roderick Glossop and the Chuffnells. To comfort Seabury, his future stepson, for not having been invited to Dwight Stoker's birthday party and missing the group of American musicians, Sir Roderick also dyed his face black with shoe polish and made music. This performance did not meet with much approval from Seabury. The angry Sir Roderick has also left Chuffnell Hall in his indignation at this ingratitude. However, Bertie cannot help out Jeeves with butter either. Seabury stole all the butter in the house to play a prank on Sir Roderick. That's why Jeeves advises Bertie to stay one night in the abandoned widow's residence at Chuffnell Hall. Jeeves wants to feed Bertie with butter there the next morning.

The widow's seat turns out to be less uninhabited than Jeeves suspected. There is not only the extensive menagerie of the young Seabury consisting of a monkey, a multitude of mice and young dogs, but also Bertie's new and heavily drunk valet Brinkley found refuge there after the fire in the cottage and vigorously defends the house against all intruders . Roderick Glossop in particular has to experience this painfully. In front of the gates of the widow's residence there is an almost amicable exchange between Bertie and Roderick Glossop. Glossop finally leaves Bertie in the park: he wants to go to the undamaged garage of Bertie's cottage to clean his face with gasoline. Bertie, on the other hand, prefers to spend the night in a pavilion in the park at Chuffnell Hall.

Chapter 17 to Chapter 22

The next morning Bertie sneaks into Lord Chuffnell's office, where a maid has just been preparing breakfast for her employer. Before Bertie can satisfy his hunger, however, he meets Jeeves there and a little later, hidden under the desk, he witnesses how Jeeves' charm soothes Mr. Stoker: Jeeves makes it clear to Mr. Stoker that it was in Stoker's best interest that Bertie escaped from the yacht. A British court could otherwise have convicted Stoker of kidnapping. When asked where Bertie is now, Jeeves explains that he wanted to go to the widow's residence last night to spend the night. Pauline is the next to show up in the study before Bertie can leave his hiding place. The sudden appearance of Bertie, who is still painted black, from his hiding place causes her to flee into the arms of the arriving Chuffnell - the two lovers make up again.

Mr. Stoker returns after having an uncomfortable encounter with Brinkley in the widow's residence. His daughter tells him that she wants to marry Chuffnell. The discussion as to whether Chuffnell is just a dowry hunter ends with the arrival of Jeeves. He brings a telegram from New York stating that the will that made Mr. Stoker a millionaire is being challenged. Mr. Stoker is now dependent on Roderick Glossop again because he can testify that George Stoker was in full possession of his mental powers when he drew up the will. The still black-faced Glossop, however, was caught by surprise while attempting to break into Bertie's garage and was locked in a garden shed. Jeeves is certain that no one has recognized Glossop in the dark and that it will be possible to exchange Glossop for Bertie without any problems. Bertie needn't fear burglary charges: since it was his own garage. However, before Jeeves carries out the Glossop exchange for Bertie, he wrests a promise from Mr. Stoker that he will buy Chuffnell Hall and agree to Lord Chuffnell and Pauline's marriage.

The novel ends with Jeeves being reinstated as Bertie's valet; Jeeves doesn't want a married employer on principle and Bertie assures him that he won't buy a new banjo anymore. The telegram from New York turns out to be a cleverly designed ruse by Jeeves. The sender was a New York valet with whom Jeeves became friends while in New York. Bertie is acquitted of attempting a break-in - the judge of the peace is his friend Lord Chuffnell. Bertie and Jeeves will return to London together.

Trivia

  • PG Wodehouse wrote novels until the end of his life and, according to his biographer Frances Donaldson, was as productive into his ninth decade as he was when he was younger. However, Wodehouse saw it differently: In a letter to a friend a few years before his death he wrote that he had only written four pages the previous day and compared that with the creative period in which he wrote Bertie in wild memory . He wrote the last 27 pages of the novel in a single day.
  • Apart from the protagonists Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, only Sir Roderick Glossop plays a bigger role in later novels and even appears in the Blandings series about Lord Emsworth , Galahad Threepwood and the Empress of Blandings . This is atypical for Wodehouse, who otherwise always falls back on characters that he had already introduced in novels and stories. However, Bertie's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle marries Pauline Stoker's younger sister Emerald after Bertie tried to break the relationship between Madeline Bassett and Gussie through four novels ( Then not, Jeeves , Old Adel Does Not Rust , Jeeves Works Wonders and SOS, Jeeves! ) Fink-Nottle.

literature

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read: The Definitive List , accessed April 4, 2016.
  2. ^ Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography . P. 346